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Blagojevich to Learn Fate: Running on Empty

By Jeralyn, Section Crime in the News
Posted on Wed Dec 07, 2011 at 08:57:00 AM EST
Tags: Rod Blagojevich (all tags)
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Former Illinois Governor will get a chance to speak to the Judge before sentence is pronounced today. After so many years of legal travails, he's got to be running on empty.

I'm hoping the judge will decide on less than 10 years. If he gives him 84 months, it sends a message, is big punishment, will still wreak havoc on his family, but at least, with good time, allow him to return home in time for his younger daughter's high school graduation. I think 5 would be a fairer sentence, but I don't see the judge getting to that level after his comments today.

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    Blagojevich to Learn Fate: Running on Empty | 21 comments (21 topical)
    The guy has lost his house (5.00 / 1) (#1)
    by Edger on Wed Dec 07, 2011 at 08:11:33 AM EST
    is broke, ruined, and finished.

    He's not ever going to have a chance to try to sell another senate seat again. Ever. So there is no deterrent to a prison sentence for him. Maybe making him do community service for five or ten years would be enough?

    Meanwhile democratic and republican senators in Washington are being bought everyday. Selling their own asses to the highest bidder while being treated with "respect" by the media.

    The world is upside down, backwards, and inside out.

    Exactly... (5.00 / 2) (#2)
    by kdog on Wed Dec 07, 2011 at 08:35:21 AM EST
    shady two-bit governor is the sacrificial lamb to restore faith in our institutions, which deserve neither faith nor respect.

    We don't need this clown tortured via chaining and caging, all we need is Blago and all like him out of positions of power.

    Parent

    I agree (none / 0) (#3)
    by Edger on Wed Dec 07, 2011 at 08:40:08 AM EST
    he's a diversion from real problems.  A media circus.

    Parent
    He's the (none / 0) (#4)
    by Edger on Wed Dec 07, 2011 at 08:58:31 AM EST
    Bernie Madoff or the Ken Lay of politics.

    Parent
    To be fair, the theory of sentencing (5.00 / 2) (#5)
    by Peter G on Wed Dec 07, 2011 at 09:17:39 AM EST
    is that the punishment should be "sufficient, but not greater than necessary" to achieve the varied and sometimes contradictory purposes of the criminal justice system.  The objective of deterrence is not limited to deterrence of the particular defendant from the temptation to repeat the offense (which criminologists call "special [or 'specific'] deterrence") but also to deter others who may be similarly situated (which is called "general deterrence").  According to the great weight of studies, severity of punishment is not the key to general deterrence, but rather the perceived probability of being caught and receiving some punishment.  Besides deterrence, the other key purposes of punishment are incapacitation [physical prevention of ongoing or future criminality], rehabilitation, restitution [to victims], and just deserts/ retribution (including denunciation).  In addition, personal ruination -- both reputational and financial, including loss of pension, etc. -- is both a severe punishment to the defendant and a powerful deterrent to others who may have the opportunity, due to their positi