My Sentencing Hearing 1-1-2011

 [Since I am publishing my prison journal out of order, I decided to release this from my drafts folder, a journal entry belonging to my pretrial detention journal. I have mislaid those notes, this was found out of place in the pretrial detention notes that I have already published. If you want to read the other pretrial detention journal, just click on the link at the right of your screen for "Pretrial Detention". This has been here since 7/23/23, so I might as well get out to the public. sch 6/18/2025.]

On October 29, 2010, I was sentenced to 151 months in the federal Bureau of Prisons. District Judge McKinney agreed with the Assistant United States Attorney that the federal Sentencing Guidelines applied to me. The judge stated that 151 months would deter me and others from similar crimes. He came to this conclusion without asking me any questions.

I was deterred before I ever got into a courtroom. I would have told the judge exactly that. Of what I saw, I would like to have never seen.

My sisters reported that the law-enforcement people (one from I.C.E., and one from Hamilton County) smirked as the sentence was handed down. I did not see this. 

For some reason, I inspired a great deal of fear amongst law enforcement. The Assistant U.S. Attorney became a forensic psychologist to refute the IU psychologist's diagnosis of me being only depressive rather than anything more pathological. 

My guess is that law enforcement did not want to question their paradigm about my crimes. I think they are wrong, that maintaining their paradigm perpetrates fraud on the public.

As for deterring other, others need to know what happened to me, so they can think it will happen to them. Without publicity, there can be no deterrence.

The Indiana Lawyer published an article on my sentencing shortly after that event, but that newspaper is not read even by all of Indiana's lawyers. 

I was told The Anderson Herald-Bulletin published a piece about 41 days after my sentencing, buried on the third page, and riddled with errors. I had to explain I was not going to state prison to the person who told me of the article.

The Indianapolis Star published nothing.

If I am going to be used as a deterrent, I want to be used properly. I told the judge I held no brief for the creators of what was being trafficked in. He did even glance at me during sentencing. Since he did not even glance my way, I do not know if my statement registered with him.  People ought to know that what they are doing has serious consequences. They may be even obscuring more dangerous actors. Until they know that, there is no deterrence. 

Here is what people should know:

1. The federal government shall send them to prison.
2. The prison sentences shall be long.
3. You will be thought a monster.
4. You will spend the remainder of your life under the supervision of the federal government.

The government will not reach these people through the newspapers. The message has to be taken right into the chat rooms. Of that, it will take more work than releasing press releases touting themselves as effective crime fighters.

I think my sentencing Order and a transcript of my sentencing hearing should be online. Put links to it into the chat rooms.

Deterrence has to scare. It is very much of the legal/judicial mindset that what happens in a courtroom is known to the general public. The public has no idea what happens in 99% of criminal cases. The legal system likes to say ignorance of the law is no excuse without remembering that is a rule of evidence, wholly irrelevant to the topic of deterrence.

When I am released, I will be on lifetime supervision by the federal courts. That leaves me thinking the government really does not have any faith in the deterrent qualities of its prison system. Which then begs the question of why 151 months should deter me any more than 60 months. But those, like my other questions raised here, need to be put to the judge and the U.S. Attorney in charge of my case.

sch