Tue, 13 Jan 2004

A Judge's Struggle to Avoid Imposing a Penalty He Hated

This really has little to do with kiddie porn: the point the judge was trying to make is that Congress (and State legislatures, in some cases) are usurping judical perogatives in imposing so-called "sentencing guidelines".

I've worried about the effects of these kind of legislative mandates for years. On the one hand, they were imposed in a sense of outrage over certain liberal judges giving far too light a sentence to certain criminals. But their destructive impact is to essentially reduce the role of the judge to that of a clerk: overseeing the procedures and rubber stamping the predetermined sentence.

It goes beyond criminal law, too. Indiana has child support "guidelines" which must be followed. Never mind if the parent is unemployed, or underemployed, or if the required amount is more than the parents take home pay. Several years ago in a courtroom in Marion County, Indiana, I witnessed an intentional outburst by a defendent in such a ccase: he intended to get the judge to cite him for contempt, so he would be thrown in jail! This was so he could eat, as the judge had just imposed more in child support on him than the man made. The judge knew it was unfair and unjust, but his hands were tied by "guidelines". They hauled the defendent off in handcuffs, cursing the system all the way.

I wish that our legislatures would let judges be judges, and let them do their job. That's why we have them, after all, to be treated as an individual before the bar of justice, and not as a member of some predefined "class" or "group".

After sentencing an 18-year-old male convicted of advertising child pornography to 10 years in prison, a judge called his own decision "unjust and harmful."

(link) [New York Times: NYT HomePage]

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