Critics of Michigan's mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines have pushed for changes for years, but economic difficulties may ultimately have led to their elimination.
There have been several protests in Asuncion from students and women's groups calling for more government action against child abuse and for changes to sentencing for rape.
Judge Perry on Monday ordered that judicial assistants begin logging all demands for changes to inmates' sentences and that the clerk of the courts verify with the judge or his judicial assistant whether an order was issued legitimately.
"It can reduce sentences for parole violations or change sentencing law or go along with the governor's plan, but it has to do something".
For his part, Mr. McCall, the state comptroller who is Mr. Cuomo's opponent in the Sept. 10 Democratic primary, has called for changes in the sentencing, which a growing chorus of critics has characterized as unduly harsh.
However, after Judge Samuel Liebowitz gave him five consecutive one-year sentences for contempt of court, he changed his mind.
Something of a "Teflon Don, Knightt has managed to evade lengthy prison sentences for years, but that may change with this latest incident.
Advocates for reform say that changes that affect sentences for offenders, such as the Fair Sentencing Act, which was passed by Congress in 2010 to address racial disparities in the sentencing laws on cocaine, should be applied retroactively.
The most significant changes involved reducing sentences for nonviolent drug offenders, raising the amount of drugs required for top-level possession charges and allowing defendants serving a life term to apply for a reduced sentence.
In the face of tougher laws against drunken driving, longer sentences for sexual predators and other statutory changes, Ms. Carpenter said, it was "not practical to think any alternative program is going to replace creating a new facility".
