Posted on 07/12/2005 9:01:12 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
BOSTON (AP) - The chief judge of U.S. District Court in Boston lashed out at Congress on Tuesday for putting what he called a "chokehold" on all federal district courts, stripping them of the authority to rule on deportation cases.
In a scathing ruling, Judge William G. Young said he had been prepared to halt the deportation of a Nigerian national who says the government promised he could stay in the United States after he was charged with drug smuggling in 1986.
But Young said Congress took that decision out of his hands in May when it passed the REAL ID Act, a law that makes it harder for immigrants to gain amnesty.
"Though such direct congressional interference in a pending case is virtually unprecedented in all our history, this surprising mandate has gone utterly unnoticed by our people," Young said. "How can this be in modern day America?"
Instead, Young said he was required by law to transfer the case of 56-year-old Frank Enwonwu to the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Young argued that the new law endangers immigrants like Enwonwu, who claims he will be jailed, tortured and possibly killed if sent back to Nigeria because he became a federal informant after his arrest.
"Congress does not much care about immigrant aliens, even those who, after endangering themselves assisting our law enforcement efforts to stem international drug trade, are deported into the hands of the very drug traders upon whom they have informed," Young wrote.
U.S. Rep. Dan Lungren, R-Calif., who co-sponsored the law, said the act "streamlines" a legal process that many illegal immigrants have abused in an effort to delay their deportation.
"It was an area of the law that the 9/11 commission pointed to as an area of weakness," said Lungren, a former California attorney general. "I'm astounded by the judge's assertion that we have somehow acted inappropriately. We're not putting a stranglehold on any particular judge."
Young recommended releasing Enwonwu, who has been jailed for 303 days while he awaits a final ruling from the courts.
Enwonwu's attorney, Robert Carmel, said he expects Young's recommendation to influence the 1st Circuit.
Enwonwu was arrested at Logan International Airport when Customs officials found heroin on him. He pleaded guilty to a drug charge and received a two-year suspended sentence. During a court hearing in April, he testified that a DEA agent promised him he could stay in the United States in exchange for his cooperation. The agent testified that he never made that promise to Enwonwu.
Judge William G. Young,, Reagan appointee, 1985
Too bad, so sad. Next time, don't get caught with drugs in the first place.
Let the other crooks stay.
I did not know he was even still around (politically).
Reagan din't have very good luck with judges because our danged law schools have a really hard time keeping from endoctrinating them that they are to be the illuminati for all of society for all the future of mankind.
Screw the rule of law and the constitution(s), they are taught they should legislate, interpret and litigate until each according to his need has satisfied his personal greed!!! Yes... Our whole justice system is terrible bloated with bad precedent and corruption!!!
"...Enwonwu, who claims he will be jailed, tortured and possibly killed if sent back to Nigeria."
Nigeria, eh? $#@!$#@ Nigerian prince never sent me the $32 million he promised and my bank account never seemed to hold money after that email...I bet this guy had something to do with it!
Wednesday, June 23, 2004
Law - Interesting background on a judge's ruling that federal sentencing laws are unconstitutional
A federal judge in Boston ruled on Monday that federal sentencing laws were unconstitutional because they gave prosecutors too much power.
In an impassioned 177-page decision, the judge, William G. Young, described a system in which prosecutors used various strategies to reward those who pleaded guilty and to impose exceptionally harsh sentences on those who chose to stand trial and then lost. * * *
Judge Young's opinion is representative of many federal judges' dissatisfaction with their limited role in criminal sentencing, said Frank O. Bowman, a law professor at Indiana University and an author of a treatise on the subject. The decision is, he said, "a long cry of anguish about the state of federal sentencing, which, while perhaps a little overheated, is an excellent summary of the current state of things."
Judge Young relied on two recent Supreme Court cases to hold the sentencing guidelines unconstitutional. Though the later of the cases was decided in 2002, he wrote that he had not fully appreciated their significance until he read an article by William J. Trach, then a student at Harvard Law School, in the February Harvard Law Review.
The two cases, Judge Young reasoned, require that all facts that increase the punishment to which a defendant is exposed be proved to a jury. But sentencing hearings take place before only judges, and the rules of evidence do not apply.
"Courts today," he wrote, "must base their conclusions on a mishmash of data including blatantly self-serving hearsay" presented by prosecutors. The data, he wrote, often include information about crimes with which the defendants have never been charged and even crimes of which they have been acquitted.
Because the sentencing guidelines allow judges to increase sentences based on such material, he continued, the procedure can be unconstitutional in given cases.
The 174-page sentencing memoranda itself, dated June 18, is available here.
http://pacer.mad.uscourts.gov/dc/cgi-bin/recentops.pl?filename=young/pdf/supersentencing%20memo.pdf
Ergo, the black-robed Bush hater should do the right thing and resign, and let someone who doesn't hate America exercise justice.
He's also a weak link on property rights and was way over on the wrong side of that Scott guys murder a decade ago, by the LA county sherrif's deputies in Ventura County so's the CONservancies could get his land on a phony, tumped up charge of growin Mary Jane in his oak tree for cripe sake!!!
The man's poor widow went through pure unadulterated hell!!! Lungren must have zero conscience!!!
