Our goals in the sentencing phase

This week, I would like to talk with you about the goal when sentencing a defendant. This question basically boils down to this: what are we trying to accomplish when giving a defendant a specific sentence?

When we get to the sentencing stage, that means that the defendant has already either pled guilty or been found guilty by the judge or a jury. So at this stage, we are trying to figure out what the most appropriate sentence will be for this defendant. The sentencing stage allows a lot more evidence to be admitted in court than the guilt/innocence stage. When we get to sentencing, things like other offenses or bad acts, character evidence, and likelihood of committing crimes again all become admissible. These types of things would otherwise generally not be allowed in court when determining the guilt or innocence of a defendant.

There are three main goals when determining a defendant’s sentence: punishment, deterrence and rehabilitation. The first goal here, punishment, focuses on punishing the specific defendant for the specific crime that has been committed. The main idea here is that the sentence should fit the crime – the more serious the crime, the more serious the sentence should be. That is why something like murder carries a sentence of 5-99 years, while shoplifting has a much lesser punishment. When we (the prosecutor, judge, or jury) are looking at what the sentence should be, we have to consider the impact of the crime, and the sentence should be proportional to that impact.

Next week, I’ll talk about the other two goals of sentencing – deterrence and rehabilitation. As always, I am available for questions or comments at daofice@milamcounty. net.