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December 31, 2010
Top 10 sentencing stories of 2010
Without too much reflection or enough sustained thought, I offer below my quick take on the Top 10 sentencing stories of 2010. I urge readers to question my choices (or to ask for clarifications for why some of these items make the list and why others were left off):
10. Congress's near-miss failure to pass the National Criminal Justice Commission Act of 2010
9. California's near-miss failure to legalize marijuana
8. US Sentencing Commission gets new members and a new chair after lots of notable guideline amendments all while the Booker federal sentencing system soldiers on
7. Republican take over of the US House of Representatives and many state governorship along with the emergence of a Right on Crime movement
6. The continued stable(?) state use of the death penalty with 9 or 10 death sentences and 4 to 5 executions per month nationwide all while lethal injection litigation soldiers on
5. SCOTUS transition with Justices Stevens being replaced by Justice Kagan
4. The leveling off of prison growth in the states with many looking to reduce prison populations mostly for budgetary reasons
3. The Supreme Court's landmark Sixth Amendment ruling in Padilla v. Kentucky
2. Congress's passage of the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010
1. The Supreme Court's landmark Eighth Amendment ruling in Graham v. Florida
December 31, 2010 at 12:01 PM | Permalink
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Comments
Graham was significant, as yet another arbitrary, anti-scientific lawyer preferential treatment of extremely dangerous, ultra-violent criminals. Eighth Amendment is lawyer code for the imposition of personal preference and bias of an Ivy indoctrinated foppish elite, all being rabid feminist ideologues, over-ruling the decisions of state legislatures in lawless judicial review that violates Article I Section 1. Why does the elite lawyer coddle the criminal so much and always crush the interest of the crime victim? The dangerous criminal generates massive government employment. The crime victim generates nothing and may rot. Because the government policy is 99% lawyer generated, it should be considered a wholly owned subsidiary of the criminal cult enterprise that is the lawyer profession. Elected officials are token figureheads, making only a few policy pronouncements.
Believers in prayer should pray a Graham spared criminal finds and attacks a Supreme Court Justice. To deter. There is no arguing with these Ivy indoctrinated extremists. Not facts, not logic, not human pity, nothing sways them from the coddling of the ultra-violent criminal to generate government costs.
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Dec 31, 2010 1:38:32 PM
With all the destruction the war on marijuana has caused that #9 should have been a little higher on your list. It was a pleasure reading your blog in 2010. Thanks for your thoughts.
Posted by: Anon | Jan 1, 2011 1:25:59 PM
