Supreme Court Rules Mandatory Minimum Sentences Not Mandatory

[Vic]

Text

Supreme Court: Sentencing Rules Not Mandatory

1 hour, 59 minutes ago

Top Stories - Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A divided U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites) on Wednesday ruled that federal judges no longer have to abide by the controversial 18-year-old sentencing guidelines.

The 5-4 ruling was a blow for the U.S. Justice Department (news - web sites), which had defended the constitutionality of the federal sentencing guidelines that now apply to tens of thousands of criminal defendants each year. Thousands of cases nationwide have been on hold pending Wednesday's ruling.

The high court ruled that its decision in June, which struck down a similar sentencing system used in Washington state for violating a defendant's constitutional rights, also applied to the federal guidelines.

Justice Stephen Breyer (news - web sites) said in the court's opinion that the ruling meant the guidelines are no longer mandatory, making them only advisory for the sentencing judge.

Breyer said federal judges are not bound to apply the guidelines, only take them into account when sentencing a defendant.

In both cases before the Supreme Court a judge imposed greater sentences under the guidelines, based on the judge's determination of a fact that was not found by the jury or admitted by the defendant.

The guidelines, long criticized by criminal justice reform advocates for imposing overly harsh sentences on a mandatory basis, set rules for federal judges in calculating what punishment to give a defendant and attempt to reduce wide disparities in sentences for the same crime. They tell judges which factors can lead to a lighter sentence and which ones can result in a longer sentence.

Breyer said the U.S. Congress could act next.

"Ours, of course, is not the last word: The ball now lies in Congress' court. The national legislature is equipped to devise and install, long-term, the sentencing system compatible with the Constitution that Congress judges best for the federal system of justice," he wrote.

The ruling was a defeat for the U.S. Justice Department. It had appealed to the Supreme Court and defended the federal guidelines, arguing the federal system had been thrown into disarray by the ruling in June.

 

[rickn]

yea, what kind of BS was that anyway. A judge don't like the way the guys hair is combed, 5 more years for you.

 

[kage69]

You know John Ashcroft is probably just pissing himself over this he's so mad.

 

[1EZduzit]

Originally posted by: rickn
yea, what kind of BS was that anyway. A judge don't like the way the guys hair is combed, 5 more years for you.

That's the Bush appointees, different strokes for different folks. It's really the New Republicans manifesto, IMHO. As Bush once said, "most people call you the elite...I call you my base". He wasn't jopking around, he meant it.

 

[GoPackGo]

Originally posted by: kage69
You know John Ashcroft is probably just pissing himself over this he's so mad.

at least he will be done soon...then he can go wipe himself...


...and maybe take a bath

 

[CaptnKirk]

Have they ever gotten around to taking the drapes off of the Statue of Justice that had an exposed breast ?

Could Janet Jackson volunteer some 'Mime-Time as community service ?

 

[ECUHITMAN]

Now the problem becomes: do the people that have already been sentenced greater than the jury said get a new trial? This is not the last time it will be infront of the SC.

 

[Infohawk]

Originally posted by: ECUHITMAN
Now the problem becomes: do the people that have already been sentenced greater than the jury said get a new trial?

No. They get the shaft.

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Originally posted by: 1EZduzit

Originally posted by: rickn
yea, what kind of BS was that anyway. A judge don't like the way the guys hair is combed, 5 more years for you.

That's the Bush appointees, different strokes for different folks. It's really the New Republicans manifesto, IMHO. As Bush once said, "most people call you the elite...I call you my base". He wasn't jopking around, he meant it.

Originally posted by: 1EZduzit
It always gives me a chuckle to see one ideology try to define the other. They can't even define themselves let alone the inner working/procceses of the other side.

CsG

 

[Vic]

For the record: I only oppose mandatory minimum sentences because they are a blantant violation of the US Constitution and the checks and balances between the 3 branches of government, i.e. the legislative enacting judicial powers.

 

[Infohawk]

Originally posted by: Vic
For the record: I only oppose mandatory minimum sentences because they are a blantant violation of the US Constitution and the checks and balances between the 3 branches of government, i.e. the legislative enacting judicial powers.

Do you think Marbury v. Madison was constitutional?

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: Infohawk
Do you think Marbury v. Madison was constitutional?

