Mandatory Sentencing Laws Essay ⋆ Criminal Justice Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Mandatory sentencing laws restrict judicial discretion in sentencing, ensuring that criminal sentences imposed in the courts reflect the punishments intended by the lawmakers who enacted the law. In this way, mandatory laws may reduce sentencing disparity. Mandatory sentencing laws can (and often do) set legal maximums (ceilings), but they also sometimes set legal minimums (floors). Mandatory minimum sentencing laws, usually focusing on a single sentencing factor, are controversial, and have been opposed by many sentencing experts. Nevertheless, mandatory sentencing laws such as habitual felon legislation, mandatory drug penalties, and sentencing enhancements for the possession of firearms have been enacted in many jurisdictions. Like other forms of sentencing, mandatory sentencing laws are intended to satisfy multiple penological objectives, including rehabilitation, but mandatory penalties are associated particularly with principles of deterrence, incapacitation, and retribution (just deserts).

Mandatory Laws and Sentencing Disparities

Inequalities and disparities plague all sentencing systems. Sentencing disparities based upon race, gender, age, and class plague many jurisdictions. In indeterminate sentencing systems that rely heavily upon parole decisions, one offender, saying the right things to members of the parole board, might be released after one year, while an identical offender, less eloquent but no more blameworthy, might be incarcerated for 10 years. Even in determinate sentencing systems that eliminate or curb parole and require offenders to serve most or all of their sentences (truth in sentencing), identical defendants might receive wildly different sentences, depending on the penological views of the particular sentencing judges. One judge, influenced by rehabilitation, might sentence an offender to probation; another judge, guided by philosophies of retribution, might impose a lengthy prison sentence.

In 1973, Judge Marvin Frankel characterized this kind of sentencing disparity as “judicial lawlessness.” He noted that numerous federal statutes imposed absolute judicial discretion (for example, rape committed within federal jurisdiction was punishable by death or imprisonment for any term of years or life) and he warned against the abuses inherent in any sentencing system that conferred such broad discretion. One means of limiting this kind of judicial discretion is to set criminal penalties by law. Influential theorists Cesare Beccaria and Jeremy Bentham both advocated this approach, suggesting that once the penal law is written, the role of the judge should be limited, so as not to be swayed by personal sympathies.

Mandatory sentencing laws can limit both the maximum and minimum penalties associated with a crime. Many offenses specify a maximum penalty for an offense and thereby set a sentencing “ceiling.” For example, a misdemeanor crime such as petty theft or vandalism might be punishable by up to 12 months in jail. Most of the time people refer to mandatory sentencing laws, however, they are referring to laws that establish sentencing “floors.” When imposing mandatory minimum sentences, judges still have discretion to impose higher sentences (up to the limits authorized by law), but they cannot impose a sentence below the mandatory minimum. If, for example, a law requires that all those trafficking 5 grams or more of crack cocaine are punished by at least five years in prison, it does not matter that the judge believes there is little risk of reoffending. The customary goals of sentencing (deterrence, incapacitation, retribution, and rehabilitation) are trumped by the mandatory nature of the law.

Criticism of Mandatory Sentencing Laws

Mandatory minimum sentences are popular with politicians and sometimes prove useful to prosecutors (who can use them as leverage in guilty plea negotiations), but they are widely criticized by most commentators. Since 1991, the nonprofit organization Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM) has condemned mandatory penalties as excessive, inflexible, expensive, and discriminatory. Organizations such as the Judicial Conference of the United States, the United States Sentencing Commission, and the Federal Judicial Center have sharply criticized mandatory sentencing laws as well.

These critics note that mandatory penalties are blunt and inflexible tools, often using just one aggravating factor (such as drug weight or possession of a firearm) as a basis for the sentence. Mandatory minimum sentences also create sentencing “cliffs,” arbitrary disparities created by the mandatory nature of the sentence. For example, a first offender convicted of trafficking 4.98 grams of pure methamphetamine might receive a sentence of probation, but an identical offender convicted of trafficking 5.01 grams must serve five years in prison—a great disparity in sentence—even though their crimes are virtually indistinguishable.

