History Of Judicial Discretion

Secondly, they should be addressed the needs of offenders and the deficits in their lives that contributed to their offending. And thirdly, sentences should not be severe, intrusive, or damaging to an offender’s later decarceration to live a righteous life than is minimally necessary to achieve valid purposes of the sentence he or she receives (Tonry 508). An addition to these are proportionality, which means that sentences should correspond in severity to the seriousness of the crimes which they are inflicted. Also, regularity, which signifies that sentences should be guided by official standards to make the process clear, procedures fair, and allow judges to be more accountable (Tonry 508). Moreover, the American Criminal Code must be taken into consideration. Two features must be altered if the sentencing is to become fair, effective, and just. Firstly, the harsh sentencing laws must be revoked, and secondly the limits, that matches the offense seriousness, must be put on the lawful sentences (Tonry 514). Moreover, Tonry mentioned about future changes that, “If adopted, they would greatly reduce the number of people in prison in future years, but their adoption would not significantly reduce the scale of American imprisonment in 2015 or in 2020. Doing that will require enactment of new laws authorizing reconsideration of sentences now being served (Tonry 523).

In the case of Robinson v. California, 370 U.S. 660 (1962), the Supreme Court ruled that a law may not punish a status; i.e., one may not be punished to being an alcoholic or for being addicted to drugs. However, of course, one may be punished for actions such as abusing drugs. The question becomes; What if the status “forces” the action? What if a person, because of his/her addiction to drugs, is “forced” by the addiction to purchase and abuse the illegal drugs? Would punishing that person be unfairly punishing a status?

“Inter-judge sentencing disparity, in the view of sentencing reformers, offends important rule of law principles, erodes respect for the courts, and undermines the deterrent effect of criminal law.” (Scott, 4) The Federal Sentencing Guidelines, were created by the United States Sentencing Commission, were put in place to minimize unwarranted disparity among the sentences handed out by judges. These same guidelines that helped to decrease disparity among the sentences that same offenders received or did not receive, were made advisory in a serious of decisions from 2005 to 2007. (Scott, 1) Giving too much power to judges, through the advisory of the federal sentencing guidelines, has since created a surge in inter-judge disparities. Unwarranted

In the criminal justice system, discretion is often performed by the police, prosecutors, judges and juries, correctional officials and

Mandatory sentencing is not anything new. It began in the 1970s. The main purpose for mandatory sentencing was to try to get rid of the drug lords and to eliminate most of the nation’s street drug selling. It was to impose that the same crime would have the same sentence all over the nation. Some of the negatives that rose from mandatory sentencing were nonviolent drug offenders and first time offenders who were receiving harsh sentences. Inmate populations and correction costs increased and pushed states to build more prisons. Judges were overloaded with these cases, and lengthy prison terms were mandated to these young offenders. Mandatory sentencing is an interesting topic in which I would like to discuss my opinions in going against

In today’s society crimes in the United State are growing each day, and the major aspect of the U.S criminal justice system is the punishment imposed on those who committed crimes in our communities. One method of sentencing criminals was the establishment of the mandatory minimum sentencing. During the early days of the republic, specific sentences were carried out for certain crime and early mandatory sentences the forms of punishment used at the time stretched from ducking stools/cucking stools for disorderly women and dishonest tradesmen in England, Soctland to hanging for convicted murderers. However, in recent years, evidence gathered have shown that the federal mandatory minimum sentencing were not in effect for reaching the goals of the criminal justice system. Chief Justice William Rehnquist has previously stated that “these statutes are “perhaps a good example of the law of unintended consequences. This essay will discuss the history, goals, benefits, and negatives of the American Judicial Systems Mandatory Sentencing.

2014). The official authorities in office that make legal decisions and judgments that are using indeterminate sentencing often employ statutes that identify clearly minimum and maximum terms (Siegel, L. 2014). Equally, they also permit judicial discretion to fix the actual sentence given within these guidelines (Siegel, L. 2014). Even though rehabilitation and parole have been under heavy attack by those who argue that criminals should be punished and not overprotected (Siegel, L. 2014). When said and done the indeterminate sentence is still the most widely used types of sentence the determinate sentencing continues to be favored in nearly one-third of the states (Siegel, L. and Bartollas, C.

Congress sought to reform the sentencing system by designing sentencing Guideline rules that were uniformly to control disparity. In order to reform the sentencing system, Congress created the Sentencing Commission in charge of designing a new sentencing system using multiple sources to evaluate the means to control the source of disparity (Bowman, 1996; Fifteen Years of Guidelines, 2004). Once the Guidelines were created and implemented, studies conducted by the Commission reports that it has increased drastically especially for drug offenses due to different adaptations to the Guidelines and the different types of offenses prosecuted in different regions (Fifteen Years of Guidelines, 2004). The variation in sentence lengths is analyzed based on the data evidence shows 73 percent of differences in federal sentence length causing unwarranted disparity (Fifteen Years of Guidelines, 2004). The cause of unwarranted disparity is influenced by policies promulgated by Congress that were supposedly designed to amend the effects of uneven charging and plea-bargaining decisions. With prosecutors in control of determining an offenders sentencing, they can impose several enhancement to depart from the Guidelines to provide leniency. However, such enhancement resulted in sentences disproportional to the appropriate serious of the offense that would be otherwise applied to the case (Fifteen Years of Guidelines, 2004). The Commission reports there is little empirical research in exploring why prosecutors use its discretion to apply enhanced penalties and depart from the Guidelines (Tonry, 1996; Fifteen Years of Guidelines,

