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individual defendant, and minimize the negative impact of minimum sentencing laws without inherently needing those laws repealed.
“If the very idea that someone could suffer consequences due only to the testimony of a single victim is in fact an outrage, certainly the consequence of ending up incarcerated is far more damaging than the consequence of not getting a job.“
Splinter News
September 27, 2018
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