Critics often complain that mandatory penalties are too severe and harsh. While the mandatory nature of a penalty is logically distinguishable from its severity, all qualifying offenses—no matter how sympathetic the circumstances—must be punished at the minimum level. Critics also argue that mandatory sentencing laws apply too broadly, shift sentencing power away from neutral judges to adversarial prosecutors, and target ethnic and socioeconomic minorities. In the United States Sentencing Commission’s Report to Congress, federal sentencing data from 2010 showed that 38.5 percent of those convicted of a mandatory minimum sentence were African American and 31.8 percent were Hispanic, while only 27.5 percent were white.

Examples of Mandatory Sentencing Laws

Mandatory sentencing laws have been enacted to punish many different kinds of crime, including sex crimes, narcotics, and firearms offenses. Under Arizona’s law, each image of child pornography is punishable by a mandatory 10-year sentence to be served consecutively. When Milton Berger was convicted in 2003 for possession of 20 images, he was sentenced to 200 years in prison with no parole.

Under 21 U.S. Code Section (U.S.C. §) 841, federal judges enjoy considerable sentencing discretion in narcotics cases, but when certain threshold drug weights are met, mandatory penalties are triggered. For example, if an offender is convicted of possessing 99 grams of heroin, the judge is free to fashion a sentence under the advisory sentencing guidelines; however, if the offender possessed 100 grams of heroin, a mandatory five-year sentence (with no parole) must be imposed. If the offender is convicted of possessing a kilogram of heroin, the mandatory penalty is 10 years. Equivalent five-year penalties are triggered by different weights of other drugs: 1 gram of LSD, 5 grams of pure methamphetamine, 10 grams of pure PCP, 28 grams of crack cocaine, 500 grams of powder cocaine, or 100 kilograms of marijuana.

Mandatory penalties also apply to federal firearms crimes. Under 21 U.S.C. § 924(c), if an offender possesses a firearm during the commission of certain violent and drug trafficking offenses, a mandatory five years are added to the sentence; if the firearm is brandished, a mandatory seven years are added; and if the firearm is discharged, a mandatory 10 years are added. Subsequent counts are punished with stackable 25-year enhancements. In 2004, first-time offender Weldon Angelos was convicted of selling marijuana and to three stacked § 924(c) counts. Under the mandatory firearms penalty, he was sentenced to 55 years in prison (5 + 25 + 25).

Three-strikes laws are another form of mandatory minimum sentences. Instead of focusing on drug weight or firearm possession, they focus on criminal history. Habitual felon laws (enhancing sentences for recidivists) extend as far back as 1797 in New York, but they became politically popular in the 1990s as “three-strikes laws.” While California’s legislation, imposing 25-to-life sentences for third-strike felonies, is the best known, half of the U.S. states have three-strikes laws. Although controversial, such laws were upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2003. Similar legislation has been enacted in the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand.

Mandatory Sentencing Laws and the Goals of Sentencing

Certainly, offenders sentenced under mandatory laws might be rehabilitated, but other cornerstone goals of sentencing—particularly deterrence, incapacitation, and retribution—are generally associated with mandatory sentencing laws. Proponents of mandatory penalties argue that the laws’ inflexibility equals certainty: offenders know they will be punished if convicted. Mandatory penalties are also linked to incapacitation, since conviction typically leads to automatic and lengthy terms of incarceration. Mandatory penalties are also linked to retribution (just deserts). It is said that mandatory sentencing laws are used to punish serious offenders (e.g., large volumes of drugs, use of guns in serious felonies, and incorrigible recidivists), but the focus on specific sentencing factors may mean that otherwise sympathetic defendants suffer the full force of the law.

Bibliography:

American Bar Association. ABA Standards for Criminal Justice Sentencing. 3rd ed. Washington, DC: American Bar Association, 1994.
Frankel, Marvin. Criminal Sentences: Law Without Order. New York: Hill & Wang, 1973.
Lowenthal, Gary T. “Mandatory Sentencing Laws: Undermining the Effectiveness of Determinate Sentencing Reform.” California Law Review, v.81/1 (1993).
Tonry, Michael. “Mandatory Penalties.” Crime and Justice, v.16 (1992).
S. Sentencing Commission. “Report to Congress: Mandatory Minimum Penalties in the Criminal Justice System.” Washington, DC: U.S. Sentencing Commission, 2011.
Vincent, Barbara and Paul Hofer. The Consequences of Mandatory Minimum Prison Terms: A Summary of Recent Findings. Washington, DC: Federal Judicial Center, 1994.

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