Oh! And I'm no fan of Rico Oller's, either!!!
Congress should always feel free to withdraw from the lower federal courts any and all issues that the courts have demonstrated they will not decide in accord with the Constitution.
Congressman Billybob
LOL. Have you seen this one? It's hysterical.
EbolaMonkeyMan.com--"Pi$$ing Off Nigerian Scammers One At a Time "
At least he followed the law. He may have a personal opinion that differed from the law, but unlike liberal activist judges, he did his duty and didn't create law from the bench. Nominate him for USSC.
Amen.
I remember him from my days in Long Beach (1970-80's) I thought he was a jerk back then. Guess i judged him right.
Sorry, Judge Young, but your jurisdiction is what the law says it is.
Many criminals claim asylum to try to prevent being deported. You can hardly blame them. Most US prisons are better places to live than most Nigerian villages -- if you don't value freedom much.
That he was a Reagan appointee is not too surprising though. A Clinton guy would have found some reason to ignore the law -- it ticks Judge Young off, but he obeys it.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
An idiot nonetheless. Nobody's perfect.
And the courts better get used to accepting that the don't --- they can't--- make law!
Is this the same Judge William Young? (Sorry I have to ask, I'm an Aussie.)
Ruling by Judge William Young, US District Court.
January 30, 2003, United States vs. Reid.
Judge Young: "Mr. Richard C. Reid, hearken now to the sentence the Court imposes upon you.
On counts 1, 5 and 6 the Court sentences you to life in prison in the custody of the United States Attorney General. On counts 2, 3, 4 and 7, the Court sentences you to 20 years in prison on each count, the sentence on each count to run consecutive with the other.
That's 80 years. On count 8 the Court sentences you to the mandatory 30 years consecutive to the 80 years just imposed. The Court imposes upon you each of the eight counts a fine of $250,000 for the aggregate fine of $2 million. The Court accepts the government's recommendation with respect to restitution and orders restitution in the amount of $298.17 to Andre Bousquet and $5,784 to American Airlines. The Court imposes upon you the $800 special assessment.
The Court imposes upon you five years supervised release simply because the law requires it. But the life sentences are real life sentences so I need go no further. This is the sentence that is provided for by our statutes. It is a fair and just sentence. It is a righteous sentence.
Let me explain this to you. We are not afraid of you or any of your terrorist co-conspirators, Mr. Reid. We are Americans. We have been through the fire before. There is all too much war talk here and I say that to everyone with the utmost respect. Here in this court, we deal with individuals as individuals and care for individuals as individuals. As human beings, we reach out for justice.
You are not an enemy combatant. You are a terrorist. You are not a soldier in any war. You are a terrorist. To give you that reference, to call you a soldier, gives you far too much stature. Whether it is the officers of government who do it or your attorney who does it, or if you think you are a soldier. You are not----- you are a terrorist. And we do not negotiate with terrorists. We do not meet with terrorists. We do not sign documents with terrorists We hunt them down one by one and bring them to justice.
So war talk is way out of line in this court. You are a big fellow. But you are not that big. You're no warrior. I've know warriors. You are a terrorist. A species of criminal that is guilty of multiple attempted murders. In a very real sense, State Trooper Santiago had it right when you first were taken off that plane and into custody and you wondered where the press and where the TV crews were, and he said: "You're no big deal."
You are no big deal.
What your able counsel and what the equally able United States attorneys have grappled with and what I have as honestly as I know how tried to grapple with, is why you did something so horrific. What was it that led you here to this courtroom today?
I have listened respectfully to what you have to say. And I ask you to search your heart and ask yourself what sort of unfathomable hate led you to do what you are guilty and admit you are guilty of doing. And I have an answer for you. It may not satisfy you, but as I search this entire record, it comes as close to understanding as I know.
It seems to me you hate the one thing that to us is most precious. You hate our freedom. Our individual freedom. Our individual freedom to live as we choose, to come and go as we choose, to believe or not believe as we individually choose. Here, in this society, the very wind carries freedom. It carries it everywhere from sea to shining sea. It is because we prize individual freedom so much that you are here in this beautiful courtroom. So that everyone can see, truly see, that justice is administered fairly, individually, and discretely. It is for freedom's sake that your lawyers are striving so vigorously on your behalf and have filed appeals, will go on in their representation of you before other judges.
We Americans are all about freedom. Because we all know that the way we treat you, Mr. Reid, is the measure of our own liberties. Make no mistake though. It is yet true that we will bare any burden; pay any price, to preserve our freedoms. Look around this courtroom. Mark it well. The world is not going to long remember what you or I say here. Day after tomorrow, it will be forgotten, but this, however, will long endure. Here in this courtroom and courtrooms all across America, the American people will gather to see that justice, individual justice, justice, not war, individual justice is in fact being done. The very President of the United States through his officers will have to come into courtrooms and lay out evidence on which specific matters can be judged and juries of citizens will gather to sit and judge that evidence democratically, to mold and shape and refine our sense of justice.
See that flag, Mr. Reid? That's the flag of the United States of America. That flag will fly there long after this is all forgotten. That flag stands for freedom. And it always will.
Mr. Custody Officer - stand him down.
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