>
> Mandatory sentencing is clearly a corruption of the
> judicial system. The legal profession in Australia
> is fighting it tooth and nail. Combined with
> draconian prison terms, it is incompatible with the
> basic principles of the rule of law, because is
> designed to give police the power pressure people to
> give up their right to a trial. Obviously that is
intolerable in a free society. Is
> the legal profession fighting it in the US?
>
Well, Bill, as usual our standards for a free society differ. Mine are lower. Mandatory sentecing is terrible, but pleading, which is really your target here, is a practical necessity. There is no way to give everyone who theoretically has a right to a trial a trial, and no point in it either, because most of them are obviously guilty and don't in fact contest the issue. It would waste the time of the judge and jury, the prosecution, the lawyers, and the defendant. That means there is no way to avoid giving the police and the prosecutors that power. I realize you think this means that we live in a fascist dictatorship, but hey, it's Amerikkka, what do you expect?
Back in the real world, federal judges (and defense lawyers like me) are very unhappy with the Sentencing Guidelines (federal quasi-mandatory sentencing), but they are here to stay. There is a current Supreme Court challenge to a California Three-Strikes law that gave people mandatory life for third nonviolent minor offenses. I suspect that it may succeed.
Yours in support of totalitarian represssion,
jks
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