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[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Ok, so Stone is a buffoon who played with fire he could have avoided (he didn’t have to testify) for media attention. And for dicking around with a serious procedure and wasting tax dollars needlessly, punishment is warranted.

And a 5 year recommendation would not surprise me.

But 7-9 yrs? For the lies and silliness (he was not determined to have engaged in criminal activities involving a foreign power interfering in our election) of a clown whose word no one should trust?

Well, yes: https://www.documentcloud.org/docume...020-02-10.html

So of course these Mueller prosecutors detest Stone. Understandable for any hammer to feel about the man he thinks may have prevented him from striking the Big Nail he wanted. That bias can and should have been extracted by a more circumspect superior. (As it now appears it will.)

But two bases used to justify this request are amazing, and should be barred:

1. Lack of respect for the system;
2. Efforts to denigrate the process.

Distilled, these arguments state that one may not defend himself by asserting the architecture employed against him is politically motivated and the system is bent.

Why? Why should one be penalized at an enhanced level for disrespect to the justice system? We owe no duty to eschew criticizing that system. I’m doing it right here. Why must Stone suffer exceptional penalties for denigrating it? Particularly where the other side is representing his behavior in the darkest and most overwrought tones, denigrating him as much as possible?

If the US Justice system is aggrieved by Stone’s criticisms, it can sue him for defamation. There it can more effectively prove him (or any similar defendant) a liar than it does by precluding them from speaking ill of the system by threat of draconian additional punishment at sentencing. No citizen may incarcerate or enhance the incarceration of another for that person having defamed him. Why does Uncle Sam get this special power, this practically effective preclusion of free speech? Is he too sensitive not to brush off the critiques of a buffoon like Stone? Uncle Sam sounds like a fine authoritarian here, quite Trumpian... with a twist of Eric Cartman: “Respect my authoritaaaa!!!”

Disrespect is not a crime. The act of disrespect is necessarily a form of free speech. And among the myriad flaws in our sentencings, which are kangaroo court processes where all sorts of material irrelevant at trial is vomited upon the court by both sides, none is more offensive than the argument that disrespect for the system, the process, is itself a quasi-crime. A system that needs such self-protection is a system admitting insecurity - that it has little credibility left to lose.

I don't love the federal sentencing guidelines, but if everyone else is going to go by them, I don't see any reason for Roger Stone to be different.

eta:

[W]hat the line prosecutors were recommending was well within the norm of what they would have expected. It is extremely common — if not almost universally done — for prosecutors to stick to the guidelines that the U.S. Sentencing Commission lays out, which is what the Monday filing did in the Stone case.

“It’s somewhat extraordinary to seek a sentence that is outside of the guidelines,” said former DOJ spokesperson Matt Miller, as the Justice Department is now expected to do it in its amended memo. Usually, the Justice Department recommends sentences below those guidelines only when the defendant has cooperated with the government, ex-DOJ officials said.

Harry Sandick, a former prosecutor who is now a defense attorney, said that the guidelines issued by U.S. Sentencing Commission may in fact be too harsh, but that’s no reason to flout them for an ally of the President’s and only for an ally of the President’s.

“This benefit doesn’t get extended to the drug dealer who sells an ounce of crack cocaine, this benefit doesn’t get extended to the businessman who engages in a small fraud, and so people will ask, why is it being extended to the President’s friend and advisor?” Sandick said.

TPM

That said, I'm much more upset at the way that conservatives have wrecked the credibility of DOJ. Pretty sure the judge won't be impressed with DOJ's final sentencing request, but this was about DOJ trying to please Trump, not persuade the judge. And that's a shame.