"Mr. Routh, a former roofer from Greensboro, N.C., never fired a shot during the thwarted assassination attempt on Sept. 15, 2024..."

"... a fact that his lawyer, Martin L. Roth, emphasized on Wednesday. A Secret Service agent spotted him outside a fence near the sixth hole while Mr. Trump was golfing nearby. The agent fired; Mr. Routh fled in his car and was caught shortly after.... Mr. Roth asked the court to consider setting aside the sentencing guidelines and instead sentence his client to 27 years in prison.... 'Defendant would be in custody into his 80s and would not pose any threat to cause harm to the public,' Mr. Roth wrote. On Wednesday, he described Mr. Routh as 'troubled,' but said he had 'a very good core.'... Mr. Routh told the judge before his sentencing on Wednesday that he was a do-gooder, saying, 'I’ve given every drop of who I am, every day, for the benefit of our nation.'"

From "Man Convicted of Trying to Assassinate Trump Gets Life Sentence/Federal prosecutors told the judge that Ryan Routh had 'plotted painstakingly' to ambush Donald J. Trump in 2024 at his golf course near West Palm Beach" (NYT).

Don't all assassins portray themselves as do-gooders?

I asked Grok. Full answer here. I'll just quote what Charles J. Guiteau, President Garfield's assassin, said after he was condemned to death: "I know where I stand on this business. I am here as God's man and don't you forget it."

Musk contrasts Jacob Chansley with the man who attacked Dave Chappelle.

Chansley got 4 years in prison for a non-violent, police-escorted tour!?

Dave Chapelle was violently assaulted on stage by a guy with a knife. That guy got a $3000 fine & no prison time. https://t.co/qDRWxozD8B

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 10, 2023

Why compare these particular 2 individuals? You're always going to be able to find someone who got an easy sentence to contrast with the person you think got a harsh sentence, so why pick that specific instance of what looks like leniency?

First, is it even true that Chappelle was "assaulted on stage by a guy with a knife" and that the man received "no prison time." It says in the NY Post that Isaiah Lee received a 270-day sentence — so that was served in "jail," not "prison," making Musk technically right.

And Lee had a knife on his person, but he did not wield the knife in the attack on Chappelle, so it's deceptive/sloppy to say he assaulted Chappelle "with a knife." If you have a knife in your pocket and you give somebody a shove, have you attacked him with a knife? Is that the kind of technical correctness Musk wants to be known for?

I'd say a 270-day sentence was appropriate. What would you give Will Smith for hitting Chris Rock? 270 days? Less? More?

Speaking of Hollywood royalty, why was Jacob Chanley treated like a special guest by the Capitol Police? Here's my hypothesis: Someone selected him from the crowd because of the way he looked. He became the face of the insurrection/"insurrection" because he was chosen for the part, not because he exercised leadership. 

Chansley was like a beautiful young woman in a crowd at a rock concert, spotted by roadies and squired to the after party. 

"In four days of Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, the phrase 'child porn' (or 'pornography' or 'pornographer') was mentioned 165 times."

"There were also, according to transcripts, 142 uses of 'sex' ('sexual abuse,' 'sexual assault,' 'sexual intercourse,' 'sex crimes'), 15 of 'pedophile,' 13 of 'predators,' 18 of 'prepubescent' and nine of general pornography.... The Republican fixation on pornography continued during Monday’s round of statements by senators before the committee advanced Jackson’s nomination to the Senate floor. A preliminary transcript showed 41 mentions of 'porn' or 'pornography' and 32 mentions of 'sex offenders,' 'sexual assault' and the like.... Republicans on the committee congratulated themselves for avoiding 'personal slanders' of the sort they said Democrats inflicted on Brett M. Kavanaugh after women accused the Donald Trump nominee of sexual misconduct. Yet, they opposed Jackson with the most grievous of personal slanders... Graham: 'Every judge who does what you’re doing is making it easier for the children to be exploited.' Cruz: 'I also see a record of … advocacy as it concerns sexual predators.' Blackburn: 'What’s your hidden agenda? Is it to let … child predators back to the streets?' And, of course, there was Hawley, who previewed the hearings by saying Jackson’s record 'endangers our children.'"

