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The Alabama Sentencing Commission was established to maintain an effective, fair, and efficient sentencing system for the state of Alabama.The 17-member commission is also charged with enhancing public safety, providing truth-in-sentencing and preventing unwarranted disparity in the sentencing of individuals convicted in the state's criminal justice system. [1]
The Guidelines are the product of the United States Sentencing Commission, which was created by the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984. [3] The Guidelines' primary goal was to alleviate sentencing disparities that research had indicated were prevalent in the existing sentencing system, and the guidelines reform was specifically intended to provide for determinate sentencing.
State courts use their own sentencing guidelines. [1] The Federal Sentencing Guidelines are non-binding independent agency recommendations that inform sentencing in law. [5] Courts consider these advisory forms, which contain maximum and minimum sentences, before deciding a defendant's sentence. [6]
The exception to this rule occurs when the court determines that such use would violate the ex post facto clause of the Constitution – in other words, if the sentencing guidelines have changed so as to increase the penalty "after the fact", so that the sentence is more severe on the sentencing date than was established on the date that the ...
[17] The "Drugs Minus Two Amendment" changed the U.S. Federal Sentencing Guidelines to "reduce the applicable sentencing guideline range for most federal drug trafficking offenses." [ 17 ] The Commission voted to make the Amendment retroactive on July 18, 2014, "thereby allowing eligible offenders serving a previously imposed term of ...
Alabama prisoners in both the county jails and state penitentiaries have been required to work at farming and cotton plantations since the 1840s. By the 1878, convict labor rented from the state was used most commonly in the coal mining industry, often as strike breakers. [6] In 1894 one coal company employed 1,138 convicts, another used 589. [7]
The state of Florida has a very strict minimum sentencing policy known as 10-20-Life, which includes the following minimums: 10 years' imprisonment for using a gun during a crime, 20 years' imprisonment for firing a gun during a crime, and 25 years' imprisonment in addition to any other sentence for shooting somebody, regardless of whether they ...
Most judges do accept it because the sentence given is the same as the sentence for a regular guilty plea under the state sentencing guidelines." [12] Criminal Evidence explained the application of the Alford plea in U.S. states, "Most state courts hold that an Alford plea is the 'functional equivalent' of a regular plea of guilty. Therefore, a ...