Posted By:
warshawlawI am personally far more at ease with a judge who has actually heard the evidence and can consider it controlling a sentence than with a judge being forced to look at a book and pick a sentence. We are having a lot of trouble here with sentencing mandates, both because at times the sentence doesn't fit the crime and because of the overall effect on our prison system of warehousing so many non-violent criminals for so long. While I am satisfied that Skilling is going to do a long stint given the current law, I do not think that our approach to crimes like his is sensible. Frankly, we don't need to waste $40,000 or more a year segregating Jeff Skilling from society; we need that money and the jail space to pay for incarcerating violent or crazy people. One of the reasons why violent offenders are paroled is that so many non-violent criminals are doing long stints, overcrowding the system with people who don't need to be there. I am of the view that prisons should be reserved for criminals whose acts pose an immediate life and safety threat for others, not for white collar offenders. Force them (under threat of prison if they don't cooperate) to cough up and pool all of their assets for their victims, let them spend years in state and Federal civil courts dealing with class actions and other suits brought by their victims, and make them spend the rest of their time on unpleasant community service work details. Break them financially and force them to live like the people they've victimized: impoverished in a brutally unsupportive society that is singular among the developed nations in lts lack of social safety net, public health care system, etc. A lifetime spent testifying against yourself, doing community service (freeway trash pick-up sounds good, or perhaps cleaning public toilets), living in slums and eating cat food sounds like better justice to me than putting the guy on a military base to garden.