Largely I agree with the below. I oppose mandatory minimums. I don't think it is possible to remove police or prosecutorial discretion. The cop on the steeet decides whom to bust. The prosecutor decides whom to charge and with what. Judges lack the time, inclination, or skill to make these decisions. The most they can do is oversee them to some extent. jks But, outside of the blinkered world of mandatory sentencing, there's more to trials than merely guilt or innocence, there's a whole world of determining how serious the crime was, what the mitigating circumstances are, how sorry the offender is, what are the chances of re-offending, etc. The point is that these should properly be determined in open court, not the back rooms of police and prosecutors. Mandatory sentencing takes all these decisions out of the courts and allows the police and prosecutors to decide, by deciding what to charge the offender with. It is a perversion of justice. Bill BartlettBracknell Tas
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