SCOTUS Justice Applauds Judges for Bucking Tough Sentence Guidelines

[TacticalPeek]

Mar 17, 2004

Supreme Court Justice Applauds Judges for Bucking Tough Sentence
Guidelines

By Gina Holland
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy praised federal judges who are willing to buck sentencing rules that were enacted
for what the moderate conservative justice suggested were political motives.

Congress and judges are at loggerheads over a law passed last year that makes it more difficult for judges to depart from guidelines and hand out a
more lenient term.

"I do think federal judges who depart downward are courageous," Kennedy told the House Appropriations Committee during a hearing on the court's
budget. Judges should not have to "follow, blindly, these unjust guidelines," he said.

Kennedy has previously criticized harsh sentencing rules, especially for nonviolent drug offenders. He took aim Wednesday at laws that set out
"mandatory minimum" sentences for certain crimes, and at the guidelines for sentences in other areas.

"The mandatory minimums enacted by the Congress are in my view unfair, unjust, unwise," Kennedy said.


more
http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAOK0NZXRD.html

edit, corrected link

[davhill]

1. Job Security for Judges?

With mandatory sentencing conservatives could do away with Judges entirely and replace them with notaries public at a great cost savings. Or they could even eliminate trials completely and save even more. Congress would set up the sentences in advance and they could be applied automatically when ever the police grabbed a suspect. /sarcasm

[dw]

2. Homeland Security will see your puny sarcasm and raise you one Gitmo.

[kingdom cum]

3. gotta disagree a teeny bit

Being in law school right now, I, like many others, think that tougher sentences prevent "judge shopping" and leave the legislating to Congress. I think some of our society's greatest achievements have come from the bench, but sentencing guidelines promote a more efficient and balanced judicial system

[TacticalPeek]

4. Shall the court promulgate legislating guidelines,

to promote a more efficient and balanced legislative system?

I mean, of course, beyond the courts' accepted and traditional constitutional role of interpretation, etc.

Nice, mandatory 'guidelines' (?), say, defining a better committee structure, and rules of order with a more satisfying Bill of Rights flavor?

:)

[displacedtexan]

5. "Efficient and balanced" negate the nuance of justice.

Welcome to DU!

[kingdom cum]

7. no they don't

the judicial system is just as much about efficiency as it is about justice, whether or not it should be is another question.

[hang a left]

6. Judge shopping?

Since when is a perp with a public defender allowed to shop?

[kingdom cum]

8. again

the criminal system is a very small portion of the true legal system, but expediency is a major goal of the system.

[hang a left]

9. the subject is sentencing guidelines..........hello.

n/t

[TacticalPeek]

10. Expediency in the pursuit of justice is no vice,

and moderation in the pursuit of efficiency is no virtue???

[rasputin1952]

11. Welcome to DU!

:toast:

Personally, I think quality should move expediency off the floor.

I want alleged criminals prosecuted, and if they are convicted beyond a reasonable doubt, by a jury of their peers; I think the Constitutional mandate has been met.

Expediency, brings in the notion that a "quick and speedy trial", is not necessarily a FAIR trial. We need judges that can uphold the law, and overturn it if there are Constitutional questions. Trials should not be expedient, as the term is used now, they should be fair, in search of justice. Just about the last thing this nation needs, is a court system based on the rule of the conveyor belt.

O8)

[Media_Lies_Daily]

13. Well said.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

14. No, it actually results in a prison population where 60%...

...of that population consists of first-time drug offenders because judges are no longer allowed to use their own judgement when it comes to sentencing.

If you ever do anything "recreational" I hope you never get caught...you may find your opinion changed by your circumstances.

Then again, you may be a child of one of America's wealthier families, and be able to hire an excellent lawyer to get your time reduced to community service.

[saigon68]

15. sentencing guidelines promote more efficient and balanced judicial system

No actually, they promote a minority dominated warehousing, of human beings , in an expensive corrupt prison industrial complex.

Unfortunately in my state, a lot of stupid white men who used to work in Meat packing plants stand around in blue uniforms, and observe dozens of naked black and brown men who are showering. Their old packing jobs having been taken by the relatives of the Brown and Black men they are watching !!!

[teryang]

16. You need to do more study

There are scores of federal district judges who disagree with you. The sentencing guidelines are a fiasco and include criteria which discriminate against minorities in the way sentences are allocated for drug crimes. The sentencing guidelines for drug offenses are ridiculous.

More efficient and balanced judicial system? What are the authoritative sources for those criteria? Never read about that in the Constitution.

[TahitiNut]

17. "efficient and balanced"?? You mean the trains run on time?

Welcome to Fritz Lang's "Metropolis". :eyes:

[Occulus]

12. Some of that just doesn't feel like sarcasm.