Interesting piece from the New York Times today on the sentencing in Madoff. Clyde Haberman points out Sholam Weiss got 845 years for stealing less money -- but to my mind sentences of more than, say, 25 years for anything are merely symbolic. I suppose, and many readers commented, that symbolism is important. Still, will this sentence reduce white collar crime or help any of the victims? I doubt it... .
Full story here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/03/nyregion/03nyc.html?_r=1
...
For that matter, what about a sentence of 150 years? It, too, can never be fully served. The reference, of course, is to the century and a half in prison to which Bernard L. Madoff was condemned this week by a federal judge in Manhattan, Denny Chin.
James A. Cohen, a Fordham University law professor, is among those who have a problem with sentences that are on their face impossible. “It prompts in some people a lack of respect for the system,” Professor Cohen said. “Somebody has to be asking, ‘What is that about? What are we really thinking?’ ”
“It’s putting out something that is obviously false and fake to everybody,” he added, “and why are we doing that?”
Obviously, his is not a universally shared opinion. A more popular view is probably that 150 years in prison is too good for the likes of Mr. Madoff. That is reflected in victims’ comments and in the “boil him in oil” tone of much of the news coverage.
But at some point the Madoff case may be examined with more dispassion. Any analysis would have to include the reasonableness of the sentence ordered by Judge Chin, a widely admired jurist. Acknowledging the symbolic nature of those 150 years, the judge cited a need for deterrence, retribution and justice for the victims.
Deterrence, however, is often an elusive goal. It is mentioned by some as a reason, for example, to preserve capital punishment. Yet the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, analyzing federal crime statistics, has found that the 10 states with the highest murder rates all have capital punishment on their books. Among the 10 states with the lowest murder rates, 6 get by without the death penalty.
With financial crime, are we to take as a given that a grifter will be deterred by sentences that, besides being unrealistic, seem to wander all over the lot? Mr. Weiss got 845 years for ripping off a few hundred million dollars. Mr. Madoff got a mere 150 years for a swindle put at $65 billion. What gives?
The dollar value is “a dangerous factor to focus on in many cases,” said Dan Markel, a law professor at Florida State University. “It introduces a variable that is highly contingent on luck and fortuity to drive sentences,” he said, and it may steer the courts away from “considered assessments” of blame and punishment.
RETRIBUTION?
Mr. Madoff is 71. The odds are against his making it to 100. A 30-year sentence would have provided the same degree of retribution as one of 150 years.
As for the victims’ desires, there can be a fine line between justice and pandering. Douglas A. Berman, an expert on sentencing law at Ohio State University, expressed concern about “a tone and culture that says, ‘Hey, if the victims are really ticked, let’s give them their due.’ ”
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3 comments:
If there's no difference to Mr. Madoff between a 30 year sentence and a 150 year sentence, then what is the basis for your concern about the 150 year sentence?
From where I sit, a crime of that scale does deserve a significant sentence. And, indeed, the people stealing hundreds of millions of dollars - or even a few million, like Conrad Black - are causing a lot more harm to society than regular-grade thieves and burglars (much less pot dealers).
The Death Penalty Information Center is, strictly, an anti death penalty group and a very misleading one at that.
Murder rates and the death penalty is not how one meausres deterrence and DPIC knows it.
Please review:
Death Penalty, Deterrence & Murder Rates: Let's be clear
by Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters, 0609
There is a constant within all jurisdictions -- negative consequences will always deter some - it is a truism. The question is not "Can we prove that the death penalty acts to deter some?" Of course it does. The question is "Can we prove the death penalty does not deter some?" Of course not.
Whether a jurisdiction has high murder rates or low ones, rather rising or lowering rates, the presence of the death penalty will produce fewer net murders, the absence of the death penalty will produce more net murders.
It is just like crime rates or the rates at which people speed in their cars, whether a jurisdiction has the highest such rates or the lowest of such rates, there will always be some, in all jurisdictions, who don't commit crimes because of the deterrence of fear of incarceration and don't speed because of the deterrence of speeding violations, resulting in criminal prosecution and higher insurance costs. It is the same with all things that deter, all prospects of a negative outcome.
The Poor Model
In their story, "States With No Death Penalty Share Lower Homicide Rates", The New York Times did their best to illustrate that the death penalty was not a deterrent, by showing that the average murder rate in death penalty states was higher than the average rate in non death penalty states and, it is. (1)
What the Times failed to observe is that their own study confirmed that you can't simply compare those averages to make that determination regarding deterrence.
As one observer stated: "The Times story does nothing more than repeat the dumbest of all dumb mistakes — taking the murder rate in a traditionally high-homicide state with capital punishment (like Texas) and comparing it to a traditionally low-homicide state with no death penalty (like North Dakota) and concluding that the death penalty doesn't work at all. Even this comparison doesn't work so well. The Times own graph shows Texas, where murder rates were 40 percent above Michigan's in 1991, has now fallen below Michigan . . .". (2)
Within the Times article, Michigan Governor John Engler states, "I think Michigan made a wise decision 150 years ago," referring to the state's abolition of the death penalty in 1846. "We're pretty proud of the fact that we don't have the death penalty."(3)
Even though easily observed on the Times' own graphics, they failed to mention the obvious. Michigan's murder rate is near or above that of 31 of the US's 38 death penalty states. And then, it should be recognized that Washington, DC (not found within the Times study) and Detroit, Michigan, two non death penalty jurisdictions, have been perennial leaders in murder and violent crime rates for the past 30 years. Delaware, a jurisdiction similar in size to them, leads the nation in executions per murder, but has significantly lower rates of murders and violent crime than do either DC or Detroit, during that same period.
Obviously, the Times study and any other simple comparison of jurisdictions with and without the death penalty, means little, with regard to deterrence.
Also revealed within the Times study, but not pointed out by them,: "One-third of the nation's executions take place in Texas—and the steepest decline in homicides has occurred in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Arkansas, which together account for nearly half the nation's executions." (4)
full article at
http://www.postchronicle.com/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi?archive=128&num=217819
I'm not convinced that ANYONE deserves to be placed in an American Super Prison, where no one has any hope of leaving except in a body bag. The length of Mr. Madoff's sentence ensures that he will be in a long term maximum security. It will be like tossing a puppy into a dog fight.
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