It's about time, you fucking idiots

[Eleusis]

U.S. High Court Gives Judges Sentencing Discretion

@Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In a major criminal law decision, a closely divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that federal judges no longer must follow the long-criticized sentencing guidelines in effect since 1987.

The 5-4 ruling was a defeat for the U.S. Justice Department, which had defended as constitutional the federal sentencing guidelines that apply to more than 60,000 criminal defendants each year.

Thousands of cases nationwide have been on hold awaiting a high court ruling. The decision, which makes the guidelines advisory instead of mandatory, was seen as the most important criminal law decision of the court’s term.
…

And it only took 18 fucking years to realize that mandatory minimums were generally as bullshit as 20 years in prison for a single hit of blotter is specifically.

[friedo]

I concor.

[sub]What’s a blotter?[/sub]

[friedo]

BTW, I also concur.

[Anonymous_Coward]

Blotter acid, or LSD I assume.

[Emilio_Lizardo]

IIRC, the penalties for most drugs are based on weight. A dose of LSD is very small, in the microgram range. Since it’s a liquid, however, the drug is usually placed on a carrier, often a piece of blotter paper or in some cases a sugar cube. A single cube only contains one microscopic dose of the drug, but it weighs as much as hundreds of doses, so people in possesion of only one hit were sentenced as if they were big-time dealers.

[tdn]

@Emilio Lizardo

A single cube only contains one microscopic dose of the drug, but it weighs as much as hundreds of doses, so people in possesion of only one hit were sentenced as if they were big-time dealers.

You’re kidding. Please tell me you’re kidding.

[Emilio_Lizardo]

Doing a google search on LSD weight sentencing brings up a bunch of relevant hits, but you can find a basic summation here.

In all fairness, most of these articles are quite old. This quirk may have been fixed a while ago; I haven’t kept current, and I don’t have time to do much research now.

[ParentalAdvisory]

@tdn

You’re kidding. Please tell me you’re kidding.

This is nothing new. It’s like someone getting charged for 2lbs of pot, when the plants are still growing and wet. When really, the total amount of the pot is probably a couple of ounces dried. Kinda the same thing.