From "Senate Republicans’ unhealthy fixation on child porn, by the numbers" by Dana Milbank (WaPo).

What goes around, comes around. Oh, but it came back around in a different form! An unhealthy and fixated form....

It's different but is it worse?

"I don’t know how many other multimillionaires are out there, ready to devote the limitless resources at their disposal to supporting pyramid schemes run by dangerous criminals."

Said Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis of Federal District Court in Brooklyn, quoted in "Clare Bronfman Is Sentenced to 81 Months in Nxivm ‘Sex Cult’ Case/'Will you never stop?' a former member of the group asked Ms. Bronfman, a Seagram’s heir, who used her family fortune to intimidate critics of Nxivm, prosecutors say" (NYT).

Nine victims of Nxivm spoke with emotion about how their lives had been destroyed by Ms. Bronfman, leaving behind ruined marriages, careers and reputations. Some of them said Ms. Bronfman sued them relentlessly, drove them into bankruptcy and even persuaded local prosecutors to initiate criminal charges against them....

"This bill would cheapen the meaning of lynching by defining it so broadly as to include a minor bruise of abrasion."

Here's the transcript.

I seek to amend this legislation, not because I take it or I take lynching lightly, but because I take it seriously, and this legislation does not. Lynching is a tool of terror that claimed the lives of nearly 5,000 Americans between 1881 and 1968. But this bill would cheapen the meaning of lynching by defining it so broadly as to include a minor bruise or abrasion. Our nation’s history of racial terrorism demands more seriousness from us than that.... It would be a disgrace for the Congress of the United States to declare that a bruise is lynching, that an abrasion is lynching, that any injury to the body, no matter how temporary, is on par with the atrocities done to people like Emmett Till, Raymond Gunn, and Sam Hose, who were killed for no reason, but because they were black. To do that would demean their memory and cheapen the historic and horrific legacy of lynching in our country.... We have had federal hate crime statutes for over 50 years, and it has been a federal hate crime to murder someone because of their race for over a decade. Additionally, murder is already a crime in 50 states. In fact, rather than consider a good-intentioned but symbolic bill, the Senate could immediately consider addressing qualified immunity and ending police militarization. We can and must do better....

At the link — the heated response from Senators Kamala Harris and Cory Booker. Harris accuses Paul of having "no reason... other than cruel and deliberate obstruction on a day of mourning." Booker praises Rand Paul — doesn't "question his heart" — but stresses what it "would mean for America" to pass the bill right now instead of getting hung up on "legalistic issues."

“Wearing sunglasses and a dark fedora, Stone... strode past a giant inflatable rat dressed as Trump with a red tie and yellow hair - a common prop in street protests - and a sign calling for his pardon.”

From a Reuter’s article about the Roger Stone sentencing, happening now.

UPDATE:  3 years!

AND: I've said it before and I can say it again: "I happened to be wearing a fedora when I ran across that." (Reason for wearing a fedora while blogging explained at that link.)

ALSO: From the NYT write-up:

Judge Amy Berman Jackson excoriated Mr. Stone, saying his behavior inspired “dismay and disgust”.... She said that for months, Mr. Stone carried out a deliberate and calculated effort to hinder an important congressional inquiry by blatantly lying, hiding hundreds of documents and pressuring a fragile witness. Mr. Stone enjoys “mind games” and political gamesmanship, she said, but “nothing about this case was a joke. It wasn’t a stunt and it wasn’t a prank.”

She added, “He was not prosecuted to give anyone a political advantage. He was not prosecuted, as some have complained, for standing up for the president. He was prosecuted for covering up for the president.”...

"In [Roger] Stone’s case, the guidelines worked a severe result. In tampering cases, a guidelines enhancement calls for a drastic increase in the sentence..."

