Tue, 02 Oct 2007

Court looks again at sentencing laws

This kind of attitude has annoyed me for a long time. If judges can't use their discretion to set appropriate sentences, why do we have them? Couldn't they be replaced by a computer program - input the convictions, pop out the punishment?

In a traditional, common law legal system, the judge is the barrier between the accused and the mob. The jury is the barrier between the crown (or the State) and the accused. With the demise of jury nullification we lost the second barrier, and unless the Supremes do something about these "sentencing guidelines", we're going to lose the the first one as well.

The Supreme Court takes up two cases Tuesday that could bring clarity to what has become a murky federal sentencing system.

(link) [Christian Science Monitor]

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