Doug Berman reports of a 10th Circuit decision reducing the sentences of $40 million Ponzi-schemers Norman Schmidt and Charles Lewis.
The district court properly calculated Schmidt’s guidelines sentencing range and he has not overcome the presumption of reasonableness of his within-guidelines 330-year sentence (which is reduced to 310 years by our setting aside his convictions on four counts).
What a bunch of softies, cutting sentences willy-nilly and letting these guys fall through the cracks. Though as Doug notes:
I suspect that Schmidt won’t be too eager to celebrate the fact that his projected release date has now been moved up from the early fall of 2291 to the early fall of 2271. Indeed, because Schmidt is in his mid 70s, I would wager he won’t end up serving even one-tenth of his new sentence. Just leave it to a white-collar scoundrel to find a technicality like life expect any to ensure he never has to serve the bulk of his (apparently reasonable) prison sentence.
The point is that people perceive our system as unduly lenient, pro-defendant, soft on crime. This despite the fact that sentences of multiple lifetimes are considered reasonable punishment for non-violent crimes. I keep suggesting to white-collar defendants that they might as well kill a few of the people they don’t like while they’re at it, since it’s not like a few more years on the back end is going to hurt any.
What makes the American public see the system in such a bizarrely false way? We’ve got more people, per capita and in real numbers, in prison than anywhere else on the planet, and still that’s not enough to sate the lust.
Jonathon Simon at PrawfsBlawg attributes it to our glorious cinematic heritage.
It’s clear from the comments here, mostly from non-lawyers, Texans and personal injury lawyers, that Dirty Harry remains very much in their thoughts. Anger and revenge, exemplified by the desire to shoot people for walking on their lawn, as well as the desire to shoot people for posting on a blawg suggesting that they should not shoot people for walking on their lawn, prevail. There’s a lot of anger out there.
It doesn’t appear that we will shake this misperception by logic or reason. It’s not grounded in logic or reason, and no amount of cases to the contrary appear to change it. While people may agree that a particular outcome is unjust, they are still stuck on the notion that the system as a whole is notoriously soft on crime. The fact that our government, regardless of who sits in the big chair, feeds into this national psychosis for its own benefit, the maintenance of power and control through fear, doesn’t help, but it similarly doesn’t force people to stay with the program. We can stop drinking the Kool-Aid anytime we want. We just, apparently, don’t want to.
If Simon is right, there is only one thing to do. Make a movie. Where are the anti-Utopian movie makes, the Aldous Huxleys and George Orwells of this generation. Get their agent to call James Cameron’s agent and put a deal together to create the movie that will change it all. Forget Michael Moore. We need a big movie, not some Indy puff piece about justice and a fat guy with a microphone. Special Effects are critical.
Until then, we can take hope from the 10th Circuit cutting 20 years off the back end of a 330 year sentence. Break out the bubbly. Reasonableness has been achieved. Justice was done.
What makes the American public see the system in such a bizarrely false way? We’ve got more people, per capita and in real numbers, in prison than anywhere else on the planet, and still that’s not enough to sate the lust.
Jonathon Simon at PrawfsBlawg attributes it to our glorious cinematic heritage.
[M]ost Americans still imagine our courts to be the leaky and lenient institutions they were (unfairly) depicted as being in 1970s backlash movies like Dirty Harry (1971). As our justice system comes instead increasingly to resemble the hardened core of the robotic killing machines in the Terminator series, our ability to set proper limits to our own quest for security is very much in question.
It’s clear from the comments here, mostly from non-lawyers, Texans and personal injury lawyers, that Dirty Harry remains very much in their thoughts. Anger and revenge, exemplified by the desire to shoot people for walking on their lawn, as well as the desire to shoot people for posting on a blawg suggesting that they should not shoot people for walking on their lawn, prevail. There’s a lot of anger out there.
It doesn’t appear that we will shake this misperception by logic or reason. It’s not grounded in logic or reason, and no amount of cases to the contrary appear to change it. While people may agree that a particular outcome is unjust, they are still stuck on the notion that the system as a whole is notoriously soft on crime. The fact that our government, regardless of who sits in the big chair, feeds into this national psychosis for its own benefit, the maintenance of power and control through fear, doesn’t help, but it similarly doesn’t force people to stay with the program. We can stop drinking the Kool-Aid anytime we want. We just, apparently, don’t want to.
If Simon is right, there is only one thing to do. Make a movie. Where are the anti-Utopian movie makes, the Aldous Huxleys and George Orwells of this generation. Get their agent to call James Cameron’s agent and put a deal together to create the movie that will change it all. Forget Michael Moore. We need a big movie, not some Indy puff piece about justice and a fat guy with a microphone. Special Effects are critical.
Until then, we can take hope from the 10th Circuit cutting 20 years off the back end of a 330 year sentence. Break out the bubbly. Reasonableness has been achieved. Justice was done.
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Well, all the cop shows on TV don’t help. With all those defendants getting off just because the cop beat him till he talked or my favorite, “got to get em to talk before the lawyer gets here.”
Recently I read of the first conviction in Cleveland, OH of tampering with evidence for refusing a breathalyzer in a DUI. Seems the suspension of license just wasn’t cutting it.
The County Prosecutor/Author of the law:
“It is mandatory, and the jury agreed that Mr. Simin broke that law and deserved prison time. Bottom line: It doesn’t pay to refuse to cooperate. It will increase your sentence.”
I attribute it to public choice theory–the harmed group of potential criminal defendants is diffuse, the law and order DA/cop/prison/government union conglomerate is focused, thus it is motivated to exert tremendous lobbying pressure. The general public, with little incentive to become as informed as a subscriber to your blog or mine or Reason, buys the “let’s lock up the bad guys and throw the keys away” mentality.
Moreover, given the dems love the union members and the Republicans love the phony tought on crime stance, we have true bipartisanship.
Meanwhile, where the heck is the defense bar and where has it ever been–AWOL. Back in 2006 I heard Colorado had obtained a brand new hot and tough criminal defense lobbyist. Never heard a word about her or any efforts. The state PD does some putting the finger in the dyke stuff, but that’s about it.
Maybe other criminal defense types should study upper division economics to figure this stuff out, instead of constantly preaching to the choir of die hard liberals.
We all know the type: they’ve got a conservative jury, but try their cases as if they’ve got 10 blacks in Oakland and two white hippies.