This helps. Punishment doesn’t fit the crime. A judge with discretion could have imposed a sentence commensurate with the non violent crime but he would also have to ignore federal sentencing guidelines.
Yes, and I want to emphasize that a judge could not ignore federal sentencing guidelines UNLESS a defendant cooperated, and the prosecution agreed that the defendant had provided valuable assistance to the government. A judge had to set forth how the guidelines were calculated. The government could object to a more lenient sentence than was mandated. I should mention that today these guidelines have been loosened.
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Understood
Judges call balls and strikes. The problem is that my strike zone changes on Monday and Friday. And other judges have a different strike zone.
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I think the real lesson was that no two cases and defendants are alike. The guidelines were instituted to remove discretion and prevent unfairness. In practice, the average sentence was lengthened substantially, and just about all defendants wound up doing some jail time. It took Congress years to correct it.
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1994 crime reform bill sponsored by Joe Biden ?
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I think so!
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I almost wrote Bidet
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