Finally a touch of sanity from Washington – We have long advocated that sentencing guidelines are a failed experiment. Rather than minimizing disparity in sentencing as originally intended, sentencing guidelines have only lead to the politicizing of criminal sentencing. Instead of promoting justice, they have provided further opportunity for politicians to grandstand about being “tough on crime” rather than allowing judges to make individualized, thoughtful, sentencing decisions. Any step to do away or minimize the use minimum mandatory sentencing, zero-tolerance policies, or other formulaic approaches to sentencing is step in the right direction – a step towards a more sane and just criminal justice system. We applaud this move (although the better headline for this New York Times piece would be, “Holder and Republicans Unite to Bring Some Sanity to Sentencing Laws”).
