I understood the gist in context as ~ “using US sentencing outcomes as a partial framework, or giving weight to consistency when many sentences are excessive or even manifestly so, poses significant problems.” And I think that is a valid point.
Your last sentence raises another possible difference in how to approach the question: My reactions to how long he should serve are bounded by the options available under US law. I didn’t check, but I think the maximum term of supervised release (the means of imposing certain post-sentence restrictions) is only a few years here. And there is no discretionary parole in the federal system, so I can only go off of SBF’s lack of remorse (which requires acknowledgement of wrongdoing, not just mistakes-were-made) in assessing his future dangerousness. It’s possible I would go down somewhat if I could maintain a tight leash on post-sentence conduct in exchange.
Finally, I think it’s appropriate to consider a few other practical realities. It is practically essential to give defendants an incentive to plead guilty when they are actually guilty; that is commonly thought of as 25-33%. Likewise, we have to further punish defendants who tamper with witnesses and perjure themselves. The US system detains way too many people pre-trial, and if we’re going to fix that then I think the additional sanction for abusing pre-trial release has to be meaningful. So I have almost a doubling of the sentence here compared to a version of SBF who pled guilty, didn’t tamper, and didn’t perjure. So to me, saying 25 years was enough here implies ~12.5 would be enough for that version of SBF, with about 9-10 years estimated actual incarceration.
You make a lot of good points. I think there’s a lot of practical realities of an effective system here that I didn’t confront, and honestly, I’m probably better off leaving that stuff to those who know more about it, like you :)
I understood the gist in context as ~ “using US sentencing outcomes as a partial framework, or giving weight to consistency when many sentences are excessive or even manifestly so, poses significant problems.” And I think that is a valid point.
Your last sentence raises another possible difference in how to approach the question: My reactions to how long he should serve are bounded by the options available under US law. I didn’t check, but I think the maximum term of supervised release (the means of imposing certain post-sentence restrictions) is only a few years here. And there is no discretionary parole in the federal system, so I can only go off of SBF’s lack of remorse (which requires acknowledgement of wrongdoing, not just mistakes-were-made) in assessing his future dangerousness. It’s possible I would go down somewhat if I could maintain a tight leash on post-sentence conduct in exchange.
Finally, I think it’s appropriate to consider a few other practical realities. It is practically essential to give defendants an incentive to plead guilty when they are actually guilty; that is commonly thought of as 25-33%. Likewise, we have to further punish defendants who tamper with witnesses and perjure themselves. The US system detains way too many people pre-trial, and if we’re going to fix that then I think the additional sanction for abusing pre-trial release has to be meaningful. So I have almost a doubling of the sentence here compared to a version of SBF who pled guilty, didn’t tamper, and didn’t perjure. So to me, saying 25 years was enough here implies ~12.5 would be enough for that version of SBF, with about 9-10 years estimated actual incarceration.
You make a lot of good points. I think there’s a lot of practical realities of an effective system here that I didn’t confront, and honestly, I’m probably better off leaving that stuff to those who know more about it, like you :)