The man charged with killing an ex-girlfriend and two of her children in a North Side stabbing rampage early on Tuesday likely would have been deep into a 12 1/2-year federal prison sentence if sentencing guidelines for convicted crack dealers had remained unchanged.
Wendell L. Callahan, 35, twice benefited from changes in federal sentencing guidelines, which reduced his sentence by a total of more than four years, from the 150 months he was first given in 2007, to 110 months in 2008 including time served, and 100 months in 2011.
Translation: Three people, including two children, are dead today because of early release from a duly imposed, lawful and fully deserved federal drug trafficking sentence.
How many times were we lectured that those released under lowered sentencing rules would be only "low level, non-violent offenders?" I don't know, exactly. Hundreds if not thousands.
Question: How many more lives are the congressmen and senators who support the SRCA willing to see sacrificed for their "we've-been-too-tough" agenda?
An exact number, please, gentlemen. We want to remember who you are on election day. And we will.
This is a horrible story. I wonder how the people who think themselves oh-so-moral think of themselves now.
Bill, you are to be commended for doing the hard work to help protect society from criminals. Bravo.
federalist,
Thanks. We will soon see how many sentencing reformers have a conscience. We will also see how many are willing to answer, rather than dodge, the question I asked: How many more lives are those in the sentencing reform crowd willing to see sacrificed in the service of their agenda?
The other point--this guy had been convicted of a gun crime in 1999. So what nitwit thought he wouldn't be dangerous?
This story should go national.
I served as a member of the review board in the first retroactive application of amended federal sentencing guidelines during the latter stages of the Bush Administration. At that time no history of violence meant just that and an inmate with a 1999 conviction in a non-fatal shooting and a 2006 incident for brutalizing the same women he later killed would have been an automatic disqualifier.
Another tragic example of what "smart on crime" looks like.