Sentencing Without Guidelines

Sentencing matters. Reform initiatives hope to impart more uniformity and fairness in sentencing. Tough-on-crime laws like “three strikes” and mandatory minimum provisions deprive judges of sentencing discretion. While sentencing guidelines have been adopted by approximately 20 states since the early 1980s, many judges operate without guidelines. Sentencing without Guidelines is Rhys Hester’s deep dive into how South Carolina, which never passed sentencing guideline legislation, nonetheless created meaningful punishment reform. It achieved uniformity in sentencing with a traveling circuit of judges, informal norms among judges, and the unique phenomenon of the “Plea Judge” to manage cases. Hester examines how prior convictions, race, and geographical differences impact sentences to explain why individuals get the criminal sentences they do. He also explores how legal reform mechanisms can influence punishment goals and policy. Sentencing without Guidelines shows the benefits and drawbacks South Carolina experienced as it met sentencing reform goals. These lessons can be translated into policy for other jurisdictions.

About the Author :
Rhys Hester is Associate Professor of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminal Justice at Clemson University.

Review :
“The large majority of research over the last thirty years on sentencing discretion comes from the federal courts and the handful of states with sentencing guidelines. This leaves us largely in the dark about how courts make sentencing decisions in most states, which do not have sentencing guidelines. Rhys Hester’s Sentencing without Guidelines fills this gap by examining the dilemma of uniformity versus individualized discretion, the importance of court organizational culture and informal judicial norms, and the considerations that go into punishment decisions in a nonguidelines state. This examination provides valuable conceptual contrasts with typical guidelines states.”-Jeffrey Todd Ulmer, Professor of Sociology and Criminology, Director of the Penn State Criminal Justice Research Center, and author of Social Worlds of Sentencing: Court Communities Under Sentencing Guidelines “Hester’s book is a carefully researched examination of sentencing in South Carolina, a nonguidelines state. He presents a fascinating portrayal of South Carolina’s failed attempt to enact sentencing guidelines and explains how five different sentencing commissions were nonetheless able to influence sentencing reform in the state. Using a mixed methods approach that combines quantitative analysis of sentence outcomes with data from interviews with South Carolina’s trial judges, Hester reveals that, the lack of guidelines notwithstanding, sentence outcomes in South Carolina were remarkably uniform across judges and counties, a finding he attributes in part to South Carolina’s system of circuit rotation by trial judges. His research suggests that there are indeed important lessons to be learned from nonguidelines states.”-Cassia Spohn, Regents Professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Arizona State University, and the author of How Do Judges Decide? The Search for Fairness and Justice in Punishment "Hester gives a detailed description and analysis of one state's (South Carolina) struggle to develop sentencing guidelines.... While South Carolina's attempts at developing sentencing guidelines failed-and not for a lack of trying-the author discusses how it overcame that failure with a creative judiciary. After a thoughtful analysis, the author then applies the lessons learned in South Carolina to the criminal justice system writ large.... Summing Up: Recommended."-Choice "The book accomplishes what any work of this kind should. It answers critical questions about the efficacy of one of the most significant policy developments of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, while inviting thought provoking questions about the ramifications of those policies. Hester’s work is incredibly detailed and thorough, making Sentencing without Guidelines a necessary mainstay on the bookshelves of any student of crime policy serious about understanding the causes and consequences of sentencing guidelines."-Social Forces   "Hester’s book is a pleasant and rigorous lens into a fascinating example of sentencing reform. And for those working on federal sentencing policy and reluctant to address unwarranted disparity for fear of what might come next, think again. Hester shows us that there are creative, non-coercive, non-guideline ideas that might reduce those unwarranted disparities, and, at the same time, might reduce unnecessary severity too."-Sentencing Matters Substack