Sentencing Class @ OSU Moritz College of Law

Latest (greatest?) working amicus draft

After having read the Miller and Jackson merits briefs, I did not find too many places where I thought tweaks of our working draft was needed.  Nevertheless, I have now created a revised draft with all the latest suggested additions appearing, and that can be downloaded below.  I am out of pocket most of today, but late tonight and tomorrow AM I can keep working on revisions if/when folks send me ideas/suggestions for more to add.

Download Latest jlwop amicus brief 1-12

Merits brief for Jackson and Miller...

finally arrived in my in-box this morning.  Here they are:

Download Kuntrell Jackson USSC Brief 01-09-12

Download Evan Miller USSC Brief 01-09-12

UPDATE:  The Jackson brief appears to have the most "action" of these two, though both are worth a close read as we think about how we might further refine our amicus.  I hope tonight to be able to work in some cites/ideas and post a new draft by 10am on Thursday.  Then, perhaps, any/all who might like to meet to discuss final plan can come by my office Friday afternoon.

Outline/draft of SCOTUS-focused amicus draft for Jackson and Miller

My efforts at making a mega-draft by stitching together pieces of the submitted amicus drafts created something of a Frankenstein monster: by seeking to preserve different parts of different texts, I produced an ugly creature that seemed unlikely to be able to do much good.   Consequently, I turned to developing a detailed outline/draft that was "inspired by" the class efforts rather than working too hard trying to preserve language used in submitted drafts.

I am now posting below the outline/draft that I produced for collective discussion and reflection. This outline/draft is now only a little over 3000 words, so we could (and likely should) add a lot more stuff.   In addition, this outline/draft is for now focused only on SCOTUS Eighth Amendment doctrines/cases: materials concerning brain science, international law and state cases have not (yet) been incorporated, but they all might readily find (various) places in this outline/draft.

Starting later today, I should be around most weekday afternoon this week and next. I would be eager to work with any and all students (1) interested in moving forward with the outline/draft I have posted here OR (2) interested in revising their initial draft to produce their own distinctive amicus brief for potential filing.   But because the briefs need to be close to finalized over the next 8-10 days in order to enable actual filing in the Supreme Court by January 17, I need to hear from folks ASAP about any serious interest in moving ahead on any of these SCOTUS fronts.

Download Working (outline) JLWOP Amicus Brief (1-3)