THE PROSECUTION AND PUNISHMENT OF INTERNATIONAL TERRORISTS IN FEDERAL COURTS: 1980–1998*

Research Summary: This study reports findings from the American Terrorism Study. The data show that from 1980 to 1998, the U.S. government periodically tried accused domestic and international terrorists through the use of traditional criminal trials. The extent to which federal prosecutors “explicit politicized” these trials (and the success that the politicization had) varied among the types of terrorist groups. Explicit politically was not found to be successful in trials of domestic terrorists but seemed to work for trials involving international terrorists. Over the 20‐year period, however, federal prosecutors began to rely more heavily (and more successfully) on the politicization of the criminal acts by international terrorists. The results also show that international terrorists, like their domestic counterparts, are much less likely to plead guilty. Finally, the study shows that these traditional trials have resulted in international terrorists being punished more severely than domestic terrorists. Unfortunately, the practice of performing these politicized trials within the venue of the federal court system may have been compromised by defense strategies that capitalized on the due process procedures so prominent in the U.S. system of justice. In the wake of the terrorism attacks in September 2001 by foreign nationals, the federal government began to take the next step in its “war against terrorism” by instituting the use of military tribunals. Policy Implications: Although the federal government has been relatively successful in the prosecution of terrorism in America in the past two decades, the movement toward the use of military tribunals has perhaps become inevitable (as the use of the traditional criminal trial for international terrorists manifests weaknesses). In the short term, it is likely that several international terrorism cases stemming from the September 2001 attacks and other subsequent attacks (which may be presumed) will be tried in federal courthouses across the country (even with the advent of military tribunals). Federal prosecutors will need to be trained on the specifics of trying these kinds of cases. In the long term, the use of military tribunals will provide greater ease of prosecution for the federal government. Long‐term consequences such as retaliatory attacks and attacks aimed at the release of political prisoners cannot be ignored by policy makers.     

THE CONCEPTUALIZATION OF DISCRIMINATION IN THE JUVENILE JUSTICE PROCESS: THE IMPACT OF ADMINISTRATIVE FACTORS AND SCREENING DECISIONS ON JUVENILE COURT DISPOSITIONS

Research on race, sex, and social class discrimination in the juvenile justice process has yielded mixed results. These conflicting findings have been attributed to the use of diverse research strategies and various methodological shortcomings. There are, however, two potentially important issues that have not been previously addressed: the need to examine the juvenile justice system as a process, rather than as a series of separate and unrelated decision points, and the failure to control for the impact of administrative factors such as pretrial detention. The purpose of the research reported here is to examine the impact of race, sex, and social class on juvenile court dispositions while controlling for pretrial detention and appropriate legal factors. The analytical strategy employed permits an examination of the impact of these factors over three stages of the juvenile justice process: referral, adjudication, and disposition.
Findings indicate that while legal factors and pretrial detention decline in importance as predictors of disposition as one moves from an examination of all referred to adjudicated youth, race and social class become more important. These results are discussed in terms of their methodological significance and their implications for the conceptualization of discrimination in the juvenile justice process.     

Does Chevron Matter?

In this article we evaluate whether the Supreme Court's much-discussed decision in Chevron v Natural Resources Defense Council (1984) signaled a lasting difference in how the justices decide administrative law cases, by comparing and testing the predictions of three distinct theories of Supreme Court behavior. The legal model predicts an increase in deference to administrative agencies. This prediction is shared by the jurisprudential regime model, which also predicts that the justices evaluate key case factors differently before and after Chevron . The attitudinal model predicts no change in the justices' behavior as a result of Chevron . Although we find that attitudes matter, the fact that we also find support for the legal and jurisprudential regime models undermines the assertion of the attitudinal model that law cannot explain Supreme Court votes on the merits.     

PUNISHING POLITICAL OFFENDERS: THE EFFECT OF POLITICAL MOTIVE ON FEDERAL SENTENCING DECISIONS*

Although political motive is frequently avoided as an issue in the prosecution of terrorists, previous research indicates that these offenders consistently receive longer sentences than nonterrorists convicted of similar offenses (Smith, 1994). This study assesses the ability of three theoretical models (consensus, conflict, and structural-contextual) to explain these differences in sentencing patterns. Data on terrorists (N = 95), provided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, and the U.S. Sentencing Commission, is matched with data on a sample of similarly convicted nonterrorists from the Federal Court Cases Integrated Data Base, 1970-1991 (N = 403). Controlling for a number of demographic and sentencing-related variables, the results indicate that the official label of “terrorist” is not only a significant predictor of sentence length, but emerges as the dominant explanatory variable in the analysis. The results provide general support for both consensus and conflict hypotheses, but only partial support for structural-contextual theory. The findings also raise procedural questions regarding the extensive variation in sentencing between similarly situated defendants when political motive is used as a primary criterion for sentence enhancements.     

DECISION-MAKING IN THE CRIMINAL COURTS:

This article attempts an analysis of the relationship between the guilty-plea bargaining process and presentence investigation reports. It is argued that because plea-bargaining has increasingly come to involve bargaining over sentence. probation officers, as a consequence, have increasingly come to experience encroachment upon their decision-making autonomy. In this predicament they have found little support from judges, who, committed to norms of managerial efficiency will reassert the primacy of the plea-bargain when probation officers refuse to ratify previously negotiated sentence agreements. The policy implications of this for the criminal justice system are discussed.     

DRUG USE AND "HUSTLING" A Study of Their Interrelationships

This paper focuses on the dynamic relationship between daily “hustling” and narcotic use. Through interviews with 30 narcotics users three common patterns of interrelationships are established In addition. a large number of confounding factors which influence the hustling-drug use relationships are described. The paper reveals the complexity of street life and the tenuousness of views which posit a one-to-one correspondence between hustling and narcotics use.     

Nudge Nudge, Think Think: Two Strategies for Changing Civic Behaviour

This paper reviews two contrasting approaches governments use to engage the citizen to promote better public policy outcomes: nudging citizens using the insights of behavioural economics, as summarised by Thaler and Sunstein (2009) or giving citizens the space to think through and debate solutions, as indicated by proponents of deliberative democracy. The paper summarises each approach, giving examples; then it compares and contrast them, illustrating their relative strengths and weaknesses. The paper concludes by suggesting that the approaches share some common features and policy-makers could useful draw upon both.