Yes.

 

[Zebo]

Bout time. MM defeat the whole concept of judged by peers and separation of powers. All MM ever are in the first place is feel good legislation for slimy politicans to be seen as "tough on crime" Everyone knows, finances dictate, people get out serving only 1/3 of sentence. Unless of course DRUGS are involved then it's insane amounts of time (life in some cases) which should be legal in the first place.

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: Infohawk

Originally posted by: Vic
For the record: I only oppose mandatory minimum sentences because they are a blantant violation of the US Constitution and the checks and balances between the 3 branches of government, i.e. the legislative enacting judicial powers.

Do you think Marbury v. Madison was constitutional?

Of course the Judical Branch is the arbiter of the constitutionality of congressional legislation/executive actions. Says right there in black and white:

Section 1 - Judicial powers

The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court.....

Section 2 - Trial by Jury, Original Jurisdiction, Jury Trials

The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority...blah blah blah

Simple: Three branches of equal power.
Congress = law maker/spender
Executive = carries out the law/CNC
Judical = interpretor of the law

Which is why I find it funny when people talk about "activist judges" that's thier whole role in the first place. We should be saying "activist president" since almost every EO he signs is unconstituional both in doing so and the law he sets.

 

[glenn1]

Yay, another breach of seperation of powers. Great, so the legislature can make something illegal but should have absolutely no say in what the penalty is, only a judge in his infinite wisdom can. "Oh sure, you raped someone, but I feel like the extenuating circumstances warrant you only serving 100 hours of community service." Lovely. Can't wait for another Chief Justice Rose Bird to come along to effectively make murder legal since she refused to ever enforce the sentences as handed down. We might as well just send Congress home and just let the judiciary write the laws. I'm starting to believe that the Republican majority is onto something in considering codifying a revocation of judicial review. It's perfectly within the rights of Congress to statute Marbury v. Madison out of existence.

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: glenn1
Yay, another breach of seperation of powers. Great, so the legislature can make something illegal but should have absolutely no say in what the penalty is, only a judge in his infinite wisdom can. "Oh sure, you raped someone, but I feel like the extenuating circumstances warrant you only serving 100 hours of community service." Lovely. Can't wait for another Chief Justice Rose Bird to come along to effectively make murder legal since she refused to ever enforce the sentences as handed down. We might as well just send Congress home and just let the judiciary write the laws. I'm starting to believe that the Republican majority is onto something in considering codifying a revocation of judicial review. It's perfectly within the rights of Congress to statute Marbury v. Madison out of existence.

So that Congress could then pass whatever laws they felt like? Regardless of how unconstitutional? I don't think so. Marbury v. Madison and Supreme Court oversight is what's kept our country from mob rule for the last 200 years.

And would you mind citing just one case in which a judge sentenced a rapist to only 100 hours of communisty service? Just one please.

It was mandatory minimums which were the breach of separation of powers -- Congress presiding over the bench via legislation.

 

[Jhhnn]

Your understanding of the Federal prison system is sadly lacking, zebo. Federal prisoners only get 54 days of good time per year, meaning that they must serve at least 85% of their sentences...

States like Florida, where the citizenry refuses to actually pay for all the people they want to lock up operate entirely differently, given that it's the only way for officials to comply with federal standards. They have to find ways to keep the revolving door spinning more rapidly...

Mandatory minimums and zero tolerance policies of anything are both expressions of fear induced neuroses among the electorate... and the expressions of the willingness of politicians to both inflame and exploit such weakness...

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: Jhhnn
Mandatory minimums and zero tolerance policies of anything are both expressions of fear induced neuroses among the electorate... and the expressions of the willingness of politicians to both inflame and exploit such weakness...

Indeed...

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: Jhhnn
Your understanding of the Federal prison system is sadly lacking, zebo. Federal prisoners only get 54 days of good time per year, meaning that they must serve at least 85% of their sentences...

States like Florida, where the citizenry refuses to actually pay for all the people they want to lock up operate entirely differently, given that it's the only way for officials to comply with federal standards. They have to find ways to keep the revolving door spinning more rapidly...

Mandatory minimums and zero tolerance policies of anything are both expressions of fear induced neuroses among the electorate... and the expressions of the willingness of politicians to both inflame and exploit such weakness...

