In a message dated 4/12/00 1:43:33 PM Central Daylight Time, lee@piclab.com
writes:
> I don't care how heinous the crime, mandatory
> sentence laws are _always_ bad. We hire judges to do just that--
> judge--and then remove their ability to exercise human judgment in
> favor of blindly following a legislated script.
US Federal judges have been dealing with lots of mandatory sentences for a
long time. All the ones I've talked to or read comments by HATE them. They
say that mandatory sentences result in palpable injustice too often and
causes absurd charging and plea bargaining when even the prosecutors can't
stand to see them applied.
Greg Burch <GBurch1@aol.com>----<gburch@lockeliddell.com>
Attorney ::: Vice President, Extropy Institute ::: Wilderness Guide
http://users.aol.com/gburch1 -or- http://members.aol.com/gburch1
ICQ # 61112550
"We never stop investigating. We are never satisfied that we know
enough to get by. Every question we answer leads on to another
question. This has become the greatest survival trick of our species."
-- Desmond Morris
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