On June 9, 2010, the U.S. Sentencing Commission released the results of a survey of federal judges. Of 942 judges, 639 (67.8 percent) responded to the survey. The responding judges were collectively responsible for sentencing 79 percent of the 146,511 people convicted in federal courts in fiscal years 2008 and 2009.
Among many interesting findings, the results of the survey show that a majority of judges think mandatory minimums are too long, that the safety valve needs to be expanded, and that the current advisory guidelines system is the best system for achieving the purposes of punishment at sentencing. While the judges didn’t agree about everything, there was clear – and sometimes surprising – consensus on more than one point.
Take these results, for example:
- 62 percent of judges thought mandatory minimum sentences were too high for all crimes
- 71 percent thought mandatory minimums were too high for receipt of child pornography (which carries a 5-year prison term that some judges find too harsh in some cases)
- 76 percent thought mandatory minimums were too high for crack cocaine crimes
And that's just mandatory minimums. Here are some interesting safety valve finds:
- 69 percent of judges strongly agreed or somewhat agreed that the "safety valve" exception to drug mandatory minimums should be expanded to apply to all crimes with mandatory sentences
- 71 percent of judges strongly agreed or somewhat agreed that the "safety valve" exception to drug mandatory minimums should be expanded to apply to receipt of child pornography crimes
- 66 percent of judges strongly agreed or somewhat agreed that the "safety valve" exception to drug mandatory minimums should be expanded to apply to all drug trafficking crimes with mandatory sentences
Only 16 percent of judges thought it was appropriate to consider so-called "acquitted conduct" at sentencing. The "acquitted conduct" rule in the sentencing guidelines allows judges to sentence a defendant for criminal conduct that he was charged with, but not convicted of, in addition to sentencing the defendant for the crimes he was actually convicted of by a jury.
The Commission also asked judges to pick the sentencing system that best achieves the purposes of punishment (rehabilitation, deterrence, public safety, and just punishment). The vast majority of judges – 75 percent – picked the current advisory guidelines system. Only three percent opted for the mandatory guidelines system that existed before the decision in United States v. Booker made the guidelines advisory in 2005.
You can find a complete copy of the survey results by clicking here. http://www.ussc.gov/Judge_Survey/2010/JudgeSurvey_201006.pdf