Do you favor mandatory sentencing?

[Stinky The Clown]

Do you favor removing discretion from the judicial quiver?

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

1. Ridiculous.

[spanone]

2. absolutely not...

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

3. No.

There's always odd and circumstantial cases that fall outside of the typical act of particular crimes.
Such crimes need sentancing that is appropriate.

Juddges need the wiggle room to reduce sentances to people who have broken the law however increase fines/dsentances to those who require it.

[me b zola]

4. No! n/t

[Glorfindel]

5. No, sir, I do not support mandatory sentencing

n/t

[JuniperLea]

6. Yes, and no...

Premeditated, cold blooded murder should be a mandatory life sentence (or death in states where the people have determined that's the route they want to go).

Other than that, life is so many shades of grey... there are no absolute situations or circumstances.

My fear with the Roeder case is that a punk ass jury could have whined and said "we won't convict" if something is pulled off the table... I'm assuming this is where your question arose.

[Stinky The Clown]

10. I disagree with you only on the matter of the death penalty

Well ..... that and the mandatory life for cold blooded murder. For those cases I favor the current system (in some jurisdictions) of sentencing guidelines. Which are far too often taken as mandatory.

[JuniperLea]

12. I'm anti-death penalty...

But I'm pro-law by the people... sort of like how I hate abortion, but I'm pro-choice.

I'll stick by mandatory life for premeditated (also known as cold blooded) murder... I don't want anyone who can bring themselves to the point of killing another human being to be out in public ever again. Once a mind has snapped to that degree, there's no guarantee it won't snap again.

[anonymous171]

7. For white collar crimes, yes. nt

[Vincardog]

8. Are you serious? Mandatory sentences are as bad an idea as 'enemy combatants' being guilty by being...

charged.

[Stinky The Clown]

11. Yes, I was serious ......

.... in asking the question.

Why do so many people seem to assume that if one asks a question one is advocating for a position?

[Vincardog]

13. In that case my answer is NO, with the exception of mandatory sentences for stupidity

My stupidity that is

[Luciferous]

9. It depends on the crime: yes for violent offenses, no for nonviolent offenses

[Jkid]

14. Absolutely not.

Judges should have the discretion to determine their own sentences based on guidelines. But mandatory starting points for sentences, as long as judges still have discretion? Then yes.

[ThomWV]

15. They go nicely with Robot Judges and ID-scanner justice.