LAW: Mandatory Sentences

From: GBurch1@aol.com
Date: Sun Apr 16 2000 - 07:09:27 MDT


In a message dated 4/12/00 1:43:33 PM Central Daylight Time, lee@piclab.com
writes:

> I don't care how heinous the crime, mandatory
> sentence laws are _always_ bad. We hire judges to do just that--
> judge--and then remove their ability to exercise human judgment in
> favor of blindly following a legislated script.

US Federal judges have been dealing with lots of mandatory sentences for a
long time. All the ones I've talked to or read comments by HATE them. They
say that mandatory sentences result in palpable injustice too often and
causes absurd charging and plea bargaining when even the prosecutors can't
stand to see them applied.

       Greg Burch <GBurch1@aol.com>----<gburch@lockeliddell.com>
      Attorney ::: Vice President, Extropy Institute ::: Wilderness Guide
      http://users.aol.com/gburch1 -or- http://members.aol.com/gburch1
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        "We never stop investigating. We are never satisfied that we know
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