Sadly, Adam fell flat again on this one. Man, I can’t begin to tell you how disappointed I am in Adam. After his disastrously bad piece on the bright side of the death penalty, he was clawing his way back to credibility. And now this New York Times piece. Adam, Adam, Adam. What are you thinking, man?
Unfortunately, Liptak took his usual thorough review of all sides by including the thoughts of 2 law professors and a United States Attorney. Fortunately, one of those lawprofs is Douglas Berman of Sentencing Policy and Law, who at least knows what he’s talking about. But it still provides the academic perspective. What about the trenches?
Then, Adam takes a hard right turn off the SCOTUS path toward the Guidelines Commission, because three pro-defense decisions by the Supreme Court these days isn’t important enough to write about. This morning, the Guidelines Commission is supposed to decide whether the revised crack guidelines should be made retroactive, notwithstanding Hillary’s opposition.
The connection is that these sentencing decisions, where the Supreme Court in Kimbrough made clear that the prospective change in the crack guidelines makes it hard to defend holding about 20,000 people to their sentences based upon a now-discredited 100 to 1 sentencing disparity ratio is
So where does Adam turn for a quote?
“We are going to see an influx of the very people who are most likely to re-offend and are most likely to upset these fragile neighborhoods,” Gretchen C. F. Shappert, the United States attorney in Charlotte, N.C., told the commission.
“The impact of 19,500 defendants in the criminal justice system will be profound,” Ms. Shappert continued. “That is 25 percent of all defendants who were sentenced in federal court in 2006 and represents 10 percent of the entire criminal population” in federal prisons.
And for a different perspective . . . zip. zero. nada. nothing. silence. Now I’m not of the view that there are always two sides to every story, but there is definitely a view other than the government’s when it comes to the retroactivity of the crack guidelines. Not to mention, there are some practical matters that come into play as far as Liptak’s discussion of Gall and Kimbrough. But you wouldn’t know it to read him today.
It’s not that Liptak doesn’t write an interesting column. It’s just that it belongs on Fox or the New York Post instead of the New York Times. Here’s an irony. When I spellcheck my posts, Liptak always comes up as lapdog. I wonder what spellcheck knows that I don’t.
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Liptak Headed To Washington
As has been widely reported, New York Times Supreme Court correspondent, Linda Greenhouse, has hung up her spurs and
taken an “academic” position at Yale Law School, after accepting a very sweet buyout.