The Democrats envisioned a two-phase reform that would start with shortening the sentences and providing more drug treatment first, then give judges back the discretion they deserve to decide whether a given defendant is a hapless addict in need of help or a hardened dealer.
She retained that back-seat discretion throughout the two terms of the Bush Presidency.
Alternatives to incarceration: Under Governor Paterson, reform of the Rockefeller drug laws gives discretion back to the judges.
While I agree with Judge Jack B. Weinstein about ending mandatory sentencing and giving discretion back to judges, there are fundamental ways in which we disagree about the users of child pornography.
Still, he expressed satisfaction with Monday's ruling because it reduced reliance on mandatory sentencing and gave discretion back to judges who may still decide to put someone away for life.
Conversely, the act of caring is always attuned to the everyday ongoings, that is, the here-and-nows, which connect us back to exercising discretion and applying judgment, as there are no techniques or recipes that inform directly the way we should act.
To address that, Drucker wants to see those drug laws rolled back, restoring judicial discretion in sentencing.
The new law also gives judicial discretion back to judges, who can now determine whether someone should get treatment for his addiction instead of a jail cell.
"While some police services still use these targets informally, we are seeing a move back towards a discretion-led, common sense approach, and that's reflected in the figures.
Because most of them (and probably all of them) acquired state assets in ways that were highly questionable -- though winked at at the time -- every billionaire knows that Putin could now, at his discretion, reach back into their history and pull out criminal, civil or tax charges that would send them to jail or into bankruptcy.
