As always, the Party of GnOP has found multiple issues to attack a minority candidate that are based on a gross distortion of realities.  The big charge has to do with how Judge Jackson has been imposing sentences for child pornography.  To understand the allegations, you first need to know the basics.

When Congress or state legislators pass a criminal statute, they establish a penalty for a violation.  With limited exceptions, most statutes do not establish a precise penalty.  Instead, they create a range of punishment.  The concept behind having a range of punishment is to permit individualized punishment.  However, in creating a range, the legislature is attempting to define the penalties that are appropriate for most cases.  Thus, for example, stealing a car might have a penalty of up to seven years.  That’s not a decision that seven years is the appropriate penalty for the offense.  Rather, it’s a decision that a case that merits more than seven years will be so rare that it makes sense to take such a long sentence off the table.  On the other hand, murder might have a range of ten years to life.  Again, that’s not a decision that ten years is the appropriate penalty in any specifc case, but that the cases in which a sentence of lower than ten years will be so rare that it makes sense to take penalties less than ten years off the table.  For some statutes, often referred to as mandatory minimums although that is inaccurate as all offenses have statutory minimums, the law precludes a court from considering probation as an alternative to the authorized sentences.

In addition to the statutes defining range of punishment, most jurisdictions have a set of statutes defining what courts should consider in imposing sentences.  For federal courts, the law requires the court to consider four factors, but those factors are what most scholars have discussed for decades as the four considerations that are appropriate in sentencing.  The first factor is retribution — i.e. what is an appropriate penalty for the conduct.   The second factor is deterrence — creating a disincentive for commission of a crime.  This factor is both individual (what will teach this offender a lesson about the consequences if he reoffends) and collective (what punishment will scare othe potential offenders).  The third factor is incapacitation — what is needed to prevent this offender from reoffending.  The final factor is rehabilitation.   The law further requires the penalty to be no greater than is needed to satisfy those four concerns. Continue Reading...