Harold H. Greene Quotes

Defendants are being evaluated based on numerical grid without any aggravating circumstances being considered. The effect has been to transfer the disparity from the judge to the prosecutor allowing for a great deal of leeway on indictments.

Prosecutorial charging and plea bargaining discretion, jury discretion to convict of one or another amorphously distinguished capital or non-capital crime, and gubernatorial discretion to grant or withhold clemency are all equally uncontrolled and uncontrollable.

He was a first-time nonviolent possible offender, ... And under the mandatory minimums, he was put in prison for 15 years. Not only does the punishment not fit the crime, but the mandatory minimums don't give judges any discretion to look at the background of the case, to read into the specifics of the case. I don't know a judge who really is in favor of the mandatory minimums.

The fact that the United States, with less than 5 percent of the world's population incarcerates 25% of the world's prisoners is largly due to manditory minimum sentences.

When you talk about mandatory minimums, it created a lot of unfairness in our sentencing.

Mandatory minimum sentences give no discretion to judges about the amount of time that the person should receive once a guilty verdict is rendered. Harsh mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses were passed by Congress in the 1980s as part of the war on drugs and the "get tough" movement, sentences that have helped to fuel our nation's prison boom and have also greatly aggravated racial disparities, particularly in the application of mandatory minimum sentences for crack cocaine.

Something's going to happen that's going to make us all pay attention at the type of sentences some people are serving and the conditions in which they are served.

If we believe in our current penal process, then the penalties imposed by judges and juries should be the only sanctions for one's crime, not the invisible sanctions of the legislature.

The higher someone's profile, the easier it is for a defendant to trade him up to the feds. Mr. Big is always a better catch than Mr. Small.

If you're dealing with criminals, they're not going to want to go to court.

We have far more plea bargains in our system than we do trials.

Too many Americans are going to too many prisons for far too long.

The justice system is confused in trying to understand it, but frankly, if it paid attention to the really blatant cases and did a good job with that, we would be light years ahead of where we are now.

Manditory minimums were almost always excessive, and they made me feel unethical, even dirty.

Mandatory minimum sentences give no discretion to judges about the amount of time that the person should receive once a guilty verdict is rendered.

Thousands of people plead guilty to crimes every year in the United States because they know that the odds of a jury's believing their word over a police officer's are slim to none.

Even without mandatory sentences, judges are still capable of levying tough penalties for serious offenses - and just as in states like Texas that have 'tough on crime' reputations, this can be done without jeopardizing public safety.

The fact that more than 50 percent of Americans have an immediate family member either currently or formerly incarcerated tells you a lot about just how defining a feature of American culture incarceration has become.

The federal sentencing guidelines should be revised downward. By contrast to the guidelines, I can accept neither the necessity nor the wisdom of federal mandatory minimum sentences. In too many cases, mandatory minimum sentences are unwise and unjust.

Too many Americans go to too many prisons for far too long, and for no truly good law enforcement reason.

We need to take a hard look at the war on drugs and the number of non-violent offenders who end up getting their lives destroyed by going to prison. We need to look at mandatory minimum sentencing and give judges more flexibility when there are issues of drug abuse or addiction.

Throughout the 1970s, '80s and '90s, federal mandatory minimum laws were implemented that forced judges to deliver sentences far lengthier than they would have if allowed to use their own discretion. The result has been decades of damage, particularly to young people.

The newest "fad" of the penologists is "indeterminate sentences".... This plan ... will work first rate if God will agree to act as the discharging officer. It is hardly likely, though, that he would accept the position: he has long been out of politics.

Mandatory minimum sentences should be abolished.

We cannot and should not repeal Article 17. We have to allow for the individualization of punishment and we have to take into consideration the emotional state of the perpetrator when he committed the crime. This prerogative is given to judges in the West as well.