I think you mean “back in 2009” when this actually happened. Have you read any of the articles?
@IMB:
The article assumes this note reflects Judge Jurden’s own personal feelings. In that, that is speculative and misleading. The article does not tell the reader that the notation actually appears in a section of the sentencing form headed “Notes,” where a judge normally lists comments made at the hearing by the prosecutors and defense counsel and the Probation and Parole officers.
[…] In the only place on the sentencing order where the judge is required to list the aggravating and mitigating factors actually considered in the sentence (a part of the order not discussed in the article or pictured in the graphic), Judge Jurden listed “treatment need exceeds need for punishment.” That stands as the only factor clearly considered by the court and is entirely consistent with Delaware’s Sentencing Accountability Commission guidelines. (source, previously cited)
@ no one in particular: I love all the fact-slinging going on. A few choice phrases I noticed that reference “facts” (or at least the homeopathic equivalent of facts):
I wonder if
What do you think if
i bet
I’d hazard
Its possible
there may be
extreme likelihood
Do you seriously think
may have been
But my favorite quote from this thread, the crypto-eugenicist who flat-out says “They need to be put down.”
You can’t really agree with me, because I didn’t make a statement - I asked a question. I thought there might be more than one possible interpretation, and some facts might be useful. (Turns out the facts kind of support the conventional wisdom, so there’s that.)
None of these phrases appear to be attempts to pass of false facts. If someone said, “I wonder if the Local Sports Team won the game” would you jump on them for positing the fact that Local Sports Team won the game?
Everyone who read the response knows we can’t say that the judge took “wouldn’t fare well in prison” into account in sentencing (though we also can’t say that she didn’t do so). When people use phrases like “I bet” and “I’d hazard” and then suggest that poor people would get very different sentences, they are expressing an opinion, not stating a fact. If you have the opposite opinion - that is, you think that there is no reason to believe that a poor person caught in the same set of facts would not end up with the same sentence - go ahead and say so instead merely criticizing the form of the argument.
Given it was a black man on trial the number of blacks and whites is extremely important. Whites find black men (and women) guilty of crimes even with shoddy evidence all the time. Blacks are much more likely to be fair-minded. This is huge generalization, and I’m not saying I approve of this state of affairs, but that’s the way it is.
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Thanks for clearing that up. And: that’s how I generally understand these matters as well.
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“noted in her order that he “will not fare well” in prison and needed treatment instead of time behind bars, court records show.”
I don’t know whose “feelings” are written, or whether this is a mitigating circumstance that was agreed upon by all, but it’s in the order, according to article. Thus, somewhere a decision was made with that in mind and it’s part of the court record. Are we splitting hairs here? Where did the judge write “feelings” that she was uncomfortable with her own order or ruling?
From the linked article:
The article does not tell the reader that the notation actually appears in a section of the sentencing form headed “Notes,” where a judge normally lists comments made at the hearing by the prosecutors and defense counsel and the Probation and Parole officers.
So it was probably something that the defense counsel said that the judge merely wrote down as an argument used. This is not an indication that the judge gave any weight to that point (though, as I noted, there also isn’t a reason to think she did not).
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