In 1976, under pressure from both sides, Governor Jerry Brown, a moderate Democrat, signed a law mandating "determinate" sentences in California: from then on, judges would choose from a set of firm sentences for each crime, stripping power from fickle and possibly racist parole boards.
Hollande managed to dispatch the personal questions in a few simple but firm sentences, stating that he was "indignant" over this invasion of his privacy, that "private matters should be treated privately," and that he would say nothing more about it.
Thorough, impartial investigations, aired in open court and with firm sentences imposed for both operators and masterminds -- no matter how powerful -- are the only way to deter crime and restore faith in a state whose promises of security and justice still ring hollow to most of its citizens.
According to Waldman, the sentencing guidelines are "actually firm required sentences" that leave judges little discretion.
Last December two former officials at Vinalines, a state-owned shipping firm, were sentenced to death for embezzlement.
Two employees of the family-run firm were sentenced in February last year for their role in the corruption.
A former Nashville lawyer convicted of murdering his wife, plotting to kill her parents and stealing from his former law firm was sentenced to 56 years in prison.
A vice president of a Connecticut marketing firm was sentenced yesterday to a year in jail for stealing $363,000 from Home Depot, said Robert M. Morgenthau, the Manhattan district attorney.
Tone N. Grant, former president of Refco, once the largest independent commodities brokerage firm, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for his role in a $2.4 billion fraud that involved hiding huge trading losses from clients.
In a previous trial in 2013, Navalny was charged with embezzling 16m roubles from a state-owned timber firm and sentenced to prison, but he was released the next day after thousands protested in Moscow.
