View article

Federal sentencing is a tragic mess. Thirty years of conflicting legislative experiments began with high hopes but resulted in mass incarceration. 2

I am a small-town Iowa-country federal judge, but I have sentenced more than 4,000 offenders to federal prison. 3 Federal sentences, especially in drug cases, are all too often bone-crushingly severe. That is especially true for most of the endless drug offenders I see: non-violent, low-level, long-term and severe drug addicts. These folks stand before me for sentencing in sharp contrast to the super violent drug cartel kingpins we read about and see on television, Netflix, and in the movies. I can count on one hand the number of kingpins I have sentenced, and each received a very severe sentence, including affirming a sentence of death imposed by a jury after a three-month trial. 4 In contrast, ninety-five percent or more of those I sentence in drug cases cannot afford to hire …