Who said anything about federal prisons? PS I agree with you though no place for non-discression in complicated matters.

 

[Zebo]

only a judge in his infinite wisdom can.

Pretty much. That's why they go to school for a very long time. Why they are confimed for life by senate. Both to be sage and relativly immune to political winds.


The SC has also ruled you as a juror, a private citizen, have the right to convict or not based on how you feel about the law. Look up jury nullification. Fastest way to get out of jury duty is tell them you think xyz law is unjust, the judge will usher you out immediatly The statists want all the power to themselves..

OMG the horror: for the people by the poeple..

Is it true or false that when you sit on a jury, you may vote on the verdict according to your own conscience. "True", you say, but then why do most judges tell you that you may consider "only the facts" and that you are not to let your conscience, opinion of the law, or the motives of the defendant affect your decision?
In a trial by jury, the judge's job is to referee the trial and provide neutral legal advice to the jury, beginning with a full and truthful explanation of a juror's rights and responsibilities.

But judges rarely "fully inform" jurors of their rights, especially their power to judge the law itself and to vote on the verdict according to conscience. Instead, they end up assisting the prosecution by dismissing any prospective juror who will admit to knowing about this right, starting with anyone who also admits having qualms with any specific law.

In fact, if you have doubts about the fairness of a law, you have the right and obligation to find someone innocent even though they have actually broken the law! John Adams, our second president, had this to say about the juror: "It is not only his right but his duty...to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court."

It was normal procedure in the early days of our country to inform juries of their right to judge the law and the defendant. And if the judge didn't tell them, the defense attorney very often would. The nation's Founders understood that trials by juries of ordinary citizens, fully informed of their powers as jurors, would confine the government to its proper role as the servant, not the master, of the people.

It was our Constitution that gave us the foundation that enables us to remain a democracy. The Constitution provides five separate tribunals with veto power Ñ representatives, senate, executive, judges and jury. Before a law gains the power to punish that law must first pass the test of each constitutionally guaranteed authority.

"Jury nullification of law", as it is sometimes called, is a traditional American right defended by the Founding Fathers. Those patriots intended that the jury serve as one of the tests a law must pass through before it assumes enough popular authority to be enforced. Our constitutional designers saw to it that each enactment of law must pass the scrutiny of these tribunals before it gains the authority to punish those who choose to violate any written law. Thomas Jefferson said, "I consider trial by jury as the only anchor yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution."

Four decades before Jefferson spoke these words, a jury had established freedom of the press in the colonies by finding John Peter Zenger not guilty of seditious libel. He had been arrested and charged for printing critical Ñ but true Ñ news stories about the Governor of New York Colony. "Truth is no defense", the court told the jury! But the jury decided to reject bad law, and acquitted.

Why? Because defense attorney Andrew Hamilton informed the jury of its rights: he related the story of William Penn's trial Ñ of the courageous London jury which refused to find him guilty of preaching Quaker religious doctrine (at that time an illegal religion). His jurors stood by their verdict even though held without food, water, or toilet facilities for four days. The jurors were fined and imprisoned for refusing to convict William Penn Ñ until England's highest court acknowledged their right to reject both law and fact and to find a verdict according to conscience. It was exercise of that right in Penn's trial which eventually led to recognition of free speech, freedom of religion, and of peaceable assembly as individual rights.

American colonial juries regularly thwarted bad law sent over from mother England. Britain then retaliated by restricting both trial by jury and other rights which juries had won or protected. Result? The Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution!

Afterwards, to forever protect all the individual rights they'd fought for from future attacks by government, the Founders of these United States in three places included trial by jury Ñ meaning tough, fully informed juries Ñ in our Constitution and Bill of Rights.

"Bad law" Ñ special-interest legislation which tramples our rights Ñ is no longer sent here from Britain. But our own legislatures keep us well supplied...That is why today, more than ever, we need juries to protect us!

Even though it was once the written law, would you vote to convict an escaped slave from the south, return him to his "Master" and to then be punished, maybe by inflecting torture and disfigurement to that escaped slave? Your answer is hopefully "NO!" But, at one time that was the law. How about burning a witch? Once too that was the law, a bad law and one that should not to be acted upon by our juries. If these laws were again passed today, how should you vote if on that trial's jury?