"... if the defendant threatened the witness with physical injury. This drove Stone’s 'offense level' from 21 to 29 on the guidelines grid, so even though he is a first offender... his recommended sentence zoomed to 90 to 108 months — instead of 37 to 46 months....  [T]he prosecutors’ submission was an accurate (if extreme and unyielding) rendition of federal sentencing law....[T]he president went bonkers on Twitter upon learning of the recommendation... [but] the DOJ and the White House have had no communications about the case.... Late Tuesday, the DOJ filed a revised sentencing memo, which does not recommend a specific sentence but strongly suggests that a term calculated without the eight-point enhancement — i.e., between 37 and 46 months’ imprisonment — would be just. The new memo concedes that the prosecutors’ calculation in the original memo was 'arguably' correct, but contends that it would be unreasonable under the circumstances... But for his connection to Trump, Stone would never have been pursued in a collusion fever dream that Mueller’s prosecutors knew was bogus when they charged him. Yet his crimes, while exaggerated, were real. He was convicted by a jury... though he could be spared by the judge....  If President Trump is afraid, in an election year, to take the political hit that a pardon for Stone would entail... he should bite his tongue.... The Justice Department’s job is to process cases, including Mueller cases, pursuant to law. If the president wants to make those cases disappear, he has to do it himself and be accountable."

Clear analysis from Andrew C. McCarthy in "The Roger Stone Sentencing Fiasco." (National Review).

"The outburst was too much even for the lawyers for Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who had to tell the judge that Mr. Flynn did not represent any foreign entity while at the White House."

"Judge Sullivan later apologized, sort of, telling the courtroom not 'to read too much into' his outburst about 'treason.' But that came after the falsehood made global headlines."

"America is the greatest Country in the world and my job is to fight for ALL citizens, even those who have made mistakes."

"This will keep our communities safer, and provide hope and a second chance, to those who earn it. I look forward to signing this into law!"

Tweets President Trump as the Senate passes the criminal justice reform bill, voting 87-12, AP reports:

The bill gives judges more discretion when sentencing some drug offenders and boosts prisoner rehabilitation efforts. It also reduces the life sentence for some drug offenders with three convictions, or “three strikes,” to 25 years. The changes would only apply to federal prisoners.

The Senate vote is the culmination of years of negotiations aimed at addressing concerns that the nation’s war on drugs has exploded the prison population without helping people prepare for their return to society.

Obviously, 87-12 is bipartisan. So who were the 12 nay votes? All Republican:

Barrasso (R-WY)
Cotton (R-AR)
Enzi (R-WY)
Kennedy (R-LA)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Risch (R-ID)
Rounds (R-SD)
Rubio (R-FL)
Sasse (R-NE)
Shelby (R-AL)
Sullivan (R-AK)

Not voting was Lindsey Graham.

Let's just focus on Marco Rubio. I'm picking him because he's the most prominent person on that list — I thought he was going to be the GOP presidential nominee in 2016 — and it so happens that he was on a Fox News radio show yesterday morning and addressed the bill:

Let me just tell you that I think everyone is in favor of the first part of that bill which I've long supported as a separate bill and that is the idea that if someone is going to get out of jail anyway, they're scheduled to be out of jail in 10 years, 5 years or 15 years it behooves us, it's in our interest, to make sure that those people have training and those people have skills acquisition and the kinds of things that you need in order to be successful so you don't go back to jail. The second part of it is what's troubling and that is the incentive that they want to use to get these people to take these services is a reduction on the back end, a credit time, credit for the back end where they're able to serve part of the sentence in a halfway house or even in non-detention home probation. Whatever it might be. And then on the front end also reducing some mandatory sentences for certain cases. That's the part that I get nervous about because ultimately you're talking about some very bad people that have done some horrible things. We have to be very careful when we start walking in that direction. I think mandatory minimum sentences can sometimes have impacts that you look at it and say aren't fair, but we also have to recognize mandatory and minimum sentences have taken really terrible human beings off the streets for long periods of time. The best way to prevent a criminal from committing another crime is to not let them get out there... I'm not sure given the Amendments that are out there that they could ever get to the point where I'm 100% confident. I don't understand why we didn't just do this for a small select group of crimes and start from there and build it up as oppose to the reverse, but they've decided to take a huge bite of the apple. If I'm uncomfortable in the end I'm going to air [sic] on the side of public safety and vote against it. 

