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individual defendant, and minimize the negative impact of minimum sentencing laws without inherently needing those laws repealed.
"'Constitutional due process is all that protects the people from the government. We must always oppose the systematic sacrifice of due process in the name of efficiency,' said lead defense lawyer Leland Greeley after court in a statement to The Herald."
The Herald
August 10, 2018
Read More"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
Read More"Despite two hefty federal reports casting doubt on the validity of traditional forensic evidence such as bitemark and hair strand analysis, such questionable science is still used in the courtroom to determine guilt or innocence."
The Crime Report
August 1, 2018
Read More"One conclusion reached by the NACDL was that "There is ample evidence that federal criminal defendants are being coerced to plead guilty because the penalty for exercising their constitutional rights is simply too high to risk.""
Forbes
July 31, 2018
Read More"In more than three years on the board, Fisher has voted against parole 160 times and in favor just once, according to an Injustice Watch review of the board’s parole votes since January 2013. Roby, now 57, was the only prisoner whose petition for parole got his support."
Chicago Sun Times
July 27, 2018
Read More"The judge who sentenced Turner, T.S. Ellis III, called the punishment 'excessive' and 'wrong' at a June sentencing hearing. If he can’t change the sentence, 'why do we have a judge?' St. Louis asked. 'Let’s put that in his hands . . . but instead you heard the judge say his hands are tied, and that doesn’t seem right to me'."
Washington Post
July 26, 2018
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"It’s a question of practicality. Whether the person is innocent or not, jury trials are always a crap shoot, with the verdict uncertain until rendered. If you’re offered probation pre-trial by pleading guilty but know a judge will give you jail if you lose trial, you might choose to say you did something that you didn’t do just to avoid jail. It would take the most stalwart belief in justice (and your attorney) to go forward when a guilty verdict has you serving a much tougher sentence."
Above the Law
July 23, 2018
Read More"The Jennings Court overturned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit’s requirement that individuals subject to mandatory detention provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act be provided with initial and then periodic bond hearings ascertaining the appropriateness of continued detention with the possibility of release pending judicial proceedings. The Court’s decision in the case leaves open the question of whether the United States can subject the thousands of individuals awaiting a final judicial decision on their applications for immigration relief to prolonged civil detention."
The Regulatory Review
July 23, 2018
Read More"Farid and Dressler found that giving untrained experts access to seven details about an individual produced a 67 percent accuracy rate. COMPAS, which uses 137 data points, has a 65 percent accuracy rate."
Criminal Legal News
July 20, 2018
Read More"Jackson, however, does not allow jurors to “speculate” if the evidence was sufficient to support guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. When the prosecutor’s evidence merely invites the jury to speculate on a number of reasonable probabilities — some consistent with guilt, others with innocence — a jury must entertain a reasonable doubt of the defendant’s guilt, the Court said."
Criminal Legal News
July 20, 2018
Read More"Overall, replacing Kennedy with Kavanaugh will only mean fewer legal protections for people ensnared in the criminal justice system. It’s unlikely that Kavanaugh would ever provide the decisive fifth vote for a criminal defendant or victim of police brutality."
The Appeal
July 13, 2018
Read More"More than 6,700 civil and criminal cases have been restricted from public access since 2013, usually by judges who agreed to a request from prosecutors or defense lawyers to shield them, The Post found. Of those, 3,076 are still under suppression orders that keep the details away from the public — 345 are felony criminal cases — as they work their way through the legal system, according to state computer records."
Denver Post
July 12, 2018
Read More"Virginia abolished parole in 1995 for the types of crimes covered by the three-strikes law – but it was still used to deny parole to anyone convicted of three qualifying crimes, even when sentences for all three were handed down at the same time."
Prison Legal News
July 6, 2018
Read More"Until this most recent law was signed, judges were required to release people charged with many misdemeanors without cash bail. But that lack of judicial discretion raised concerns for police, prosecutors and, ultimately, the Legislature. It passed a new law, which Governor Bill Walker signed June 14 that said judges again can decide whether to require cash bail."
Alaska Public Media
July 4, 2018
Read More"A closely-divided Supreme Court recently ruled, in Currier v. Virginia, that when a criminal defendant agrees with the government to adjudicate multiple charges through multiple trials, he cannot, when the first trial ends, reverse course and say that the U.S. Constitution allows only one trial."
Western Journal
July 3, 2018
Read More"Algorithms that make predictions about future behavior based on factors such as a person’s age and criminal history are increasingly used—and increasingly controversial—in criminal justice decision-making. One of the big objections to the use of such algorithms is that they sometimes operate out of the public’s view."
Slate
July 3, 2018
Read More"Mass incarceration is not just about unnecessarily incarcerating masses of people. It is about unnecessarily keeping masses of people in prison for decades. A sentence once imposed is not thereby automatically rendered, just, fair and appropriate in perpetuity. Ultimately, second-look mechanisms are meant to recognize and value the possibility of change and transformation, and to intervene when drastically long sentences are indefensible."
Gotham Gazette
June 26, 2018
Read More"'I can’t tell a defendant you are not getting a jury trial because we’re out of money,' Worton said."
The Columbus Republic
June 16, 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
Read More