"If a juror accepts as the law that which the judge states then that juror has accepted the exercise of absolute authority of a government employee and has surrendered a power and right that once was the citizen's safeguard of liberty." (1788) (2 Elliots Debates, 94, Bancroft, History of the Constitution, 267)

Despite the courts' refusal to inform jurors of their historical veto power, jury nullification in liquor law trials was a major contributing factor in ending alcohol prohibition. (Today in Kentucky jurors often refuse to convict under the marijuana prohibition laws.)

Fewer incidence of jury veto actions occurred as time increased after the courts began concealing jurors' rights from American citizens and falsely instructing them that they may consider only the facts as admitted by the court. Researchers in 1966 found that jury nullification occurred only 8.8 percent of the time between 1954 and 1958, and suggested that "one reason why the jury exercises its very real power [to nullify] so sparingly is because it is officially told it has none." (California's charge to the jury in criminal cases is typical: "It becomes my duty as judge to instruct you concerning the law applicable to this case, and it is your duty as jurors to follow the law as I shall state it to you ... You are to be governed solely by the evidence introduced in this trial and the law as stated to you by me.") Today no officer of the court is allowed to tell the jury of their veto power.

To better explain to prospective jurors their rights, an explanation that is not forthcoming from our courts judges, an organization called the Fully Informed Jury Association has been established. "FIJA" is a national jury-education organization which both educates juries and promotes laws to require that judges resume telling trial jurors "the whole truth" about their rights, or at least to allow lawyers to tell them. FIJA believes "liberty and justice for all" won't return to America until the citizens are again fully informed of their power as jurors, and routinely put it to good use.

About 18 months ago, armed with a number of pamphlets explaining the importance to each of us in having the courts fully inform juries of their rights, I stood in the Mendocino County Courthouse. I had been talking about this issue, with courthouse visitors when I was "invited" into Judge James Luther's courtroom by two of his bailiffs. Judge Luther, showed me how in general our courts have eroded. I was told to stop talking to my fellow citizens about their constitutional rights. Their right to understand a jury's role in the court procedure. I was told to stop or be arrested for jury tampering.

We can only speculate on why there is a general distrust by judges. A distrust of our citizen jurys to decide on the fairness of laws that are often enacted by self-serving legislators? Disrespect for the idea of government "of, by, and for the people"? Unwillingness to part with their power? Ignorance of all the rights and powers that trial jurors necessarily acquire upon assuming the responsibility of judging a case? Actual concern that trial jurors might "misuse" their power if told about it? How can people get fair trials if the jurors are told they can't use their consciences?

If jurors were supposed to judge "only the facts", their job could be done by computer. It is precisely because people have feelings, opinions, wisdom, experience, and conscience that we depend upon jurors, not upon machines, to judge court cases.

Why is so little known about what is now called "jury nullification"? In the late 1800's, a number of powerful special-interest groups (not unlike many we have with us today) inspired a series of judicial decisions which tried to limit jury rights. While no court has yet dared to deny that juries can "nullify" or "veto" a law, or can bring in a "general verdict", they have held that jurors need not be told about these rights!

However, jury veto power is still recognized. In 1972 the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals held that the trial jury has an "...unreviewable and irreversible power...to acquit in disregard of the instruction on the law given by the trial judge. The pages of history shine upon instances of the jury's exercise of its prerogative to disregard instructions of the judge; for example, acquittals under the fugitive slave law (473F 2dl 113)

Today thousands of harmless citizens are in prison only because their trial juries were not fully informed, and the U.S. now leads the world in percent of population behind bars! More prisons are being built than ever before for those whose "crime" effects no one but themselves.

We need to be wary and/or critical of any proposals to "streamline" the jury system, or to create jurisdictions or regulations which "do not require" trial by jury (two of the means by which your power as a juror is stolen!) We now hear about plans to allow a court to find a person guilty of a crime with less then a 12-0 vote.

To find out more about jury nullification and FIJA call 800-TEL-JURY and record your name and address. Or call FIJA National at (406) 793-5550.

Copyright Mendocino College Eagle 1995
Permission granted to excerpt or use this article if source is cited

http://www.greenmac.com/eagle/ISSUES/ISSUE23-9/07JuryNullification.html