Hank
Active Member
Mandatory minimums only exist because politicians know that people like the sound of 'getting tough on crime'. They do absolutely nothing towards preventing crime; all they really do is tie a judge's hands. By having them we're basically saying that we don't trust our judges to give a punishment appropriate to the crime. If that is a problem (and I don't personally think that it is) we should be looking into that, not into circumventing the problem with mandatory minimums.
The other bad thing about mandatory minimums is that they take away the ability of a judge to deal with compassionate cases. The only reason Latimer was found guilty is because the trial judge told the jury that he could give him a sentence less than the mandatory minimum of 10 years for second-degree murder. Unfortunately the trial judge was wrong, and he got the full 10 years on appeal. What this suggests is that he would have been found not guilty by the jury if they'd been properly informed about the minimum sentence by the trial judge. Did Latimer deserve to get off scott free? Maybe, but you could also argue that he deserved something between 0 and 10 years...unfortunately that option was removed by the mandatory minimum. What it does in these cases is force judges and juries to choose between an overly harsh sentance or an overly lenient sentance neither of which, by definition, are appropriate to the crime.
The point about US laws is a good one as well. Their 'war on drugs' is a miserable failure despite ridiculous 10-year mandatory minimums for a plethora of drug crimes.
The other bad thing about mandatory minimums is that they take away the ability of a judge to deal with compassionate cases. The only reason Latimer was found guilty is because the trial judge told the jury that he could give him a sentence less than the mandatory minimum of 10 years for second-degree murder. Unfortunately the trial judge was wrong, and he got the full 10 years on appeal. What this suggests is that he would have been found not guilty by the jury if they'd been properly informed about the minimum sentence by the trial judge. Did Latimer deserve to get off scott free? Maybe, but you could also argue that he deserved something between 0 and 10 years...unfortunately that option was removed by the mandatory minimum. What it does in these cases is force judges and juries to choose between an overly harsh sentance or an overly lenient sentance neither of which, by definition, are appropriate to the crime.
The point about US laws is a good one as well. Their 'war on drugs' is a miserable failure despite ridiculous 10-year mandatory minimums for a plethora of drug crimes.