Sentencing Still Matters: Michael Tonry's Framework for Treating Like Cases Alike and Different Cases Differently

By Rhys Hester

Michael Tonry has been the leading commentator on the American sentencing reform movement since its beginning. Sentencing Matters, one of the most influential works on American sentencing ever produced, was written at the crest of the sentencing guidelines movement. Now, some fifty years into that movement, American punishment policy finds itself at a standstill. This festschrift essay honor’s Tonry’s contributions to the sentencing reform literature, contemplates the reasons why the reform movement was not more successful in the United States, and reflects on how Tonry’s work continues to provide a framework for more sensible policy. The essay draws on the field of behavioral economics to underscore the need for decision tools like sentencing guidelines to help fulfill a more fair and just system of punishment. Yet as Tonry’s work has illustrated, the Aristotelian maxim of justice requires not only that like cases be treated alike, but that different cases be treated differently.

Crim Law Forum 36, 219–231 (2025).