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NEWS FEBRUARY 24, 2020 ¦ 15

The Hardest Thing About Being a Judge?
What Courts Say About Sentencing.

By Mike Scarcella
As judges are often quick to say, sentencing
defendants ranks near or at the top of the
most challenging parts of serving on the
bench.
Federal sentencing guidelines are discretionary,
giving judges some leeway in announcing punish-
ment from probation, in some cases, to prison. At
the same time, the advisory guidelines brought a
measure of consistency to the judiciary. Some crimes
come with mandatory minimums.
“Every first-year law student learns that sentencing
has four goals: retribution, incapacitation, deter-
rence and rehabilitation,” former U.S. District Judge
Shira Scheindlin of the Southern District of New
York wrote in 2017, in a piece that lamented some
of the mandatory stiff sentences she was required, by U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson.
law, to impose on certain defendants. U.S. District Photo by Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM
Judge T.S. Ellis III of the Eastern District of Virginia
said at the sentencing hearing for Paul Manafort, the Jackson’s served on the Washington federal trial
former Trump campaign chairman: “Deterrence is bench since 2010, an arrival that came after years of
endlessly debated by academics based on empirical work as a prosecutor and later as a defense lawyer.
studies. It’s a hard, hard issue.”
“I am a real person and I relate to other people
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the from all walks of life,” Jackson said at her confir-
District of Columbia is scheduled Thursday to sen- mation hearing in 2010. “And I think that ability to
tence Roger Stone, the longtime friend of President connect and to understand will inform my judging,
Donald Trump, and the punishment she hands out hopefully, inform my temperament and help me
will face enormous public scrutiny. to achieve the goal that I have, which is to rule ef-
ficiently, because I think people are waiting for your
The Stone sentencing comes amid a backdrop rulings, and to rule clearly, because I think people
of tumult at the U.S. Justice Department, after U.S. need to understand them.”
Attorney General William Barr intervened in the In the run-up to the hearing Thursday, Chief U.S.
process and asserted that a prison recommendation District Judge Beryl Howell of the District of Co-
of seven to nine years, made by career prosecutors lumbia, who earlier served on the U.S. Sentencing
applying the sentencing guidelines, was excessive. Commission, asserted in a rare public statement
Trump thanked Barr for “taking charge” of the pros- that “public criticism or pressure” will not be a fac-
ecution of Stone, who was convicted on charges of tor in whatever punishment Jackson announces.
lying to Congress and witness tampering in the Rus- “The judges of this court base their sentencing de-
sia probe. The four assigned prosecutors withdrew cisions on careful consideration of the actual record
from the case, and one resigned from his post as an in the case before them; the applicable sentencing
assistant U.S. attorney.
¦ Continued on PAGE 16

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