Steven L. Chanenson

The Adventure Continues

Federal Sentencing Reporter, Vol. 22, No. 5, pp. 295–296, ISSN 1053-9867 electronic ISSN 1533-8363. ©2010 Vera Institute of Justice. All rights reserved. Please direct requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press’s Rights and Permissions website, http://www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintInfo.asp. DOI: 10.1525/fsr.2010.22.5.295. the adventure Continues

Guest Editor's Observations: Consistently Inconsistent: Circuit Rulings on the Guidelines in 1994

It is no longer surprising that the federal courts of appeals fail to interpret the guidelines in a uniform manner. Inconsistency is the order of the day as each circuit, to varying degrees, puts its own mark on the guidelines.1 This phenomenon prompts several questions. Why is this circuit variation happening? Are there downsides to inconsistency at the circuit level? Did Congress envision this amount of incon sistency when it created the guideline system? In this Issue, commentators from eleven circuits discuss guideline developments during 1994. These commentators, like the courts, take independent approaches to the events of the past year. The most common theme remains the inconsistent evolution of