Abolish the Sentencing Commission

Open letter to:

Rep. Bob Goodlatte,

Chairman US House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary

2138 Rayburn House Office Building

Washington, DC 20515 

                                                    Subject: Abolishing the           Sentencing Commission

Dear Chairman Goodlatte,

          I am sending you this letter by US Postal Service, since I have been unable to find an email address to more expeditiously contact you. However, I still regard this as an open letter to the public, and will include it on my blog (http://arthur-government.blogspot.com) for public viewing on the Internet.

          The purpose of my letter is to ask you to initiate with Congress the abolishment of the Sentencing Commission.

          For those who will also read this letter, I explain the Sentencing Commission from its own website (http://www.ussc.gov/About_the_Commission/Overview_of_the_USSC/USSC_Overview.pdf) as follows:

          "The U.S. Sentencing Commission was created by the Sentencing Reform Act provisions of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984." I remind my other readers that a law passed by Congress can also be modified by Congress.

          One of the "Principal purposes [of the Sentencing Commission] is to establish sentencing policies and practices for the federal courts, including guidelines to be consulted regarding the appropriate form and severity of punishment for offenders convicted of federal crimes."

          I have previously obtained a legal opinion concerning how well the Sentencing Commission is doing its job and how that affects other parts of the federal Justice System.. Yesterday, I reviewed my source information, on which basis I conclude that the Sentencing Commission does more harm than good and should be abolished.

          The Sentencing Commission appears to have a philosophical bias toward reduction of jail sentences for federal crimes. In attempting to accomplish that goal, the commission incorrectly uses data.

Much of its claim for sentence reduction for certain crimes is based upon recidivism data. The members of the Commission apparently have no experience with field law enforcement and make obvious errors. For example, the Commission tries to analogize recidivism rates for specific crimes to a general average. Experienced field officers immediately know that is an incorrect assumption. For example, the recidivism rate for murder is inordinately lower than that for burglary.

Another example of the inappropriateness of recidivism data involves the possession of sexual images of children, which is a federal offense. Common practice of child pornographers is to transmit sexual images involving children on the Internet, and in some cases collect those files on their computers. However, if a person has previously been questioned concerning child pornography, the likelihood of his being arrested for the offense using new evidence is remote. While he may still engage in the transmission and viewing of sexual pictures involving children on the Internet, he is usually wise enough to not collect the images on his computer. However, if he does so, he can almost always scrub the images from his computer while law enforcement officers are obtaining a search warrant.

My latest information source says that because the Sentencing Commission has judged child pornography to be at a significant low level based upon its recidivism data,, the Commission is recommending a significant reduction in jail terms for those persons prosecuted and found guilty. The Commission's representatives are now trying to "sell" this to federal law enforcement officers and prosecutors through a 400-page report. 400-page report? What nonsense! If I can make my point in a few-letter, why would anybody need a 400 page report? Has the Commission studied under those who prepared the Obamacare bill?

An equally if not more significant transgression of the Sentencing Commission is modifying the law as passed by Congress. I'm sure I don't need to remind you that only Congress has the right to pass laws and modify them. Any attempts at modification by other entities of the federal government, whether the Administration, as in modification of the Obamacare law, or by the Sentencing Commission are unconstitutional. I herewith give examples.

As you know, whenever Congress passes a law it includes a penalty clause. For example, in Title 18 Sexual Exploitation of Children, Section 2251, Part e, Congress has specified a penalty of imprisonment for not less than 15 years nor more than 30 years. In order to get around this specificity, the Sentencing Commission uses a devious technique.

The Sentencing Commission issues Sentencing Guidelines. As previously required by Congress, Federal Judges are required in each case to calculate, according to the formula of the Sentencing Guideline, a specific imprisonment time for each defendant found guilty. The Federal Judge may then use the Sentencing Guideline calculation in his sentencing, or he may deviate, at his option. However, if the Judge deviates from the Sentencing Guideline, he is required to explain in great detail the reasons for his deviation. Since Federal Judges generally handle a great number of cases, they justifiably tend to take the easy way out and rather than explain any deviation in sentencing, they normally accept the lower sentencing penalty of the Sentencing Guideline.

The question now arises as to how the Sentencing Commission establishes a practices of reduced sentencing within the constraints of the law as passed by Congress. This is easily accomplished by a devious technique.

If the law requires an imprisonment penalty of 10 to 20 years, the Sentencing Commission establishes, by use of faulty recidivism data and other questionable methods, a Sentencing Guideline of 6 to 10 years. For convenience, the judge chooses 10 years. He may really have felt that the sentences should have been 20 years, but by taking the 10 year option, he can avoid all the paperwork.

 The Sentencing Commission also engages in another practice which is detrimental to the Justice System, in addition to routinely establishing Sentencing Guidelines below or at the minimum of the penalties required by law, the Commission often later comes back with a further reduced Sentencing Guideline for the same offense. For example, if the law requires a penalty of 10 to 20 years, and the original Sentencing Guideline was 8 to 12, most offenders got 12 years. In a second pass, the Sentencing Guideline may be changed to 6 to 10 years, which means that old offenders would have gotten 12 years for an offense, while new offenders will get only 10 years for the same offense. This leads to a rash of review cases carried to the Circuit Courts and overburdens the system for not only the Circuit Court Judges but also for Prosecutors, who basically must re-prepare cases, which they had previously closed.

          All in all, Chairman Goodlatte, the Sentencing Commission is not only incorrectly doing its job, but is also causing inefficiency in the total Justice System is. I sincerely hope you and your associates will strongly consider legislation to abolish its existence. The Justice System can adequately work, without any interference by a Sentencing Commission.