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100 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 1 (2025)

handle is hein.journals/nylr100 and id is 1 raw text is: NEW YORK UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW VOLUME 100 APRIL 2025 NUMBER 1 ARTICLES A SECOND LOOK AT SECOND LOOK: PROMOTING EPISTEMIC JUSTICE IN RESENTENCING KATHARINE R. SKOLNICK* Despite an increasing number of critiques from many commentators-abolitionists, social scientists, and fiscal conservatives among them-mass incarceration remains an ongoing crisis. Dealing with the wreckage of carceral overreach requires not just changing policies about what gets criminalized and how offenses are punished prospectively, but also unwinding the long sentences imposed during the past half- century and still being served. Among the mechanisms for decarcerating are second look acts, which a growing number of jurisdictions have passed or are considering. Often these resentencing tools depend heavily on decisionmakers' exercise of discretion. In rare instances, however, that discretion is constrained. Comparing two recent New York sentencing reforms, the Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act and the 2004-2009 Drug Law Reform Acts-the former highly discretionary and the latter with a strong presumption in favor of resentencing-this Article notes the relative success rates of each statutory scheme, finding the less discretionary regime apparently more decarceratory. Critically, the exercise of discretion imposes a * Copyright © 2025 by Katharine R. Skolnick, Acting Assistant Professor, New York University School of Law. For helpful comments or data I thank Beena Ahmad, Andrew Budzinski, Adam A. Davidson, Yelena C. Duterte, Jessica Frisina, William Gibney, Rachel T. Goldberg, Lula Hagos, Daniel Harawa, Alexandra Harrington, Elizabeth Isaacs, Alexis Karteron, Miriam Kerler, Adam Kolber, Kathryn E. Miller, John B. Meixner Jr., Kate Mogulescu, Renagh O'Leary, Michael Pinard, Anna Roberts, Alan Rosenthal, Zoe Root, Vincent M. Southerland, members of the NYU Lawyering Scholarship Colloquium, and my editors at the New York University Law Review, especially Paris Cione. This article benefited greatly from presentations at the AALS Clinical, Decarceration Law Professors, Clinical Law Review, and CrimFest Workshops. I dedicate this Article to my former clients, who inspired it and are why I continue the fight. 1 Imaged with Permission of N.Y.U. Law Review

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