At recent Pioneer Institute event SJC Chief Justice Ralph Gants used his time to decry mandatory criminal sentencing in a well thought articulate presentation based on law and facts.
Following Gants on the Playbill was Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel Conley who, upon hearing Judge Gants’ remarks, threw away his notes and went broken arrow.
This lightweight who thinks he’s a super heavyweight ripped into Gants in what has been described by many there as very unprofessional. (a lawyer can disagree with a judge but the higher the judge the outward respect shown rises exponentially. The SJC Chief is BIG regardless and Dan talked down to him. Punk.)
Dan said Gants and those who think like him are a mess. The broken window policies 1990s work is his mantra.
AND
DISTRCT ATTORNEYS KNOW BETTER THAN JUDGES AND EVEREYONE ELSE WHAT THE PROPER SENTENCES FOR CRIMINALS ARE AND MANDATORY SENTENCING MAKES SURE THEY CAN CONTROL SENTENCING RATHER THAN JUST RECCOMMEND.
That is Dan Conley’s position.
Real simple folks.
Public policy and we as schmucks want our district attorney to have discretion. It’s a good thing. That’s why they have a lot of discretion. We want that. Let’s them clean out the shit. Take each case and each person as a new hand of cards and play what you have. Therefore they can stop bad stuff from happening. We want that. People make bad decisions and sometimes cops make bad decisions. (I know, hard to believe, but they do)
And if the D.A. is being a dick on a case, which they are often and by often, I mean every single day somewhere; you can plead your case to a judge and/or jury.
THEN if your found guilty you can plead your circumstances to the judge who then will consider all the relevant facts on this particular case and hand out what she thinks is a fair sentence.
That’s how it works. Goes back to all this Greek shit about justice and stuff. Fucking law schools around the world are full of poindexters who all agree on this basic principal. It’s a given.
The judge is the fairest person in the courtroom. Not the lawyers. And especially not lawyer politicians elected to be there, like the D.A.
Mandatory sentencing flips this around. The judge can’t change the charge the D.A. brought and can’t consider anything in sentencing unless she wants to up the minimum mandatory.
BUT Dan says he knows best so there should be mandatory sentencing allowing him to charge someone and determine the sentence.
Did you know there are people serving minimum mandatories because the car they were in was pulled over within a school zone rather than a block or two before or after? That’s how mandatory sentencing is used btw. OR
Remember the kid in school who first sold fireworks, then football cards and finally in his junior year sold bones and small bags? Remember him? An American icon.
Anyway, having never been arrested for anything, should he do mandatory jail time for getting caught by the school police officer passing a nickel bag in the boy’s room? Dan says yes.
Unless he decides no. But that’s his decision and his alone. Capiche? I’m Dan Conley and I’m important.
D.A.s are suppose to see that people don’t get screwed like this. But they don’t.
Question: Why do our state treasurers have to be 100% supporters of the lottery and why do many D.A.s feel they have to charge everyone with the toughest crime available and follow through with the gusto of The Incredible Hulk?
I not gonna mention the opportunities corupt district attorneys and assistant district atorneys have to make milions of dollars when there is big criminal money invested in their seemingly everyday decisons. Like not charging drug dealers with mandaotory minimums but a lessor charge. Opportunities aren’t as great without the mandatory minimums.
Who is going to run against Dan Conley in three years?
SomervilleTom says
First, it’s not just just school zones. The language of the law is “within 1000 feet for a school or 100 feet of a park or playground”. Not just public schools either — ANY school. The effect of this is to impose a 2 year minimum prison term on ANYBODY possessing a “controlled substance” within an ENORMOUS portion of an urban area. Our affluent suburbs, being far less dense, have a far smaller portion of their area subject to this law.
The bottom line is that poor minorities, who live in dense urban areas like Boston, Lowell, and Lawrence, are many times more likely to be jailed for 2 years than affluent whites who live in the suburbs — even though both are convicted of possessing the SAME controlled substance.
These minimum sentencing laws are an example of how “liberal” Massachusetts currently oppresses our minority populations.
