Posted on 05/31/2009 3:46:36 PM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist
However you may feel about drug dealers, the fact is that mandatory minimums are one of the reasons California is going broke spending $10 billion a year on the prison-industrial complex.
If they want to reduce overstuffed prison populations, they’re required by law in many cases to release violent criminals who are not serving mandatory minimums before releasing non-violent drug convicts serving mandatory minimums.
Should prison officials feel sorry about enforcing THAT law?
.. it is just transcripts which are LEGALLY the official record of her statements.
^^^^^^
...which our Castro/Chavez government will declare beyond the reach of inquiring minds.
Well said!
“However you may feel about drug dealers, the fact is that mandatory minimums are one of the reasons California is going broke spending $10 billion a year on the prison-industrial complex.”
Most of the cost is to pay for the Prison Union, who are making exhorbitant wages. What we need in California is the prison system run by Joe Arpaio.
“Judge Sotomayor said this to a noncitizen drug-dealer, who had just pleaded guilty to drug-dealing: “[I]t is in some respects a great tragedy for our country that instead of permitting you to serve a lesser sentence and rejoin your family at an earlier time I am required by law to give you the statutory minimum. ... [W]e all understand that you were in part a victim of the economic necessities of our society, unfortunately there are laws that I must impose.....
In sentencing Louis Gomez, who also pleaded guilty to dealing cocaine, Sotomayor said, “Louis Gomez, yours is the tragedy of our laws and the greatest one that I know. ... the one our congressmen never thought about and don’t think about. ...
“It is no comfort to you for me to say that I am deeply, personally sorry about the sentence that I must impose, because the law requires me to do so. The only statement I can make is this is one more example of an abomination being committed before our sight. You do not deserve this, sir.”
“
OMG.
OMG-——violent, ignorant latino drug dealers and criminal would control the US.
She’d decimate our laws——turn us into a Third World.
I don't have the record of what evidence was actually presented to the judge who issued the warrant. If the evidence put before the judge wouldn't legitimately support the warrant, even if other evidence existed that would support it, the warrant shouldn't have been issued.
In saying that, however, I should point out that it's very important to bear in mind questions of uniformity and fairness. I wouldn't be surprised if Ms. Sotomayor is like an umpire who calls "strike" on some incredibly out-of-bounds pitches by one team, and makes up for it by calling "ball" for some pretty good pitches by the other team.
I consider myself a real "law and order" person, as distinct from many other people who call themselves "law and order" but are in reality totalitarian anarchists. I want the government to obey the law. Some non-government criminals may unjustly go free while government agents adjust to the concept of actually doing things legitimately, but stopping the unchecked growth of unlawful behavior in government would be well worth that cost.
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