Legal Commentary

Federal Judges Say Mandatory Minimums on Crack and Pot are Too Harsh

By Jeralyn

The U.S. Sentencing Commission has published the results of a survey of more than 600 federal judges on sentencing laws.

Marcia Coyle at the National Law Journal reports on the findings.

The 639 judges who responded had sentenced 116,183 offenders, or 79 percent of those sentenced during fiscal 2008 and 2009.

Sixty-two percent of the judges said the mandatory minimums that they were required to impose were too high, particularly for crack cocaine (76 percent), receipt of child pornography (71 percent) and marijuana (54 percent). However, strong majorities believed the sentencing guideline ranges for most federal offenses were appropriate, with the exception again of those for crack cocaine, marijuana, and the possession and receipt of child pornography, which they said were too high.

Also, 75 percent of the judges preferred the current system of advisory sentencing guidelines over mandatory ones. And 68 percent said "victims should not have the opportunity to comment on the pre-sentence report before sentencing." I agree.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on June 16, 2010 (boomark / email).