Juvenile justice and SEC football

[Michchamp]

Wasn't sure where to put this one. it's about football, but also politics. it ties into political issues because a lack of justice for indigent defendants due to our federal, and state governments deliberately underfunding public defender budgets is a HUGE problem right now. if you can't afford a private attorney these days, and you get charged with a crime, you're in big trouble.

anyways, these quotes pretty much sum up the study.

looking at decisions handed down by judges in Louisiana?s juvenile courts between 1996 and 2012, the pair found that when LSU lost football games it was expected to win, judges?specifically those who had earned their bachelor?s degrees from the school?issued harsher sentences in the week following the loss.

and

That a human being could be subjected to 60 days of confinement because an overgrown adolescent sports fan can?t find some perspective after a group of 18- to 22-year-olds lose a game is a terrifying statement about America.

and of course it goes without saying...

The pair found that the harsher sentences disproportionately affected black defendants.

We Southerners need to get our shit together. Fuck.

 

[Gulo Blue]

There's no easy way to fix sentencing, but one thing that might help, now that computers are amazing, would be if judges had a system available to them that would allow them to punch in a crime and get a bell curve of recent sentences and maybe their own track record if they have one.

Damn. If I were an app developer, I might think about pursuing that.

 

[Michchamp]

There's no easy way to fix sentencing, but one thing that might help, now that computers are amazing, would be if judges had a system available to them that would allow them to punch in a crime and get a bell curve of recent sentences and maybe their own track record if they have one.

Damn. If I were an app developer, I might think about pursuing that.

that might be helpful if more judges were reasonable human beings, instead of power& prestige crazed maniacs. Your plan might even make it worse as they pushed sentence length longer so they could brag about how tough on crime they are.

also, sentencing guidelines do exist, and of course most lawyers (except maybe overburdened public defenders) can research precedent.

there are also a lot of factors unique to each defendant that go into it; would likely be impractical to work out in an app.