comment: >
context: WASHINGTON (AP) — A jury convicted Dayonta McClinton of robbing a CVS pharmacy but acquitted him of murder. A judge gave McClinton an extra 13 years in prison for the killing anyway.
  In courtrooms across America, defendants get additional prison time for crimes that juries found they didn’t commit.
  The Supreme Court is being asked, again, to put an end to the practice. It’s possible that the newest member of the court and a former federal public defender, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, could hold a pivotal vote. >
  
  For those wondering
  
  a 1997 Supreme Court ruling that “a jury’s verdict of acquittal does not prevent the sentencing court from considering conduct underlying the acquitted charge, so long as that conduct has been proved by a preponderance of the evidence.”
  
  Crimes require "beyond a reasonable doubt," but apparently punishment does not. >
  
  It does not.  Judges have a lot of leeway in deciding punishment. >
  
  Seems odd that a judge can ignore the orders of a jury decision.  Even for US law this seems odd. >
  
  My thoughts exactly. What's the point if the judge can straight up ignore the verdict? >
  
  Kind of invalidates jury of peers don't ya think?  And ain't that one of the foundations of our justice system?  Seems this whole fucking thing is a big lie.  There are no laws for anyone but the common slobs.  There are no taxes for anyone but the common slobs.  And there is no fairness for the common slobs. >
  
  I think the quote goes like this:  There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect. >
  
  And those two groups are noticeably lopsided in numbers...... >
  
  Always been rich vs poor. >
  
  "Sentencing a defendant for what’s called “acquitted conduct” has gone on for years, based on a Supreme Court decision from the late 1990s. And the justices have turned down numerous appeals asking them to declare that the Constitution forbids it."
  Sending people to prison for stuff they didn't do is cruel and unusual punishment. Our court system is a joke. >
  
  
  Sending people to prison for stuff they didn't do is cruel and unusual punishment.
  
  It's not punishment at all, because that requires guilt.  This is spite. >
  
  Can we all just appreciate the fact that Scalia and Thomas both joined Ginsburg in 2014 in support of hearing an appeal to get rid of this. 
  You have to be supporting something really messed up when even Scalia is against it. 
  It's like the equivalent of getting a really good score on a test, then your teacher accuses you of cheating, you're proven innocent of cheating, but your teacher gives you a bad score because they implicitly don't believe you and you can't do anything about it.
  I understand the desire to give judges discretion but sometimes having restrictions can be really helpful to prevent stuff like, let's say, the fact that judges tend to give more harsher sentences before lunch, then after lunch, stuff like that. >
  
  Particularly problematic given private prisons are for profit. >
  
  Exactly, when incarceration is incentivized it will inevitably lead to more incarceration than necessary. >
  
  Without knowing the particulars of the case cited here, it seems exceedingly dangerous to allow a judge to, in effect, find an individual guilty despite a jury verdict to the contrary. This practice certainly needs to be ended. >
  
  That’s some Kafkaesque stuff right there. Sentenced for a crime a jury found you didn’t commit. Why bother with the trial? >
  
  I support barring this behavior.  There are ranges of sentencing and going outside of those requires an explanation that's more nuanced than, "I disagree with the jury." >
  
  The whole point here is that the acquitted portions of the alleged crime shouldn’t factor into the sentence for the convicted portion of the alleged crime.
  Am I understanding this right? Just because you go on trial for burglary and murder, but are only found guilty of burglary, you shouldn’t have extra sentencing because you were on trial for murder too.
  I feel like the SC is actually fixing a problem here >
  
  5 bucks says for profit prison systems lobbied to get the law changed in the 90s and that many of these judges who add time, get kickbacks from the prison system. >
  
  “In courtrooms across America, defendants get additional prison time for crimes that juries found they didn’t commit.”
  - If the right to a jury trial is nothing but a recommendation for a judge than is it really a right?