Sentencing discretion

Washington Times ^ | Tuesday, August 19, 2003 | By Jacob Sullum

[JohnHuang2]

Testifying before Congress in April, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy tried to explain why it's important for judges to have discretion in sentencing. He cited the case of "a young man raising marijuana in the woods. That makes him a distributor. He's got his dad's hunting rifle in the car — he forgot about it and wanted to do target practice. That makes him armed. He's looking at 15 years. An 18-year-old doesn't know how long 15 years is."

[JohnHuang2]

Tuesday, August 19, 2003

Quote of the Day by edskid

[goldstategop]

Failing to take into account the nature of the offense and the defendant's character strikes me as unjust. Certainly we want to avoid extreme disparities in sentencing for a crime but we do want to go to the extreme where someone convicted for a first time offense serves the same amount of time as as a career criminal? I'm not soft-hearted towards criminals but I do think the sentence should fit the crime.