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individual defendant, and minimize the negative impact of minimum sentencing laws without inherently needing those laws repealed.
“Their findings were almost exactly the same as ProPublica’s. Among those who were not re-arrested, almost a quarter of black defendants were classified as high-risk—which would have likely meant awaiting trial in jail—compared with 17 percent of Hispanic defendants, and just 10 percent of white defendants.“
The Marshall Project
July 1, 2019
Read More"Critics object that the use of “acquitted conduct” to justify longer sentences empowers prosecutors and judges to ignore the judgment of the jury, to base sentences on facts rebuffed by the citizens in the jury box. Those critics include one of Bell’s jurors and Court of Appeals Judge Brett Kavanaugh, the current nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court."
The Marshall Project
July 23, 2018
Read More