This week brought two tidbits of legislative news as the session winds down. First, the General Assembly slightly revised the rules for disposing of weapons seized during criminal investigations, generally making it somewhat easier to order such weapons into the possession of a local law enforcement agency. A helpful AOC memo explaining the changes is here. Second, WRAL ran this article about a provision in the technical corrections bill that allows county jails to sell e-cigarettes to inmates. (Traditional cigarettes are a no-no in jails.) In other news: Risk-based sentencing in the news. Attorney General Eric Holder submitted a letter to the Sentencing Commission condemning evidence-based, or risk-based, sentencing. That’s the practice of basing a defendant’s sentence in part on an assessment of the future danger posed by the defendant. The New York Times editorializes its agreement with Mr. Holder here, characterizing the practice as “punishment profiling” and arguing that it is unfair to minorities and the poor. Others argue that defendants should be punished based on what they have done, not what they might do. On the other hand, one possible purpose of sentencing is protecting the public by incapacitating dangerous defendants, and knowing more about how dangerous a particular defendant is likely to be may help to inform that decision. A federal judge argued in favor of the practice on his blog here, and a defense attorney offered a rejoinder here. ABA review of Stand Your Ground Laws. An ABA task force that reviewed Stand Your Ground laws has [...]
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