Criminal defendants have the most procedural rights at suppression hearings prior to trial. The Constitution requires the States to provide procedures for persons convicted of a crime to appeal the conviction. After a conviction, a criminal defendant's procedural rights disappear entirely. Over history, fixed sentences have totally dominated criminal sentencing. Under a mandatory minimum sentencing scheme, judges can sentence offenders to more than the minimum sentence but not less.
Research indicates that mandatory minimum sentences actually introduce disparity in sentencing.
At sentencing, convicted offenders have no right either to confront or to cross examine persons who have supplied adverse information about them. Statistics indicate that there is a pronounced racial disparity in death sentences. Convicted offenders do not have a federal constitutional right to appeal their convictions. Every state jurisdiction has created a statutory right to appeal. The Habeas Corpus Act of 1867 suspended the writ of habeas corpus until the close of the Reconstruction period.