In Full Comment Bob Tarantino makes a fair point in suggesting judicial discretion is often used as a stalking horse for those who wish for lenient criminal sentences.
Certainly, legislation cutting back judicial discretion usually attacks the lowest rather than highest ends of sentencing practice. Such legislation seldom has much practical effect as the lowest sentences are rarely if ever imposed.
Judicial discretion cuts both ways and often leads to stern sentences. It is commonplace to read Court of Appeal decisions where the Court defers to a sentencing judge's discretion in granting a more severe sentence than the Court of Appeal would itself impose.
Punishment is not an abstract -- it is a tool to reduce crime. Beccaria said "for a punishment to be just it should consist of only such gradations of intensity as suffice to deter men from committing crimes." Only where there is sufficient discretion to fit sentence to the crime can punishment be both effective and just.
Canadian judges do not pander to criminals and sentences generally fit the crime.
James Morton
1100-5255 Yonge Street
Toronto, Ontario
M2N 6P4
416 225 2777
6 comments:
"Canadian judges do not pander to criminals and sentences generally fit the crime. "
The judge who gave the con artist 6 months in jail and 1.5 yrs of parole (2 years total) did not pander to him?
This guy earned 1 million dollars for each day in jail and you're telling me the judge wasn't corrupt.
There is no other possibility.
The guy stole 160 million and got 6 months in jail.
And that's justice and you would agree that sentence fit the crime?
Legal punishments can never fit the crime. Ever. At best, they're just a consolation prize thrown in after the mess is cleaned up to give the people the illusion that the system is looking out for them.
What kind of message does it send if I get killed on my way back home and the guy who did goes to jail for the rest of his life? That it's all right for me to get killed as long as the guy who did it doesn't get to kill anyone else? I guess that's better than nothing, but I would much rather not get killed in the first place.
Besides, punishment is only effective if it's applied to every case. Until Crown attorneys manage to obtain a 100% prosecution rate, a 100% conviction rate and a 0% rate of false positives, legal punishment will never accomplish anything significant.
Brent, Thats a good point -- punishment is always after the fact at best. Thanks
Oh, nonsense. Not a day in jail for convicted rapist Fernando Manuel Alves?
And what about this charmer?
You're talking rot.
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