Mandatory Minimum Sentences: War on Judges

MANDATORY MINIMUM SENTENCING LAWS: Hog-tying judges, while giving sentencing power to prosecutors

In the 1980s, our Democratic Congress passed mandatory minimum sentencing laws requiring severe and harsh fixed prison terms for “drug offenses” in an effort to show Republicans they too could be tough on drugs. In doing so, they took the power of sentencing away from judges, hog-tying them, and handed the job over to prosecutors. These sentencing laws, aimed at major drug kingpins (think Pablo Escobar), were supposed to be a quick fix to the burgeoning crack cocaine problem. Instead, over the years, mandatory minimums have been used—widely and mainly—on low-level drug dealers; addicts themselves who sell drugs in order to maintain a supply for their own habit. They don’t live in mansions with swimming pools; they don’t drive Mercedes Benzes. The majority are poor, ethnic, and underrepresented.

These "one-size-fits-all" sentencing laws have created many unintended consequences: families torn apart, young people rotting half their lives away in prison for 10, 15, 20 years, sometimes life—and for what? Being addicted? They’ve traded one prison: addiction, for another: incarceration. What they need is rehabilitation.

When Congress passed these laws to fight the 'war on drugs'—which we now know to be a failed war—dozens of federal judges resigned in protest; they never felt their job was to be a 'rubber stamp'. 

The Declaration of Independence states that government is only legitimate to the degree that it protects our rights to "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." When we have over 2 million people in jail for nonviolent drug 'crimes', it’s clear that our basic right to liberty is being infringed on by people who have seized the reins of government for their own personal and political gain. 

The founding fathers knew that not everyone would be guaranteed a "Fair Outcome", but a fair chance at a fair outcome was their goal. If a prosecutor believes that a specific sentence is warranted, she should advocate for that sentence. If her reasons are sound and she is an effective advocate, she will get it. Juries usually get it right. In the end, it is the judge who should determine the sentence, and her hands should be free to do so, on a case-by-case basis.

It’s the current practice of prosecutors to offer harsher sentences for those demanding a jury trial hoping the accused will take a “plea.” That kind of blackmail makes a mockery of the constitutional right of trial by jury, and forces those who are innocent to plead guilty, since, as their lawyers tell them, a jury trial could go either way. Prosecutors too often rely on the crutch of a mandatory minimum, which guarantees that the defendant will receive a harsh sentence without the prosecutor having to convince the judge that such a sentence is deserved. (Pablo Escobar took a plea of 5 years. The average for everyone else is 15 years; 5 years more than the murderer, the rapist, the child molester.)

We now have over 2.5 million people incarcerated, about 2 million of them for nonviolent crimes. And we have another 4.5 million citizens on probation, again mostly for nonviolent crimes. Convicted felons can't vote, are not eligible to receive student loans, and chances of finding a decent job when they get out are slim to none.

Mandatory minimums for nonviolent “drug crimes” deserve a bipartisan look by Congress. Judges can be relied upon to determine an appropriate sentence. Prosecutors can't. Until then, no defendant under these sentencing laws has a fair chance. 

Congress, untie our judges’ hands.