| (The Daily Herald, By Tasha Kates, August 12, 2010) As an assistant public defender in Georgia, Darryl Brown occasionally handled cases where he thought an offender’s sentence was extreme for the crime committed, especially for younger defendants.
Brown, now the O.M. Vicars Professor of Law at the University of Virginia, said he has continued to hear of cases where the punishment didn’t seem appropriate. For example, he said a youthful offender might get an enhanced sentence for committing a petty crime, such as graffiti writing, because he was part of a gang. “We shouldn’t try to solve the gang problem by increasing punishments for petty offenses when we find out someone was part of a gang,” Brown said. Brown is researching overcriminalization — the idea that the country has too many laws and punishments that are too harsh. Brown is advocating for a legislative method that resists creating crimes and repeals older crimes, although he said he’s not optimistic that it will happen soon. |
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Posted on August 17, 2010
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