More than two years ago, then 89-year-old U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein ruled in a 401-page opinion that imposing the statutory minimum five-year sentence to a 19-year-old offender was "cruel and unusual" punishment, and Judge Weinstein chose to ignore the law on constitutional grounds. The Second Circuit recently reversed his decision, and he reluctantly changed the sentence.
Upon resentencing the defendant in the remand, Judge Weinstein did not issue a similarly lengthy opinion, but he chose to restate some of his main arguments.
The effect of harsh minimum sentences in cases such as C.R.'s is, effectively, to destroy young lives unnecessarily. The ancient analog of our modern destruction of youngsters by cruel, unnecessarily destructive and self-defeating, long minimum prison sentences, was physically sacrificing them to ancient gods for the supposed benefit of society. Leviticus 18:21 (King James ed.) warns, "[T]hou shalt not let any of thy [children] pass through the fire to Molech." See W. Gunther Plaut et al., The Torah: A Modern Commentary, 149 n.1, 883 (1981) (ancient human sacrifice of children); Maimonedes Mishneh Torah, 116 (Rabbi Eliyahu trans. with commentaries and notes, Moznaim Publ'g. Corp. 2001) ("[A] person who gives his descendants to Molech" is executed by stoning.). And a pillar of major religions is the banning of the sacrifice of children. Genesis 22:12-13; see Plaut et al., at 149 ("[R]eligion . . . rejects the sacrifice of a [mortal] son . . . ."). Yet we continue using the criminal law to unnecessarily crush the lives of our young.Judge Weinstein also issued a plea for the guidelines to be changed.
Where, as here, in the opinion of a ruling appellate court, the trial court has exceeded its power, at least the matter has been brought to the government's and public's attention, so that in due course, in our caring democracy, future injustices of this kind will be avoided.
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