Mr. President. briefly. to quote from the American Bar Association. this was their comment a year ago on the previous immigration bill on the same subject. on the issue of mandatory minimums when this issue came up during that time: The American Bar Association strongly opposes the provisions in the draft legislationThat was the draft legislation a year agothat would enhance or create new mandatory minimums. First. as a general matter. the mandatory minimums produce an inflexibility and rigidity in the imposition of punishmuent that is inappropriate for a system that we hold out to the world as a model of justice and fairness. To insist that. all those convicted of a crime be lumped into the same category and be penalized indefinitely inevitably means the injustice of a sentence in particular circumstances will be ignored. Additionally. we are concerned at the high cost of imposing mandatory minimums. Numerous studies have demonstrated the extraordinary costs of incarcerating thousands of nonviolent offenders in our Nations prisons and jails. The provisions to create the new mandatory sentences. coupled with those to increase the mandatory detention. have the potential to greatly increase the number of individuals being incarcerated in immigrationrelated cases at a significant cost to the American taxpayers. We have provisions in the legislation that are tough and that a judge can use and must use in those circumstances which require it. But I think to effectively tie the judges hands in these other circumstances makes little sense.
Keywords matched
immigration immigrationrelated