Word count 400 Discretion in the U.S. criminal justice system was at one time defined by Roscoe Pound, a legal scholar and educator (1960) as follows: an authority conferred by law to act in certain conditions or situations in accordance with an officials or an official agencys own considered judgment and conscience. Discuss the following: Pound, R. (1960). Discretion, dispensation and mitigation: The problem of the individual special case. . 925, 926.