Christopher says
On the one hand it seems like possession should either be criminal or not regardless of geography, and lately I’ve been inclined to favor civil penalties for possession and treatment for using and save jail for the pushers especially to children and again regardless of how close to a school said pushing is being done, though I could still see differences for actually being on school property.
On the other hand part of me wants to retort with something like well, if you had not possessed the illegal substance in the first place, which unless you are claiming you were set up you didn’t have to, we wouldn’t have to worry about the fairness of the location now, would we?
SomervilleTom says
I’m inclined to agree with you if the offense happens on school property. Not in a park, not in a playground.
I think your first phrase has it right. We’re back to de facto segregation again. If the minimum sentencing law results in minorities getting extended prison sentences and suburban residents getting probation — while both are possessing the same amount of the same controlled substance — then the law is, in my view, discriminatory.
Your other argument — “if you had not possessed ..” — fails on two grounds. First, it is still discriminatory, because the minority faces consequences that the suburbanite can ignore. Second, it fails for the same reason that “If you have nothing to hide …” fails to be an adequate answer to objections about Fourth Amendment protections against improper search.
Urban minorities deserve to be protected from discriminatory sentences for doing the same things their suburban counterparts do with impunity.
sue-kennedy says
mandatory sentences. That if everyone convicted of that crime received the same sentence, there would be pressure to make the sentences reasonable. Like parking tickets.
What penalty would be reasonable for your mother, son, uncle or wife who is busted for DUI, drugs, theft? Not one application of justice for those we can identify with and different rules for… well should not being able to afford college justify a harsher sentence?
Is it racism or just easier to charge folks that can’t afford all star defense teams? There must be some explanation why undercover drug agents drive past college frat houses to prowl for drugs in certain neighborhoods. Why broken windows policing is applied to selling looseys, while the Wall St. bankseters skate free.
What was disappointing was to see fairness in sentencing was subverted by prosecutorial discrimination in the application of charges.
Christopher says
I hear endless whining when I speak to a kid about his behavior that, “but he did it too!” Worry about yourself, wiseguy – I caught YOU this time. Yeah, there’s always going to be a bit of life not being fair, but I agree with Sue that mandatory minima theoretically would level the playing field, yet liberals tend to object to them.
SomervilleTom says
I hear you. I’ve raised five children, I’m quite familiar with the excuse. 🙂
Still, if a collection of parents showed that you, for example, gave detention to boys 80% of the time and girls 20% of the time, then those parents would have a legitimate beef about the gender discrimination that results from your policy, regardless of its intent.
Christopher says
…I get up the nerve to pull the trigger on detention:) As a sub I might be pushed into removing someone who’s disruption has gone too far, but mostly I leave a note for the regular teacher and let them handle it. FWIW, the 80/20 gender split sounds about right in my experience. Behavior itself seems to have a notable gender bias.
SomervilleTom says
My sample of 2 daughters and 3 sons taught me that my sons were less effective in hiding their misbehavior, and less persuasive in avoiding discipline afterwards. I’m pretty sure that they were pretty comparable in their actual misdeeds, now that they’re all old enough to be more sharing about what actually actually happened around here when they were all much younger. 🙂
Christopher says
…that boys are more likely than girls to be disruptive, so in terms of what I as a teacher care about at a particular moment that’s what I’m going by. Of course the penalties should be the same.
eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says
how dare you notice any differnce bt boys and girls?
I suppoose you will also say there is a difference between mothers and fathers.
How dare you?
eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says
there is a difference bt boys and girls? What about mothers and fathers?
hesterprynne says
From Chief Justice Gants’ report:
In fiscal year 2013, 450 defendants were given mandatory minimum sentences on governing drug offenses. In that year, which is the most recent year for which data are available, racial and ethnic minorities comprised 32% of all convicted offenders, 55% of all those convicted of non-mandatory drug distribution offenses, and 75% of all those convicted of mandatory drug offenses. I do not suggest that there is intentional discrimination, but the numbers do not lie about the disparate impact of mandatory minimum drug sentences.