Pubdate: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 Source: Associated Press Copyright: 1999 Associated Press Author: Martha Mendoza, Associated Press Writer Related site: Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM): http://www.famm.org/ SUPREME COURT JUSTICE CONCERNED ABOUT MANDATORY SENTENCES MONTEREY, Calif. - U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer said Wednesday that sentencing guidelines were never meant to become mandatory sentences, and that judges should be given discretion when sending criminals to jail. ``Mandatory minimum sentences say no exceptions: Five years is five years,'' Breyer said. ``That's not how the guidelines are supposed to work.'' Breyer was a member of the U.S. Sentencing Commission from 1985 to 1989, developing federal sentencing and parole guidelines adopted by Congress. Conceived as a middle ground between mandatory sentences and complete indeterminate sentencing, a Senate report on the sentencing guidelines emphasized the need to curtail judicial sentencing discretion, but stressed that the guidelines were not intended to be imposed ``in a mechanistic fashion.'' But since then, Congress and state lawmakers have continued to adopt mandatory minimum sentence statutes, requiring judges to sentence convicted criminals to defined periods. These days, for example, federal law requires anyone convicted of possessing 1 gram of LSD or 100 marijuana plants to spend five years in prison without parole. Anyone caught with a weapon who has been convicted of a federal crime faces 15 years in prison. Many lawmakers say the mandatory minimums remove the chance of biased decisions by judges, and make the judicial system more fair. But Breyer told federal prosecutors and judges from throughout the West gathered at the Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference that those guidelines gave judges discretion to decide their own sentences if they can explain why it isn't a typical case. U.S. District Judge John Coughenour from western Washington told colleagues at the conference that federal judges should speak out more against the mandatory sentences. ``Some of the mandatory minimums are, and I choose the word carefully, obscene,'' he said. ``Most people don't understand the problem we're dealing with.'' - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake