That's the headline of this entertaining and right-on-target article from Michael Coard at The Philly Post, and it offers a sound pistol-whipping of mandatory minimum sentences for illegal possession of guns.
Mere unlawful possession, you’d argue, is enough to warrant mandatory imprisonment. No probation. No fine. No community service. No parole without a required minimum jail sentence. Good, you say. Bullshit, I say.
Mandatory imprisonment for any non-violent crime, including simple firearm possession, is wrong. Pennsylvania crime code section 6106 is titled “Firearms Not to Be Carried Without a License” and involves having a gun in a car or concealed outside one’s residence or place of employment anywhere in the Commonwealth. If an offender has no license to carry and isn’t eligible for such, it’s a third degree felony, which means he or she could face up to seven years in jail plus a $15,000 fine. Section 6108 is titled “Carrying Firearms on Public Streets or Public Property in Philadelphia” and involves possessing a gun without a license anywhere in the county. It’s a first degree misdemeanor, which means an offender could face up to five years in jail plus a $10,000 fine.
Neither crime requires a mandatory jail sentence, and that’s a good thing. In other words, a judge could, should, and often does simply impose a probationary sentence, a fine, court costs, and a supervision fee. And the reasoning is simple. No one was shot. No one was shot at. No one was injured. No one was threatened. The defendant did nothing more than possess a gun illegally. And as every reasonable person agrees, punishment should always fit the crime and the criminal. ...
To those who dismiss my assertions as the mere rantings of a bleeding-heart liberal, a criminal-coddling, soft-on-crime, fancy-pants defense lawyer, I say there’s nothing fancy about my pants.Huzzah! If you think the arguments against mandatory minimums are boring, read the entire article. It's fun stuff, it's completely right, and you don't have to be a sentencing nerd to get it.
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1 Comment:
I am not a lawyer, nor will I ever be, but I do think it is in the best interest of those not committing crime to hand down the harshest sentencing possible for someone in possession of an illegal firearm. There are no innocent reasons to be in the possession of an illegal firearm.
If someone is in possession of an illegal firearm it is because A) they cannot pass the required background check due to a prior conviction or B) they intend to use the firearm for illegal purposes and do not want the weapon to be traced back to them.
The statement that "No one was threatened. The defendant did nothing more than possess a gun illegally" is absolutely ridiculous. The act of owning an illegal firearm is inherently threatening. Again, there is no innocent reason for owning or carrying such a weapon.
Here in Baltimore, forty percent of homicide defendants and suspects that are charged with a felony gun crime have a prior gun arrest on their record. For these initial arrests, those charged usually serve an average of only four months of their sentence before being released and put on probation.
I do not understand why anyone would argue that people carrying a firearm illegally, when there is no rational argument against the likelihood of that individual committing a crime, should be given less of a punishment than they currently receive (one that they most likely will not serve fully anyway) just because they were apprehended before they commuted a more serious crime.
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