The Sacramento Bee had a four-article opinion-page debate on whether California should have a sentencing commission. Interestingly, neither "pro" author actually defends the proposal that was defeated in the Legislature this summer. Both make the case for a very different proposal. Kara Dansky from Stanford Law School writes in favor:
Here's how sentencing commissions typically work. A state legislature enacts legislation to create a sentencing commission. That law gives the commission the authority to collect sentencing data, promulgate sentencing guidelines, create correctional population models, educate the public, comment on proposed legislation related to sentencing and corrections, and make recommendations regarding the need for further legislation and policy development.Yes, but that is not what was proposed for California. Sacramento DA Jan Scully notes the difference here:
A sentencing commission would have the ability to reduce sentences for crimes - which some legislators want but cannot get a majority of their colleagues to support. So under the proposal, a commission would be given authority to change punishments, without a legislator having to go on record supporting the reduction. A legislator will be able to say to the public, "I didn't do it, the commission did."
A sentencing commission that researches and advises the Legislature - something the Legislature already has staff to do - might have value, but this proposal does more: It gives the commission authority to rewrite sentencing laws. This non-elected, appointed commission would decide what the sentences should be for crimes, setting one specific sentence for each crime and then establishing "guidelines" - rules dictating if, when and how a judge could give a different sentence.
A second "pro" article by Thomas W. Ross and David Lagos continues the shell game by relating the success of the commission in North Carolina, which differed from the California proposal on the key point (emphasis added):
Ventura DA Greg Totten makes the case against wholesale reductions in imprisonment as not reducing costs but merely shifting them elsewhere.
Doug Berman has this post at SL&P.
The North Carolina General Assembly responded by creating the Sentencing and Policy Advisory Commission, a bipartisan body with a full-time professional staff, and charged it with a mandate to monitor, study and recommend modifications to the state's sentencing policies, as well as to develop a comprehensive strategy for community-based alternatives to prison....Thus, both "pro" articles make the case for an advisory commission, a proposal that probably would have passed if our misguided legislative leaders had brought it forward instead of the one they did.
The guidelines recommended by the Sentencing Commission of North Carolina were enacted into law in 1994 and remain in place today.
Ventura DA Greg Totten makes the case against wholesale reductions in imprisonment as not reducing costs but merely shifting them elsewhere.
Doug Berman has this post at SL&P.
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