Source: papers.ssrn.com 8/10/26
JaneAnne Murray
University of Minnesota – Minneapolis
Abstract:
Mandatory minimum sentencing regimes, once touted as key elements in a prosecutor’s arsenal, are under fire. Empirical analysis of mass incarceration reveals the outsize role these laws have played in erasing trials, transferring sentencing power to prosecutors, and fueling guilty pleas. States have begun to repeal them; bipartisan bills in Congress propose judicial escape hatches from them; judges and professional organizations have condemned them. But what of the view of the public, in whose name the relevant statutes and regulations were originally enacted? More saliently, what role does (and should) public opinion play in the development of sentencing policy and practice? Through the lens of unique national surveys—including embedded experiments—of large diverse samples of respondents over five election cycles, including three presidential ones, this paper presents and analyzes public attitudes to mandatory minimum sentences and, uniquely, the public’s attitude to granting judges discretion to set such mandatory sentences aside in extraordinary cases.
The results are unambiguous. Over 60% in 2016 opposed the inflexible imposition of a mandatory minimum sentence even in relatively short mandatory minimum sentences: five years for first-time offenders and ten years for repeat offenders (sentences that one judge has described are “small dose injustices”), a position that holds across experimental conditions involving the race, prior criminal history and mitigating personal factors of the offender. Overall support for judicial discretion to set aside mandatory minimum sentences only increases over election cycles, culminating in 77% in 2022, and holding steady at 75% in 2024. Perhaps most notably, in each election cycle, the factor that (by far) predicts a respondent’s opposition to judicial discretion in the face of mandatory minimum statutes is racial resentment. These findings have important implications for the constitutionality of mandatory minimum sentencing statutes, for legislative efforts to repeal and/or amend them, for prosecutorial charging policies, for “second look” amelioration, and for the sentencing process itself.
I read most of the paper before my eyes started to cross and I realized this paper does not truly address the issue of special interests exerting their will on prosecutors and legislators.
The Adam Walsh Act and Meghan’s Law both originate from singular events. While those individual events are reprehensible, they are not everyday mass occurrences. However, special interests and justice crusaders, like John Walsh, seized upon these individual events. There was money raised and pressure heaped on legislators to enact laws that have proven to be anything but in the interest of the public and lack any deterrent value.
Personally, I think John Walsh is the worst of these justice crusaders, who exist in large numbers, because he took his pain and suffering and forced it upon the rest of the country. We, as a nation, have allowed 1 man who was never elected to a national office impose his will upon law enforcement, prosecutors, and private citizens in perpetuity. Yet the courts idly stand by and allow such travesties of justice because they are afraid of the justice crusaders and special interests like they are somehow above the judges themselves.
Write a paper about things like the subject(s) I just mentioned lady and I might finish reading your paper and might pass it on to others.