>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! jks. No, my point is that some of your ideas are impractical anywhere. > 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. jks. The FSG are complicated. They are a complicated grid that gives a range of months for certain crimes with various factors such as criminal history taken into account. They largely eliminate judicial discretion. They no not reduce the ability of prosecutoers to leverage ploea bargains with their charging policies. They result in much longer sentences for a wide variety of crimes. > 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, i I won't bother to ask you to stop puting words in my mouth. I'm a passionate civil libertarian. If you think that makes me a defender of a police state, God bless you. s 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. jks. You seem to confuse California with Texas. The challenge is that it violates the Eight Amendment prohibition on grossly disproprortionate punsihmenr. jks <hr size=1>Do you Yahoo!? <a href="http://rd.yahoo.com/mail/mailsig/*http://mailplus.yahoo.com">Yahoo! Mail Plus</a> - Powerful. Affordable. <a href="http://rd.yahoo.com/mail/mailsig/*http://mailplus.yahoo.com">Sign up now</a>