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individual defendant, and minimize the negative impact of minimum sentencing laws without inherently needing those laws repealed.
"Since the Bronx Defenders sued in May 2016 over the court’s alleged violation of defendants’ constitutional right to a speedy trial, the number of misdemeanor cases pending for more than a year has dropped from 2,378 to 513. The number of misdemeanor cases pending for more than two years has dropped from 538 to 64."
New York Daily News
August 9, 2018
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