This is just crazy. A New Orleans judge sentenced three people who looted liquor from a grocery store after Hurrican Katrina to 15 years in prison, saying he wanted to send a message.

They were convicted of attempting to leave the grocery with 27 bottles of liquor and wine, six cases of beer and one case of wine coolers, six days after Katrina made landfall. Little, McGowen and Pearson each testified that they were not looting, but they offered conflicting accounts of matters such as who drove to the store.

The looting law under which they were convicted had been in effect for two weeks. Compare their sentence to the year these men got for bribing a federal official in the aftermath of Katrina.

As if we needed another wasteful Congressional investigation. California Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, Chair of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the International Relations Committee, announced yesterday a House panel will investigate whether there was a foreign connection to the Oklahoma City Bombing.

Can we move on, please? This has been investigated to death, by the prosecution and two separate defense teams. If the House wants to search for foreign terrorists, why not concentrate on Osama?

by TChris

Among a dozen criminal court judges in New Orleans, one so far has had the courage to stand up for the Constitution. Speedy trials are impossible in a city that can't get lawyers to indigent defendants, leaving more than a thousand jail inmates with no trial date, no lawyer, and no immediate hope of having their day in court. The presumption of innocence is a hollow promise to those who are jailed indefinitely as they wait for the system to fulfill its obligation to provide them with counsel.

Judge Arthur Hunter recognizes that enough is enough.

And so Judge Hunter, 46, a former New Orleans police officer, is moving to let some of the defendants without lawyers out of jail. He has suspended prosecutions in most cases involving public defenders. And, alone among a dozen criminal court judges, he has granted a petition to free a prisoner facing serious charges without counsel, and is considering others.

I'm always in awe of college kids who invest their time and energy in great social causes. Princeton has my admiration tonight. Students at Princeton University have launched a progressive social activism and fundraising campaign, The Katrina Project.

by TChris

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel takes on Wisconsin's Jim Sensenbrenner, who wants to take away the sentencing discretion that the Supreme Court handed to federal judges with the Booker decision:

He mustn't. The old system straitjacketed judges too much, such as Utah's U.S. District Judge Paul Cassell, known as a hard-line conservative. He lamented from the bench that he had no choice but to put a first-time offender in prison for 55 years for dealing marijuana. Justice demands that judges be allowed to exercise discretion. Otherwise, you may as well replace him or her with a computer program.

The Journal Sentinel recognizes that judicial discretion is an essential balance to prosecutorial discretion.

Drug War Chronicles reports that despite the Supreme Court's decision in U.S. v. Booker which made the federal sentencing guidelines advisory rather than mandatory, drug sentences are getting longer.

In a report on post-Booker sentences issued last week, the US Sentencing Commission found that most judges in most cases continued to sentence in accord with the now "advisory" guidelines. According to the report, about 67,000 people were sentenced in the federal courts in the past year, and their average sentence of 58 months was actually higher than the 57-month average of the previous year. Sentences below the guidelines have increased, but only minimally, from a little over 9% to just over 15%.

Both Law Prof Doug Berman of Sentencing Law and Policy and I are quoted in the article.

Via Sentencing Law and Policy, the 277 page final report of the U.S. Sentencing Commission on the impact of the Supreme Court decision in Booker v. U.S. which made the guidelines advisory rather than mandatory is now available free online. (pdf) Every federal criminal defense lawyer will want a copy.

Republicans in Congress have been toying with the idea of making all sentences mandatory minimums to avoid having judges issue sentences below the guidelines. Hopefully, this report will show that's not necessary.

The majority of federal cases continue to be sentenced in conformance with the sentencing guidelines. National data show that when within-range sentences and government-sponsored, below-range sentences are combined, the rate of sentencing in conformance with the sentencing guidelines is 85.9 percent. This conformance rate remained stable throughout the year that followed Booker.

....The severity of sentences imposed has not changed substantially across time. The average sentence length after Booker has increased.

If the cart ain't broke, don't fix it.

Cheers for U.S. District Court Judge Gregory Presnell in Orlando, FL.

Sentencing Law and Policy reports that in US v. Hamilton, (pdf) No. 6:05-cr-157-Orl-31JGG (M.D. Fla. Mar. 16, 2006), the Judge refused to apply the draconian federal crack cocaine guidelines because they are irrational in comparison to the severity of the offense. Using the Booker case (argued in the Supreme Court by TalkLeft co-blogger TChris) that rendered the guidelines advisory rather than mandatory, Judge Presnell ruled:

I watched Hardball's interview with Michael Brown tonight. I was impressed. I'm going to join Jane and Moderate Voice and Taylor Marsh and say apologies are due him and I regret my criticism of him during Katrina.

On Hardball, Brown was confident and direct in answering the questions. His biggest beef is with HSA Chief Michael Chertoff. When asked to rank his own performance, Brown gave himself a 5. He also gave Bush a 5 (too high in my opinion, but it's probably out of loyalty.) He gave Chertoff a 2.

Michael Brown was a scapegoat for the Administration.

Sorry, Mr. Brown, I was was wrong about you.

Update: Michael Brown responds to Jane here in FDL's comments.

The Katrina tape showing that President Bush and HSA Chief Michael Chertoff were warned about possible massive death tolls in New Orleans speak for themselves.

Six days of footage and transcripts obtained by The Associated Press show in excruciating detail that while federal officials anticipated the tragedy that unfolded in New Orleans and elsewhere along the Gulf Coast, they were fatally slow to realize they had not mustered enough resources to deal with the unprecedented disaster.

Bush's comment when being told of the likelihood of massive deaths: "We are fully prepared."

by TChris

Donald Rumsfeld is an expert at disaster creation. Why would the president want to put him in charge of disaster relief?

A White House assessment of the sluggish federal reaction to Hurricane Katrina concludes the Pentagon should oversee future catastrophe responses but does not recommend that Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff be fired, officials said Wednesday. ... [T]he document - which a congressional aide said approaches 200 pages - proposes sweeping changes to federal response plans. These include making the military the lead agency to coordinate immediate relief when state and local resources are overwhelmed, one official said.

FEMA would continue to handle lesser disasters, thus dividing disaster management into two competing turfs. Can you imagine Rumsfeld and Chertoff arguing with each other -- as victims drown -- about which agency should be in charge of the latest hurricane response?

by TChris

The Supreme Court will bravely step once again into the quicksand of sentencing law. The Court will decide what impact the Blakely and Booker decisions have on California law. (TalkLeft background on the cases is collected here.)

The Supreme Court rulings say judges can't increase a maximum possible prison sentence based on their own factual conclusions, rather than the findings of a jury or admissions made by a defendant in a guilty plea. ...