Abstract
Most criminal cases end in conviction by jury or guilty plea, making the sentence—for many defendants—the most critical part of their case. Sentencing allows defendants to humanize themselves, make legal arguments based on the Sentencing Guidelines, and advocate for leniency from the sentencing judge. One tactic white-collar defendants use for mitigation is asking their community to send advocacy letters to the judge that humanize them, contextualize their offense, and highlight their good works. White-collar defendants often have social connections with privileged, well-connected people that put them at an advantage over differently situated criminal defendants in seeking and receiving community advocacy letters. In addition, there is potential for implicit judicial bias because white-collar defendants relate to the demographic and educational backgrounds of sentencing judges more than other defendants do.
Judges should require community advocacy letters to be received and summarized exclusively by the United States Probation Office as part of a defendant’s presentence report. In doing this, judges can supplement the work of participatory defense groups to lift non-white-collar defendants up to the sentencing strategy of the typical white-collar defendant. This Comment proposes to capture the value of community advocacy letters, level the playing field, and achieve judicial economy by channeling letters through Probation for aggregation and summarization in presentence reports.
Recommended Citation
Hope F. Kagan,
Reforming Community Advocacy Letters to Counteract the Unfair Advantages for Typical White-Collar Defendants,
74
Emory L. J.
499
(2024).
Available at:
https://scholarlycommons.law.emory.edu/elj/vol74/iss2/5