Hello Friends:
(See article below.) Isn’t this news upsetting?
Senator Leahy obviously sees this as an attempt by the Republicans to overhaul
our sentencing system in the wrong way. If he is correct, we are in a dangerous
time.
Bush thinks (or the media reports) that Mandatory Minimums aren’t intact
— that is stupid. They are intact. They probably do NOT understand that we
have two rails of drug and other sentencing. We have Sentencing Guidelines,
and Mandatory Minimums.
I’ve been studying the history of the ‘reform movement’ not so unlike the
current sentencing reform movement, except that it was a movement identifiable
in the 1970’s — the one that ‘reemerged in the 1980’s with
FAMM
, CURE National
’s work, and lots of other groups, and the drug law reform movement.
In the 1970’s the reform efforts were turned on it’s head and Zimbardo (of
the Stanford Prison Experiment
) says it best (in 1998).
"And then, almost without warning, all of this critical reappraisal and
constructive optimism about humane standards and alternatives to incarceration
was replaced with something else. The counterrevolution in crime and punishment
began slowly and imperceptibly at first and then pushed forward with a consistency
of direction and effect that could not be overlooked. It moved so forcefully
and seemingly inexorably during the 1980s that it resembled nothing so much
as a runaway punishment train, driven by political steam and fueled by media-induced
fears of crime."
I do not like the way this came out as soon as Bush knew he got to keep Alberto
Gonzales as top cop.
Rule of law is at stake — and most people in this country have no idea how
important it is. Without rule of law we cannot be a civil society. Raise
your voices, the stakes are higher than ever. Write newspapers and your leaders,
objecting to Bush’s insistence on growing the federal prison industrial complex
like never before. Consider educating the people you know in ways that you
haven’t done before.
To learn how to do this — visit our Home Page and follow links on volunteer
opportunities: www.november.org
In Struggle,
Nora
PS: for more on these issues, I’ve explained the mess (and how we get out
of it) at:
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2005/1/20/14944/3492
Here’s another if that doesn’t do it for you, it’s some of our founding principles
- how we set about to explain the tangled problems of drug enforcement and
our federal sentencing systems -- and written by my brother, G. Patrick wayyyy
back in 1997:
http://www.november.org/razorwire/rzold/04/0403.html
______________________________
June 13, 2007 - Associated Press (US)
Bush Seeks To Re-Impose Mandatory Minimums
Crime Bill Would Limit Judges’ Sentencing Power; Critics Call
It "One Size Fits All Justice"
The Bush administration is trying to roll back a Supreme Court decision by
pushing legislation that would require prison time for nearly all criminals.
The Justice Department is offering the plan as an opening salvo in a larger
debate about whether sentences for crack cocaine are unfairly harsh and racially
discriminatory.
Republicans are seizing the administration’s crackdown, packaged in legislation
to combat violent crime, as a campaign issue for 2008.
In a speech June 1 to announce the bill, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
urged Congress to re-impose mandatory minimum prison sentences against federal
convicts — and not let judges consider such penalties "merely a suggestion."
Such an overhaul, in part, "will strengthen our hand in fighting criminals
who threaten the safety and security of all Americans," Gonzales said in
the speech, delivered three days before the FBI announced a slight national
uptick in violent crime during 2006.
Judges, however, were livid over the proposal to limit their power.
"This would require one-size-fits-all justice," said U.S. District Judge
Paul G. Cassell, chairman of the Criminal Law committee of the Judicial Conference,
the judicial branch’s policy-making body.
"The vast majority of the public would like the judges to make the individualized
decisions needed to make these very difficult sentencing decisions," Cassell
said. "Judges are the ones who look the defendants in the eyes. They hear
from the victims. They hear from the prosecutors."
The debate, pitting prosecutors against jurists, has been ongoing since a
2005 Supreme Court ruling that declared the government’s two decades-old
sentencing guidelines unconstitutional. The ruling in United States v. Booker
said judges are not required to abide by the federal guidelines — which set
mandatory minimum and maximums on sentences — but could consider them in
meting out prison time.
The Justice Department wants to return to the old system of mandatory minimum
sentences, under which judges could grant leniency only in special cases.
Without those required floors, Justice officials maintain that different
judges could hand out widely varying penalties for the same crime.
Justice officials also point to a growing number of lighter sentences as
possible proof that crime is on the rise because criminals are no longer
cowed by strict penalties.
In the two years since the ruling, federal judges have become three times
more likely to hand down prison sentences below thesuggested levels, according
to 2006 U.S. Sentencing Commission data. In 2005, before the Booker case,
those penalties represented 4.3 percent of all sentences imposed. That number
rose to 13 percent after the Supreme Court ruling and dipped to 12.1 percent
in 2006, the data show.
Still, Justice officials privately concede that returning to the sentencing
guidelines as required minimums is a long-shot at best. At the least, they
say, their proposal marks a first step toward ratcheting back a counter-push
by courts to lower penalties for first-time crack cocaine convictions.
This week, the Supreme Court waded into the racially sensitive dispute, agreeing
to consider whether courts can give defendants similar sentences for crack
cocaine crimes as for cocaine powder. Crack crimes usually garner much tougher
penalties, and most crack cocaine offenders in federal courts are black.
"I don’t think they in a million years think it’s going to pass anytime soon,"
said Douglas Berman, an Ohio State University sentencing expert. "But they’ve
gotten more extra mileage out of threatening this, framing the debate of
sentencing reform."
"Of course this is politics," Berman said.
Republicans eager to embrace a tough-on-crime stance as the 2008 election
year approaches are demanding that mandatory minimum penalties be put back
in place.
"Without sentencing guidelines, we are back to unfair sentences and more
violent crime," said Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, top Republican on the House
Judiciary Committee. "Congress has a responsibility to ensure tough penalties
for violent offenders and restore the basic principle that all people are
treated equally under the law."
Washington defense attorney Michael Horowitz, a U.S. Sentencing Commission
member and a former criminal division official at the Justice Department,
said the proposed overhaul will "have some appeal in an election year."
But Gonzales, dogged by scandals ranging from fired U.S. attorneys to FBI
privacy intrusions, is unlikely to persuade an already skeptical Congress
to adopt his plan.
"With all the issues in the Judiciary Committee right now, it’s going to
be tough to get traction on this," Horowitz said.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., dismissed the plan
as misguided. Without Leahy’s support, the Justice Department’s sentencing
plan is unlikely to become law as long as Democrats control the Senate.
The Bush administration should be spending more money on local police to
battle crime rather than proposing a "large-scale and premature overhaul
of our sentencing system," Leahy said.
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