Madoff Sentence "Legally Suspect And Grossly Unfair"
(AP Photo/Christine Cornell)
As a practical matter, whether Madoff got 150 years or 100 years or 50 years or 25 years is of no moment—he’ll die in prison. But as a legal matter, there is a great deal of difference between an unsustainable sentence like this one and a reasoned one, like the 50 years that probation officials had suggested. If the sentence is appealed, I suspect a great many appeals court judges would reject it and order a lesser sentence.
None of this condones what Madoff did or the harm he caused to victims all over the world. Madoff is an all-time white-collar crook who really does deserve never again to breathe free air.
But our justice system is not built upon revenge or a thirst for disproportionate punishment. Some murderers get a fraction of the sentence Madoff received today. Worldcom’s Bernie Ebbers got 25 years. Enron’s Jeffrey Skilling got 24 years. Sam Israel got 20 years. Refco’s Philip Bennet got 16 years.
Our sentencing laws are not based upon emotion, or upon what the victims might have done with the money they lost, or upon how famous and powerful they are. I could care less about what happens to Madoff. But we all lose when our judges lose sight of bedrock sentencing principles and instead make easy and popular choices.
More from Cohen: 150-Year Madoff Sentence Is "Symbolic"
(CBS)
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See all 64 CommentsI have witnessed that every day, people are needlessly and wastefully sent to federal jail, when we live in a day and an age where technology provides so many other alternatives to jailing people.
I say save the jail cell for people who are a threat to society. Madoff poses no threat to either you your I or anyone anymore. If we put him in jail, then we (the tax payers) are now going to shell out another $32k per year in order to house and feed this guy until he dies. Perhaps a better alternative would be to make someone like Madoff do something that he has not appeared to do for most of his life,.. work. Make him work to pay people back. As a Christian, I have to follow what Christ says and offer forgiveness. Having seen the US justice system at work, one thing I know to be true, is that you and I will never know the exact details of what really happened in his case, and as such, we can't make an objective judgment.
What we can do, is give Madoff the benifit of the doubt that perhaps there is something inside of himself that compelled him to surrender and not fight. And whether that is the case or not, he should be given a chance to spend the rest of his days working to pay people off at a real job and at least be given the opportunity to come right spiritually before he dies. You would want the same chance if it where you son or daughter that did what he did.
We have a real problem in this country of making people so wrong so that we can forget and justify the wrong and complacency that we all do that exists in our own lives.
Without even examining your religious beliefs, or your care about the fact that Madoff is still a human being, consider the foolish economic policy of jailing so many people needlessly when alternative sentences may be more cost effective, appropriate and human for us all.
The US has the highest incarceration rate in the world, more people in prison here then in China, and we still have Madoff's. The status quo and prison for these kinds of criminals just doesn't work. The only possibility that exists is some other form of punishment.
I think that the author of this article must have spent a lot of time actually at the unjustness of sentencing in this country for him to make this enlightened point. Listen from logic to what he's saying and not from your own heart that bleeds from your own hurt.
Make Madoff work for us.
Madoff may be in a bind here because large sums of that money likely went to Media Support of Obama's and other Dems 2004 and 2008 Campaigns. If Bernie were to divulge that he would have gotten a lighter sentence but would have been a dead man.
As an aside, you may or may not agree with the concept or administration of Social Security but it is not a Ponzi Scheme. I say this because an essential element of a Ponzi Scheme is that no one knows that new money is being used to pay existing investors. By definition, The fact that tinpot knows this contradicts his assertions.
Madoff wouldn't have survived the 25-year sentence Cohen's calling for so what difference does it make how many years will be left unserved after Madoff's death?
These other criminals were also parts of larger groups that acted in concert - the Enron disaster could not have happened without complicity from several corporate officers and a well-known well-respected auditor.
In the Madoff case the fraud seems to have lasted 17 years, and while there was an auditor involved it was a single individual. Madoff basically committed his fraud on his own (although it could not have continued without the trust of those around him who chose not to verify anything he told them).
I think those factors - magnitude and length of the fraud and individual culpability - make this case unique and the sentence sound.
These guidelines have gradually disappeared as the courts have recognized that judges should be allowed to judge a defendant given the particular circumstances/facts in the particular case (that's why sometimes a better result is probation and sometimes a better result is 150 years).
That's what we expect our judges to do (and appeals courts are there to simmer down overzealous sentences) - so let the writer close his pie hole - and let the judiciary do what they know how to do - to judge fairly and in the context of the crime.
This means judges SHOULD use their judgement when sentencing - and 150 years, as absurd as it may sound, is fair in some cases (this one) and unfair in others - just as probation is fair at times and not fair at other times.
So the writer here is completely wrong in chastising the judge....for JUDGING. Was the judge "spirited" or over-zealous in his judgement of Madoff? It's not for us to say - it is the prerogative of the judge.
On the other hand if Madoff were set free to walk the streets,
he wouldn't last very long walking by some of his victims.
I say free the b-astard and let him run a gauntlett.
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