New sentencing blog on the block

Doug Berman turns us onto the new blog SentenceSpeak from the group Families Against Mandatory Minimums. I was particularly interested to read this post quoting Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy on the question of mass incarceration:

When a questioner referred to comments Kennedy made in 2004 about America’s exploding prison population, the justice responded:

"If you were asked to design a penal system that would win the prize for the worst system, the one you’ve got would at least be runner-up.

“If cost is a way to activate human compassion, I’ll take it. We are squandering our resources and spending them in the wrong way.”

Kennedy said he approves of sentencing guidelines but is critical of mandatory minimums that are often imposed in drug cases.

Asked how he would define an activist court, Kennedy quipped: “An activist court is a court that makes a decision that you don’t like.”

There's also an interesting post regarding a Supreme Court ruling on the propriety of alleging crimes during the sentencing phase for which the defendant was never indicted are only supported by a preponderance of the evidence, not the higher standard of "beyond a reasonable doubt." This prosecutorial tactic is allowed in Texas state courts where the standard of proof for offenses alleged at sentencing is "beyond a reasonable doubt." But SCOTUS unanimously rejected the practice in federal venues where the standard of proof is only a preponderance of the evidence. Justice Kennedy wrote, "Elements of a crime must be charged in an indictment and proved to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt." (CORRECTION: This version corrects an erroneous interpretation in the original text; see the comment section for more detail.)

Check back with SentenceSpeak for coverage of federal sentencing issues that Grits typically doesn't tackle.