John Meixner
@johnbmeixner
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Asst Prof @UGASchoolofLaw. Teaching & writing on crim, neurolaw, evidence, law & psych. Former fed prosecutor, @UMich & @NorthwesternLaw alum.
Athens, GA
Joined May 2021
New draft! Shocking Sentences (forthcoming @IndianaLJ). Check it out here: I argue that recidivist penalties are unjust in part because they're totally unexpected—indeed, shocking—to the defendants who face them. And psychology explains why! A brief🧵
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I had a great time presenting at Northwestern Law's first alumni in academia conference! Thanks @PaulGowder and @HariOsofsky for putting on such a great event. Awesome to see old friends and meet a new group of JD/PhD students who are doing amazing work!
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🚨Cool conference alert🚨 I had a blast at the first "Law &" conference in Hong Kong, exploring interdisciplinary legal studies across domains. Thanks @ryanwhalen for putting together an amazing group of scholars!
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RT @thomaskadri: Delighted to release two new books into the world!. *Dilemmas in Digital Abuse* & *Cybercrime Scenarios* feature lots of “….
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We should reconsider regimes that lead to sentences like this, or, at the very least, take serious measures to increase notice of sharp recidivist sentencing penalties. This is a working draft, so I'd love to hear thoughts and feedback!.
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I think this is normatively bad, for a number of reasons. It undermines due process and predictability in the law, limits any potential deterrence of recidivist sentencing penalties, and harms defendants for no real crime-control benefit. 8/.
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I argue that the same thing is happening in sentencing. Defendants are facing nonlinear growth in their sentences, and it's psychologically unintuitive to predict. So they vastly underestimate their exposure. 7/.
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As it turns out, people are very bad at anticipating nonlinear growth like this. E.g., If you ask someone to estimate the returns of a bank account with compounding interest over time, they'll typically predict amounts vastly lower than what the returns will actually be. 6/.
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A defendant who sustains four similar convictions, for example, can often face sentences like 1 year, then 2 years, then 5 years, then 25 years for the fourth one. With each conviction, the rate of increase gets larger and larger. 5/.
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As it turns out, there's a reason why recidivist penalties tend to be shocking. Recidivist sentencing penalties across a number of jurisdictions cause large leaps in sentencing exposure that are essentially exponential. 4/.
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Often, these defendants had served several short prior sentences in state cases, followed by much harsher exposure federally. That surprise element always struck me as particularly unjust. 3/.
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When I was a prosecutor doing plea negotiations in federal cases, defenders often told me some version of this: "My client was totally shocked when he saw his sentencing guideline exposure in this case. He had no idea it would be that high." 2/.
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This is a great conference for junior profs and folks getting ready to go on the job market. Join us next year!.
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Had an awesome time presenting a new sentencing paper this week at the Juniors Scholars Conference. Awesome work putting this together @david__simon!. #JSC2024
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Excited to see this awesome group of folks in a few weeks!.
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This is a really thoughtful thread (& blog post) on how we, as academics, should think about our commentary in the general media. I've been thinking about this as well when fielding requests following the Trump GA indictment, and tend to think Anthony has the right balance here.
I’ve chewed on this. There’s a difference between punditry and expert commentary. The former need not be intellectually honest or rooted in scholarly work. The best media law profs can do is to walk the public through legal issues and help explain why things are the way they are.
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RT @jammacleod1: New draft! Evidence Law's Blind Spots (forthcoming @IowaLawReview)--check it out if you’re interested in… .evidence law OR….
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Super helpful thread for aspiring law profs. Most important takeaway, IMO: so much of the process is out of your control. Do your best, but know that the market is not a referendum on your self-worth!.
Entry-level Law prof job seekers: AALS FAR submissions are due in 10 days. As my procrastination today, I thought I'd provide some tips as I come off of two years as hiring chair here at @WashULaw. Here, in no particular order, some advice and thoughts, big picture + small bore:.
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Come join us at UGA!.
WE’RE HIRING! LOTS OF PROFS, open rank @UGASchoolofLaw. Looking especially for criminal law & procedure, tax law, international law, commercial law (bankruptcy and secured transactions), trusts & estates, corporate law, employment, & ethics. 🤗. Details below.
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Such a fun and thought-provoking two days with so many brilliant folks at #crimfest. Thanks for the great panel on new ways of thinking about prior convictions with @ProfFareed @WDavidBall @BennettCapers!.
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