“We’re Supposed to Sentence Individuals, Not Crimes”

[madmusic]

10/24/06 - Pennsylvania judges speak out against mandatory minimums. To read the new report - “We’re Supposed to Sentence Individuals, Not Crimes” - A Survey of Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas Judges on Mandatory Minimum Sentencing Statutes, http://www.famm.org/Resources/OtherReports.aspx">click here. (edit: takes you to the download page)

http://www.famm.org/

[Tace]

1. Interesting Point

Mandatory Minimum Sentencing Statutes are a deep issue. I can see the judge's complaint about any restriction on his prerogative.

[madmusic]

3. Speaking of judges:

The Judiciary
In his 1996 book, The Tough-on-Crime Myth, Peter T. Elikann, discusses the judiciary,

There is a growing movement of people and professionals against mandatory minimum sentences and against the use of extreme draconian sentences as a way to fight crime.

Those in the know, particularly judges, are against them. A 1993 Gallup poll of all judges revealed that 75 percent of all state judges wanted mandatory sentences thrown out, while a whopping 90 percent of all federal judges wanted them ended. The Judicial Conference of the United States and all twelve circuit courts of appeals of their judicial conferences have adopted resolutions against them. The U.S. Sentencing Commission has urged their repeal, as did the Federal Courts Study Committee, which found that mandatory minimum sentences “create penalties so distorted as to hamper federal criminal adjudication.”

In a first-person account, the late Pennsylvania Judge Lois G. Forer, in her book A Rage to Punish actually cites reticence among judges as one of the reasons MMSS laws are passed. “When judges in my court sought to discuss the practicalities of a proposed sentencing guideline law, they were told that if this law was not passed, a mandatory sentencing law would be enacted. So the judges remained silent. The legislature then enacted both a sentencing guideline statute and mandatory sentencing laws.”

One reason Judge Forer objected to MMSS was they do not allow judges to consider the individual circumstances of a convicted person: “Mandatory sentencing laws and guideline sentencing laws preclude judicial consideration of factors that most people consider highly relevant. The federal sentencing guidelines specifically exclude from consideration race, gender, age, education, vocational skills, and mental and emotional conditions, as well as physical conditions of the offender.” After sixteen years on the bench, Judge Forer resigned when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ordered her to impose a five-year mandatory minimum sentence on a convicted person for whom she believed a short prison sentence and long period of probation was more appropriate to his circumstances and chances for rehabilitation.

[madmusic]

2. What Attorney General Alberto Gonzales says...

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, in criticizing the Booker decision, said, “Our U.S. Attorneys consistently report that a critical law enforcement tool has been taken from them. Under the sentencing guidelines, defendants were only eligible to receive reductions in sentences in exchange for cooperation when the government petitioned the court. Under the advisory guidelines system, judges are free to reduce sentences when they believe the defendant has sufficiently cooperated. And since defendants no longer face penalties that are serious and certain, key witnesses are increasingly less inclined to cooperate with prosecutors. We risk a return to the pre-guidelines era, when defendants were encouraged to ‘play the odds’ in our criminal justice system, betting that the luck of the draw—the judge randomly assigned to their case—might result in a lighter sentence.” Attorney General Gonzales made these remarks to this topic’s most vulnerable audience—crime victims and their families—in an attempt to rally support for a return to federal mandatory sentencing statutes. No doubt, if the present Administration succeeds in generating interest at the federal level, members of this audience will also lobby their state legislatures for more state mandatory minimum sentencing statutes (MMSS). As Reitz and others have pointed out, many state legislators take very favorably to any action that shows their constituency that they are tough on crime.

[slaveplanet]

4. by that same logic

Armies are supposed to defend against enemies, not wage war on "tactics" of war.

Poll those judges or many in Gov including many Dems, and you'll find that supporters of such a notion are in short supply.