Defendants are regularly condemned to years, decades, or life in prison for minor infractions because of minimum sentencing statutes. If judges had more discretion in sentencing, then sentences could be more proportional to the crime, more specific to the individual defendant, and minimize the negative impact of minimum sentencing laws without inherently needing those laws repealed.
“Atlanta defense attorney Don Samuel, who has written books on Georgia criminal case law, said Motes’ decision to grant a new trial based on the judge’s own court motion was highly unusual. ‘But it doesn’t strike me as being problematic,” Samuel said. “One of the grounds for granting a new trial can be that the judge was unhappy with the verdict. And the judge does indeed sit as the 13th juror’.“
Atlanta Journal Constitution
October 30, 2018
Read More"In Georgia, except in death penalty cases, are not supposed to know anything about the potential punishment facing the accused. And jurors are also instructed to completely disregard any notions about sentencing during their deliberations."
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
June 8, 2018
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