Doug Berman posts at Sentencing Law & Policy about a sentence imposed by a District Court judge in Bangor, Maine, which stretches even the hardest criminal lawyer’s heart to the breaking point. From the Bangor Daily News :
U.S. District Judge John Woodcock last month sentenced Quinta Layin Tuleh, 28, to 238 days in federal prison for having fake documents. Woodcock said the sentence would ensure that Tuleh’s baby, due Aug. 29, has a good chance of being born free of the AIDS virus.
Both the federal prosecutor and the defense attorney urged the judge to sentence Tuleh to 114 days, or time served, according to a transcript of the sentencing hearing. Woodcock instead ignored the federal sentencing guidelines and calculated her sentence to coincide with her due date.
Talk about an activist judge, it doesn’t get more overt than this. But it’s awfully hard to fault the judge’s good intentions. Idealogical issues aside, no one wants to see a baby born with AIDS, and who amongst us wouldn’t want to do something to help? Judge Woodcock made no bones about his purpose.
Woodcock told Tuleh at her sentencing on May 14 in U.S. District Court that he was not imposing the longer prison term to punish her further but to protect her unborn child. He said that the defendant was more likely to receive medical treatment and follow a drug regimen in federal prison than out on her own or in the custody of immigration officials. The judge also said that his decision was based entirely on her HIV status. If Tuleh were pregnant but not infected with the AIDS virus, he would have sentenced her to time served.
One might well question whether the judge puts a bit more stock in the fine medical care available to prisoners, but cynicism aside, his flagrant abuse of his sentencing power at least serves a greater good. Certainly, judges have abused their power before for reasons far less worthy.
There really can be no rational basis in law for imposing this sentence. Protecting an unborn child by assuring the provision of medical care is simply not one of the available bases for a judge to impose a sentence. Nowhere in Section 3553 is the welfare of a child mentioned. The point is clearly made by the MCLU:
Institutionally, this is a terrible precedent, leaving it up to the sensibilities of individual judges to ignore the limits of their authority whenever something comes along where they feel that they can further an agenda in which the believe, stay a harm that they feel needs staying, and help in a way that they believe deserves help.
But this was a baby. It’s just so hard to argue against protecting a baby.
There really can be no rational basis in law for imposing this sentence. Protecting an unborn child by assuring the provision of medical care is simply not one of the available bases for a judge to impose a sentence. Nowhere in Section 3553 is the welfare of a child mentioned. The point is clearly made by the MCLU:
“Judges cannot lock a woman up simply because she is sick and pregnant,” [Zachary Heiden, legal director for the MCLU] said. “Judges have enormous discretion in imposing sentences, and that is appropriate. But jailing someone is punishment — it is depriving them of liberty. That deprivation has to be justified, and illness or pregnancy is not justification for imprisonment.”There’s no legally cognizable counterargument. And yet, there’s a baby to think about. Judge Woodcock did his best to fashion his sentence as if it fell under the deterrence prong of 3553, stating the this could be deemed an assault on her baby when born, and knowing that there is a likelihood that she will assault her baby when born, he must act to prevent that assault by deterring her conduct by keeping her incarcerated. It was a valiant try, quite imaginative, but it’s hard to believe that even the judge bought it. He said enough words to give it the color of legitimacy, so that his sentence would last long enough to keep her in until the baby was born. He could be reversed afterward, but by then the issue would be past.
Institutionally, this is a terrible precedent, leaving it up to the sensibilities of individual judges to ignore the limits of their authority whenever something comes along where they feel that they can further an agenda in which the believe, stay a harm that they feel needs staying, and help in a way that they believe deserves help.
But this was a baby. It’s just so hard to argue against protecting a baby.
Discover more from Simple Justice
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Stories like this, paired with the rise in problem-solving courts, have various endings (legal and otherwise). One thing that never changes is this: judges want to do more. They want to be effective. Yet, they have very few options by which to achieve this goal.
Whenever the law and system fall short, people (including judges) will step in and try to fill the gap.
So, I see this story more of another example of that rather than “activist,” etc.
I’m dubious that a judge acting ultra vires is less an “activist” because his motives are laudable.
It always starts with a difficult situation and good intentions—protect the innocent, save the children, keep the baby from getting AIDS—and so someone creates the narrowest of exceptions….
Yup. It always seems like such a reasonable thing when it starts.
It’s interesting that the judge explained his reasons for acting ultra vires, rather than doing so under the guise of further punishing the defendant. I suppose I have to credit him for that; indeed, I’d really prefer that abusive judges tell us straightaway about their abuses, so that we can push to impeach them.