23 year old gets 23 years. Go figure.

What do you say to a 23 year old client who gets sentenced to 23 years in prison?
It could have been worse. or You'll still be younger than me when you get out. or Maybe they'll change the 85% rule to 65% and instead of 19.5 years you'll only serve 15 years.
How do we justify a 23 sentence for a 23 year old?
This sentence will deter others. or This shows that we don't tolerate killing. or Next time, I bet you'll think before getting a gun?

All too frequent murder case. Bouncer kicks client out for something client didn't do, disrespects client, client gets gun and kills bouncer, another gunslinger shoots client in the balls.
Bouncer has wife, family, friends -- absolutely no sense in killing.
Client has strong family, many friends -- absolutely not in character to kill.
Sister of victim asks for forgiveness. Client apologizes (genuinely) to victim's family.
Plea agreement to a range of 10 to 23 years and Judge Youngs gives 23 years. (Might have to rethink pleading to a lid in Division 6.)

We spend a bazillion dollars on locking people up, but no one asks (and certainly doesn't attempt to answer) a pretty important question: How much time should we make someone spend in prison?
You would think that an informed answer to this question would be somewhat important. Each year we lock someone up, we taxpayers chip in about $25,000.00. As of June 2008, there were 2,310,984 people in prisons and jails. That comes to about $57,774,600,000.00 per year. $57 Billion dollars still seems like a lot to me.
Back in the day, people were interested in important things like recidivism (the liklihood that someone would re-offend), rehabilitation (hey-most are getting out some day), deterrence (how much punishment deters others), and other such things.
No more. Lock 'em up.
But for how long?
If, for example, we lock people up for a year more than is "necessary" then we've made a multi-billion dollar boo boo. Of course, maybe we should lock them up longer, but this lock-em-up-and throw-away-the-key approach doesn't seem to have been very effective over the past 30-40 years.

Sometimes the system works . . .

So, the client had been in jail for over a year on some ridiculous bond that only Bill Gates could make. It had been specially set in February for a July 13, 2009 trial date. Speedy trial motion filed. (See July 13 rant.)
Anyway, bond hearing to modify bond conditions given that the prosecutor had blown the trial date with a record setting 418 pages of missing discovery. So . . . Judge Schieber very quickly remembered the case and ordered a signature bond with county house arrest.

Sometimes the system doesn't work . . .

After one small victory for common sense, it was on to federal court. Now, this is the client who kept wondering who was looking for him. We'd called the U.S. Marshalls and Fugitive Apprehension--nothing.
Anyway, turns out there's a secret federal indictment for felon in possession. The AUSA's a good guy, tough but fair. After hearing our attempts to surrender, he agreed to not seek pre-trial detention if we could surrender by Thursday.
Now, what many people forget is that people charged with crimes (that they may or may not have committed) nonetheless have lives. Businesses to run, jobs to go to, kids to look after, a birthday, a game they don't want to miss, etc. So, it is sometimes more practical to hang out a few extra days before going in to surrender.
My client really wanted to wait until Monday, but if he waited until Monday then the US would move for pre-trial detention and the police, FBI, CIA, and mod squad would keep looking for him. I talked him into surrendering on Thursday since the US wouldn't move for detention.
He surrendered, the US didn't move for pre-trial detention but the Court on its own motion decided it needed more info before deciding whether to detain him or release him on bond.
I know, there's some bassackward stuff going on. The judge doesn't know whether to detain him or not, so instead of letting him stay out until the decision is made, he gets locked up.
So . . . the client who does the right thing and surrenders on Thursday will now stay locked up until the detention hearing next Tuesday.
So, the prosecutor and defense attorney think he should be released, the client does the right thing and . . . gets screwed.
Sometimes the Courts don't understand that a little common sense and reasonableness goes a long way. My credibility with my client is damaged. My assurance that the AUSA is acting righteous is damaged. No wonder the public doesn't trust the system. They shouldn't.
I probably won't be so encouraging about doing the right thing with the next client.