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Sentencing and Penalties Judicial discretion and mandatory minimums, drug conspiracy penalties and double jeopardy - all of these can be found in this section. Pages: ‹1› ‹2› ‹3› ‹4› ‹5› ‹6› ‹7› ‹8› ‹9› ‹10› ‹11› ‹12› ‹13›
[Michigan's sentencing scheme for offenses involving varying amounts of mixtures containing controlled substances] is not an ancient one revived in a sudden or surprising way; it is, rather, a recent enactment calibrated with care, clarity, and much deliberation to address a most serious contemporary social problem. The scheme provides clear notice of the severe consequences that attach to possession of drugs in wholesale amounts, thereby giving force to one of the first purposes of -- deterrence. In this sense, the Michigan scheme may be as fair, if not more so, than other sentencing systems in which the sentencer's discretion or the complexity of the scheme obscures the possible sanction for a crime, resulting in a shock to the offender who learns the severity of his sentence only after he commits the crime.
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Reasonable minds may differ about the efficacy of Michigan's sentencing scheme, and it is far from certain that Michigan's bold experiment will succeed. The accounts of pickpockets at Tyburn hangings are a reminder of the limits of the law's deterrent force, but we cannot say the law before us has no chance of success and is on that account so disproportionate as to be cruel and unusual punishment. The dangers flowing from drug offenses and the circumstances of the crime committed here demonstrate that the Michigan penalty scheme does not surpass constitutional bounds. Michigan may use its to address the issue of drug possession in wholesale amounts in the manner that it has in this sentencing scheme.
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Robinson v. California, 370 U.S. 660 (1962) [...] held it to be cruel and unusual to impose even one day of imprisonment for the status of drug addiction, id., at 667.
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The death penalty is appropriate in some cases and not in others. The same should be true of punishment by imprisonment.
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Drugs are without doubt a serious societal problem. To justify such a harsh mandatory penalty as that imposed here, however, the offense should be one which will always warrant that punishment. Mere possession of drugs -- even in such a large quantity [672 grams of cocaine] -- is not so serious an offense that it will always warrant, much less mandate, life imprisonment without possibility of parole. Unlike crimes directed against the persons and property of others, possession of drugs affects the criminal who uses the drugs most directly. The ripple effect on society caused by possession of drugs, through related crimes, lost productivity, health problems, and the like, is often not the direct consequence of possession, but of the resulting addiction, something which this Court held in Robinson v. California, 370 U.S., at 660-667, cannot be made a crime.
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