"A federal judge on Tuesday postponed the sentencing for Michael Flynn after he lambasted President Trump’s former national security adviser for trying to undermine his own country..."

"... and said he could not guarantee he would spare Flynn from prison. The stunning development means that Flynn will have to be sentenced at a later date, when he can possibly convince a judge more thoroughly of how his cooperation has benefited law enforcement.... After reviewing some of the allegations against Flynn, including that he worked to advance the interests of the Turkish government in the United States during the 2016 presidential campaign, [U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan] pointed to an American flag behind him in the courtroom and said heatedly, 'Arguably, that undermines everything this flag over here stands for. Arguably you sold your country out. The court’s going to consider that... I cannot assure you, if you proceed today, you will not receive a sentence of incarceration.' Sullivan also asked a prosecutor with the special counsel’s office whether Flynn could be charged with 'treason.'"

WaPo reports.

"Some of the strongest advocates for the bill and conservative reform seem to be those with personal connections to the criminal-justice system."

"Much of the public and private heavy lifting in building support for the bill has been done by Jared Kushner, who made a rare appearance on Sean Hannity’s show to promote it and is reportedly responsible for securing an endorsement of the bill from Fox News. Kushner’s father, Charles Kushner, spent over a year in federal prison after being convicted for white-collar crimes, in 2005."

From "The Improbable Success of a Criminal-Justice-Reform Bill Under Trump" (The New Yorker).

Dharun Ravi gets 30 days in jail (for spying on his roommate with a webcam).

The maximum sentence was 10 years in prison. The judge criticized Ravi for a while before announcing the light sentence:

“You lied to your roommate who placed his trust in you without any conditions, and you violated it,” the judge, Glenn Berman of State Superior Court, said. “I haven’t heard you apologize once.”

In addition to jail, Judge Berman sentenced Mr. Ravi to three years’ probation, 300 hours of community service, counseling about cyberbullying and alternate lifestyles and a $10,000 probation fee, to be used to help victims of bias crimes.

Counseling about alternative lifestyles? How is that meted out? Government indoctrination on lifestyles?

Prosecutors appeared angry — they and the Clementi family canceled a planned post-sentencing news conference — and said they would appeal...

Steven Goldstein, the chairman of Garden State Equality, a prominent New Jersey gay rights group, was displeased. “We have opposed throwing the book at Dharun Ravi,” he said in a statement. “But we have similarly rejected the other extreme, that Ravi should have gotten no jail time at all, and today’s sentencing is closer to that extreme than the other. This was not merely a childhood prank gone awry. This was not a crime without bias.”...

Mr. Ravi, who is a legal resident of the United States but a citizen of India, could face deportation, but the judge said he would add a letter to his record encouraging the immigration authorities not to deport him.

Click the Dharun Ravi tag if you want to know more about what I think about this case. Basically: I think the judge did the right thing, which is punish him appropriately for the crime he committed. Making a scapegoat or an "example" out of him is an abuse of the legal process.

Booker, who won in the Supreme Court, gets the same 30-year sentence.

"Too old to become involved in criminal activity? Not on your life, counselor. He'll never be too old," said Judge Shabaz as he handed Freddie Joe Booker the same 30-year sentence he gave him back before Booker fought his way to a victory in the U.S. Supreme Court last January. The Court found a Sixth Amendment problem with the Federal Sentencing Guidelines that led it to reframe the Guidelines as discretionary rather than mandatory. It remains to be seen how much the Booker decision will change things at ground level:

Assistant U.S. Attorney John Vaudreuil said the Booker decision hasn't caused more defendants in this federal district to choose trials over pleas because both Judge Barbara Crabb and Shabaz continue follow the guidelines.

"I can only speak to what's happening here, but our judges look at the guidelines and have largely determined them to be appropriate...Both (judges) have made it clear that one of the goals of following the guidelines is to keep a uniform approach to sentencing cases across the country," Vaudreuil said.