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individual defendant, and minimize the negative impact of minimum sentencing laws without inherently needing those laws repealed.
"The study found that Republican-appointed judges sentence black defendants three months longer than they do for non-blacks, and female defendants two months less than males, who committed similar offenses, compared to Democratic-appointed judges."
The Crime Report
May 31, 2018
Read More"A New York City man walked free for the first time in decades after a federal judge ruled he'd done enough time for his crimes. By Thursday, Alexander Landor had served 25 years in state prison for an attempted murder conviction — and Brooklyn Federal Judge Sterling Johnson refused to mete out more jail time for the 'rehabilitated' man."
New York Daily News
May 24, 2018
Read More"SB 1393, also known as the Fair and Just Sentencing Reform Act, reinstates judicial discretion in applying five-year sentence enhancements for prior serious felonies to cases involving a defendant charged with a serious felony."
Park Labrea News
May 24, 2018
Read More"The California Senate today approved another moderate reform rooted in evidence-based policy and sensible cost-effective approaches to criminal justice. Specifically, Senate Bill 1393, the Fair and Just Sentencing Reform Act, would eliminate automatic penalties that have contributed to the state’s mass incarceration crisis and failed ‘tough on crime’ policies by returning discretion in sentencing of serious felonies to judges."
California State Senate
May 14, 2018
Read More"It certainly appears the goal is to teach judges, all judges, some lessons: if you want to keep your job as a judge, keep an eye on media reports of public sentiment when you are exercising your sworn duty to sentence a defendant in light of the law and the facts."
The Mercury News
May 5, 2018
Read More"Attitudes of Americans toward incarceration have shifted dramatically since a generation of Republicans and Democrats enacted tough-on-crime policies at the state and federal levels in the 1980s and 1990s. Voters now demand more policies that give judges and the justice system more discretion to tailor punishments specifically to individual crimes and cases."
The Hill
February 11, 2018
Read More"Fifteen states (and Puerto Rico) give judges the power to dismiss prosecutions “in the interests of justice,” or, in other words, to declare that, regardless of the strength of the evidence, a dismissal would get us closer to justice than would continued prosecution. Four states (and Guam) have de minimis dismissal provisions, which serve the same ends."
The Appeal
February 8, 2018
Read More“In halls of justice around the world, how can we ensure everyone is treated with dignity and respect? A pioneering judge in New Jersey, Victoria Pratt shares her principles of ‘procedural justice’ -- four simple, thoughtful steps that redefined the everyday business of her courtroom in Newark, changing lives along the way.“
TED Talks
October 2016
Read More"Judicial discretion is necessary to the proper discharge of our Constitutional obligations as a separate – and independent – branch of government. Legislatures simply cannot write laws to address all situations which find their way into court or that develop as a case makes its way through the legal system. Judges are present during proceedings and hear the evidence firsthand. From this vantage point a judge must have some discretion to apply the law to the facts and procedure of the pending dispute."
The National Judicial College
May 21, 2015
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