>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.
Mandatory sentencing and pleading are separate issues. They are related though.
It was reported here recently that there has been a significant reduction over the last decade in the proportion of people charged with rape who end up being convicted. Part of the problem was that longer sentences being handed out, thus people were more likely to plead not guilty. Another factor is that juries are more reluctant to convict, if they perceive the penalty in particular cases will be excessive.
Draconian penalties should be the exception. the problem is that mandatory sentencing effectively makes them the norm, unless a deal is done. What this means in practice is that doing a deal becomes the norm, effectively cutting the courts out of the legal process. Which is pretty sick if you ask me.
Now obviously there is no need for a trial in every case and it is reasonable that those who plead guilty get some consideration for this in sentencing. My point is that this process should be open, should be determined in court and not by police and prosecutors.
> 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?
It is possible to avoid giving such power to police and prosecutors, you give it to judges.
Mandatory sentencing explicitly removes a judge's power to determine appropriate sentence according to individual circumstances. But you seem to be confused, believing that without mandatory sentencing it would somehow be necessary to hold a trial for every person accused, even if they plead guilty. You don't understand my argument at all.
Mandatory sentencing is probably an understandable reaction to a system which allows the prosecution and defense to haggle over plea and sentence though. The solution is to outlaw such a practice, to give the power back to a judge. Defendants will still have to make a judgement about whether to plead guilty and get a consideration in sentencing. And most will still plead guilty. But it really is quite sick to allow them to haggle over their own sentence, the whole process of sentencing needs to be open and accountable. Justice needs to be seen to be done.
>Back in the real world,
I'm curious why you think that the way justice is purported to be done in America is the "real world" Justin? Presumably the implication is that the way it is done everywhere else is not the "real world"? Fascinating!
> federal judges (and defense
>lawyers like me) are very unhappy with the Sentencing
>Guidelines (federal quasi-mandatory sentencing), but
>they are here to stay.
Well, I don't understand how they work, so I can't comment. I would need to understand what discretion is available. If they are guidelines rather than rigid mandatory minimum sentences for particular offenses and they allow judges to take into account all the other factors that go into determining the appropriate sentence, then I don't see the problem. It may be that these guidelines are just a band-aid to fix the mess caused by plea bargaining. It would be better to scrap the latter of course.
> 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,
I'm not sure a police state, which you seem to be defending, is the same as totalitarianism. Its a step in the same direction of course.
Anyhow, what's the basis of that challenge? Clearly it is medieval and absurd to stipulate life prison sentences for minor non-violent offenses, but we have already established that California is a state governed by (and presumably populated by as well) deranged cowboy psychos, so this outrage somehow comes as no surprise.
I wonder, how long before someone wakes up that Californians are incapable of self-government? Or has there been a bureaucratic mix-up, with someone confusing the state mental asylum for the state legislature? Either way, challenging the law in the Supreme Court seems somehow inadequate, anyone who'd vote for a politician that supported such a law deserves to be shot, so maybe you should be petitioning the federal government to impose martial law in California.
Send in the military to kick some Californian arse, that's what's called for I think.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas