Pros And Cons Of Mandatory Minimum Sentencing

Mandatory minimum sentencing was put into effect in 1986 under the passage of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act, for the purpose of expediting the sentencing process and limiting the possibility of irregular outcomes. While it was meant to be used for heinous crimes that shall not go unpunished the reality of it is not always that. Often times when a person is put on trial for a crime placed under mandatory minimum laws their crime does not fit the punishment. While in some cases it is reassuring to know that certain crimes will not go unpunished, it is equally as unsettling knowing that low-level offenders risk facing the same amount of prison time as violent offenders. The mandatory minimum sentencing laws------

Although mandatory minimums have been around for decades they are not very popular among

One example of a prison sentence that was far too extreme was given to 28 year old Leo Guthmiller. Guthmiller was a former addict with limited criminal history and was two years clean, undergoing rehabilitation courses, at the time of his arrest in April of 2015. The arrest of Leo Guthmiller was not for possession or distribution, but in legal terms, for being a co-conspirator. Guthmillers arrest was all due to the fact that during an undergoing case he was identified by two other users as the man who introduced them to their meth dealer several years prior. Because of the amount of drugs the couple was charged for, and Guthmiller’s co-conspirator status he was facing at least 10 years in prison under the mandatory minimum laws. A devastating sentence for Guthmiller may already have caught your attention; however, does not even come close to the worst of these cases. In an article posted on The Washington Post, Nancy Gertner, a former federal district judge and professor at Harvard Law school, and Chiraag Bains, a former