Miscarriage of justice is reflected in various states across the nation, where there are far too many occurrences where individuals have been convicted of crimes and subjected to unfair mandatory sentencing. “Mandatory minimum sentencing laws require binding prison terms of a particular length for people convicted of certain federal and state crimes” (Famm, n.d.). “Mandatory minimum sentences imposed by statute are intended to achieve consistency in sentencing at the expense of individual consideration of the contextual sentencing factors” (Harvard Law Review, 2011). “These inflexible, one-size-fits-all sentencing laws may seem like a quick-fix solution for crime, but they undermine justice by preventing judges from fitting the punishment to the individual and the circumstances of their offense” (Famm, n.d) “Mandatory sentencing laws cause federal and state prison populations to soar, leading to overcrowding, exorbitant costs to taxpayers, and diversion of funds from law enforcement” (Famm, n.d.)

The implementation of mandatory minimum sentencing has allowed for the substitution of prosecutorial discretion in the place of judicial discretion. The purpose of mandatory minimums was to eliminate or reduce sentencing disparities. However, they have simply shifted discretion allowing for prosecutors to have unreviewable discretion over whether to even charge a violation of law with the mandatory minimum sentencing. Unreviewed discretion caused by mandatory minimums may be allowing innocent people to slip through the cracks. James B. Halsted of the University of Florida conducted a study that examined anti-drug statutes (in the 1980s) by analyzing how the criminal justice system could possibly be incarcerating marginally culpable or innocent defendants due to ease of convictability of those prosecuted under mandatory minimum statutes (Halsted). Halsted makes a claim that “it appears that the whole purpose of mandatory minimum sentences structures is to ensure that trial judges have practically no discretion when determining the amount of punishment they will impose when sentencing a defendant convicted of a crime like trafficking” (Halsted). Placing discretion in the hands of prosecutors is clearly more disagreeable than allowing judicial discretion. Prosecutors do not have proper training in exercising discretion and do not have incentive to exercise discretion responsibly.

Since the beginning of the war on drugs, there has been a 500% increase in incarcerations, most of them being mandatory minimum sentences. Although mandatory minimums were instituted in order to combat crime and are still sentenced in court today, research suggests that this deterrent has little to no effect.While white people make up the majority of drug arrests, minorities make up three fourths of individuals with mandatory minimums. Contrary to the claim that mandatory minimums are fair and equal, they contribute to America's problem of racial discrimination and prejudice, and mass incarceration.

One judge could give an unfair and unnecessary outcome while the other could give a lesser sentencePrison populations have been on the rise in past years due to policies for setting prison terms. This not only affects the number of people in prison but the time that they must stay in prison. “According to the new CRS report, a growing number of these prisoners are being put away for charges related to immigration violations and weapons possession. But the largest number is for relatively paltry drug offences.” (Brion) As a result many states have attempted to modify prison terms to reduce population pressure. “Some states are currently having many discussions they would not have had 10 years ago – getting smarter on crime rather than tougher on crime. None of these moves are comprehensive enough to address the large scope of the problem, but they’re very important starting points.” (Brion)In our textbook it states six basic policy goals of sentencing processes. One of the policies is determinate sentencing, which is a set sentencing of punishment in which the parole boards can no longer release prisoners before their sentencing is up. Mandatory prison term, states that legislatures are required a prison term to be imposed for convictions for certain

In conjunction with a large expansion of federal criminal law came an increase and expansion of the penalties for its violation (Feeley & and Kamin, 1996). Partially in response to those “commerce crimes” perpetrated with a violent element, Congress enacted legislation for heightened penalties and laws geared toward career criminals, including the authorization of capital punishment for over 60 federal crimes (Feeley & and Kamin, 1996) (Maroney, 2000). In 1984 the Sentencing Reform Act created a matrix of sentencing guidelines (often seen as mandatory guidelines in practice) that were intended to limit primarily racially-based sentencing disparities when left to the discretion of judges (Gertner, 2010) (Albonetti, 1997).

When it pertains to discretion, the criminal justice systems perspective is defined as being the authority in which is granted by the law as well as other officials to act on their own judgement in certain situations throughout the legal system (Williams, 2009). In order to maintain the best discretion possible within the criminal justice system, it is always necessary for those involved making the decisions to come to a conclusion based on the facts. If one mistake is made, an innocent man could be sent away to prison, or a guilty man can be set free.

“Sentencing is arguably a judge’s most difficult responsibility” (Bohm & Haley, 2011, p. 321). Factors that influence a judge’s sentencing decision include not violating a person’s Eight Amendment of cruel and unusual punishment (Bohm & Haley, 2011). Also, there may be laws that specify minimum and maximum sentences (Bohm & Haley, 2011). The United States has five types of punishment in place (Bohm & Haley, 2011). They are: