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Judicial Supporters
National Judicial Community
The Constitution
Project’s Blue Ribbon Commission Sentencing Initiative
Justice Henry duPont Ridgely
Delaware Supreme
Court Justice and former President Judge of Delaware Superior Court
“Delaware’s general assembly has actually been
a leader in sentence reform through the enactment of Truth in Sentencing
and enabling legislation for sentencing guidelines which give the courts
a continuum of punishments to impose….
Judges are provided guidelines or suggested sentences in all criminal
cases. Although discretion exists to not follow the guidelines, we
generally do unless there is good reason not to. When a judge does
not follow the guidelines, he or she must publicly explain on the record
why not. Mandatory sentencing is not consistent with this approach
because only the prosecutor may exercise discretion and he or she does
not have to give any public explanation.”
Judge Richard S.
Gebelein
Delaware Superior Court Judge
“I am…puzzled by the thought that the General Assembly gives me
discretion to determine whether a person convicted of first degree
murder lives or dies but denies me the discretion to determine if an
addict who possesses 5.1 grams of Methamphetamine really should spend 2
years in prison.
”
Chief Justice E. Norman Veasey
Former Delaware Supreme Court
Chief Justice
““Unfortunately, the strait jacket of mandatory minimum drug laws tends
to relegate Delaware’ judges to mere data-entry clerks, by not allowing
them to consider the multitude of individual circumstances of each
defendant and each case, and to sentence individuals accordingly.”
Judge Joshua W. Martin, III
Former
Delaware Superior Court Judge
“Under
Delaware’s sentencing guidelines, mandatory minimum drug laws are an
unnecessary anomaly. These laws make the detailed provisions in
SENTAC’s Benchbook, and indeed the entire system of sentencing
guidelines, irrelevant. Mandatory drug laws require judges to hand down
sentences of arbitrary length, based solely on the type and weight of
the drug in question, whereas we should be allowing our judges to make
use of SENTAC’s system of sentencing guidelines, to accurately tailor
sentences to individuals."
Additional supporters of
removing mandatory minimum drug sentences include:
Judge Louis J. Freeh
Former Federal District
Court Judge for the District of New York and former FBI Director
National Judicial Community
Justice Anthony M.
Kennedy
U.S. Supreme Court Justice
“I can accept neither the necessity nor the wisdom of federal mandatory
minimum sentences. In too many cases mandatory minimum sentences are
unwise and unjust… The legislative branch has the obligation to
determine whether a policy is wise. It is a grave mistake to retain a
policy just because a court finds it constitutional. Courts may conclude
the legislature is permitted to choose long sentences, but that does not
mean long sentences are wise or just…A court decision does not excuse
the political branches or the public from the responsibility for unjust
laws.”
Justice Stephen G. Breyer
U.S. Supreme Court Justice
“[More statutes containing mandatory minimum sentences are] not going to
advance the cause of law enforcement in my opinion and it’s going to set
back the course of fairness in sentencing… There has to be room for the
unusual or the exceptional case.
”
Justice David Souter
U.S. Supreme Court Justice
“[Many
judges] simply believe that ultimately they become instruments of
injustice.”
Chief Justice William Rehnquist
U.S.
Supreme Court Chief Justice
“[Mandatory minimum sentencing statutes] are perhaps a good example of
the law of unintended consequences.”
"Our resources are misspent, our punishments too severe, our sentences
too long.”
Judge Leon Higginbotham
U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 3rd
Circuit
“We must remember we are not widgets or
robots, but human beings. Defendants
should be sentenced within the spectrum of what most judges would
consider fair and reasonable.”*
Judge Joyce Hens Green
U.S. District Court for the District of
Columbia
“As a consequence of the mandatory sentences,
we (judges) know that justice is not always done… [Y]ou cannot
dispense equal justice by playing a numbers game. Judgment and
discretion and common sense are essential.”*
Judge Franklin Billings
U.S.
District Court for the District of Vermont
“This type of statute does not render justice. It denies the judges of
this court, and of all courts, the right to bring their conscience,
experience, discretion and sense of what is just into the sentencing
procedure, and in effect, makes a judge a computer, automatically
imposing sentences without regard to what is right and just.”
Judge J. Spencer Letts
U.S.
District Judge, Central District of California, Senior Status 2000
Nominated by President Ronald Reagan, 1985.
“Statutory mandatory minimum sentences create injustice because the
sentence is determined without looking at the particular defendant…. It
can make no difference whether he is a lifetime criminal or a first-time
offender. Indeed, under this sledgehammer approach, it could make no
difference if the day before making this one slip in an otherwise
unblemished life the defendant had rescued 15 children from a burning
building or had won the Congressional Medal of Honor while defending his
country.”*
Judge Paul A. Magnuson
U.S.
District Judge, Minnesota, Senior Status 2002
Nominated by Ronald Reagan, 1981.
“…I
continue to believe that sentence of 10 years’ imprisonment under the
circumstances of this case is unconscionable and patently unjust….[the
defendant] will be sacrificed on the altar of Congress’ obsession with
punishing crimes involving narcotics. This obsession is, in part,
understandable, for narcotics pose a serious threat to the welfare of
this country and its citizens. However, at the same time, mandatory
minimum sentences – almost by definition – prevent the Court from
passing judgment in a manner properly tailored to a defendant’s
particular circumstances.”*
Judge John S. Martin, rebutting Former Congressman
R-GA and CNN Analyst Bob Barr’s statement that there is nothing wrong
with putting a greater deal of power in the hands of others besides the
judge, says:
"It’s easy to run for office saying,
'I was tough on crime.' No member of Congress has to look at an
individual
or an individual’s family and see the unfairness of that sentence being
imposed and the
devastating impact that it has on the family."
Judge
Jack B.
Weinstein
"One
day last week I had to sentence a peasant woman from West Africa to
forty-six months in a drug case. The result for her young children will
undoubtedly be, as she suggested, devastating. On the same day I
sentenced a man to thirty years as a second drug offender—a heavy
sentence mandated by the Guidelines and statue. These two cases confirm
my sense of frustration…with the 'war on drugs' that is being fought by
the military, police, and courts rather than by our medical and social
institutions."
The
American Bar Association
House
of Delegates Resolution 107, "Blueprint for Cost Effective Pretrial,
Detention, Sentencing and Corrections Systems"
"Each
state and federal government should repeal mandatory sentencing laws
that unduly limit a judge's discretion to individualize sentences, so
that the sentence in each case fairly reflects the gravity of the
offense and the degree of culpability of the offender."
Additional supporters of
eliminating mandatory minimum drug sentences
include:
Judge J. Lawrence Irving
Federal District Judge
The Constitution
Project’s Blue Ribbon Commission Sentencing Initiative
The Constitution Project’s Blue Ribbon Commission Sentencing Initiative
has issued a report entitled “Principles for the Design and Reform of
Sentencing Systems”.
Abstract: Sentencing guidelines, not
mandatory minimum sentences, are most capable of controlling unwarranted
sentencing disparities while retaining appropriate flexibility in
sentencing. Experience has shown that mandatory minimum penalties are
at odds with a sentencing guidelines structure. A sentencing system
should treat similarly situated defendants similarly, while retaining
the flexibility to account for relevant differences among particular
offenses and offenders.
To read the General
Principles of the Report,
click
here
Members of the Sentencing
Initiative
Co-Chairs
Philip Heymann
Deputy Attorney General under President Clinton
Edwin Meese, III
Attorney General under President Reagan
Members
Judge Samuel Alito
US Court of Appeals, 3rd Circuit
Zachary Carter
Former US Attorney, Eastern District of NY
Judge Paul Cassell
US District Court for the District of Utah
James Felman
Partner, Kynes, Markman & Felman, P.C., Tampa, FL
Judge Nancy Gertner
US District Court for the District of Massachusetts
Judge Isabel Gomez
District Court, Hennepin County, Minnesota
Thomas Hillier
Federal Public Defender, Western District of Washington
Judge Renee Hughes
Court of Common Pleas, Philadelphia, PA
Miriam Krinsky
former Assistant US Attorney, Central District of CA
Norman Maleng
State’s Attorney, King County, Washington
Judge Jon Newman
US Court of Appeals, 2nd Circuit
Thomas Perez
Former US Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights
Barbara Tombs
Executive Director, Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission
Ronald Wright
Professor of Law, Wake Forest Law School
*Affiliations listed for
identification purposes only
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