Making Them Suffer

Not too long ago, immigration officers raided a meat packing plant in Postville, Iowa. 390 workers were arrested as illegal, 306 detained for prosecution. Roughly 1/3 of the town's population was gone overnight. The detainees were mass-processed through court in handcuffs and charged with "aggravated identity theft." 2-year minimum sentence plus deportation upon release. The charges probably wouldn't stick, though, which would just mean waiting in jail 6 to 8 months for a trial followed by deportation. Or they could plead guilty to the lesser charge of "knowingly using a false Social Security number," serve 5 months in jail, and be deported. To a person, the men asked to be deported immediately since they all had families waiting for their financial support, but that was not an option. At least 5 months in jail no matter what.

This interpreter feels the government manipulated the law unfairly to achieve this result and cause maximum suffering:

It works like this. By handing down the inflated charge of “aggravated identity theft,” which carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 2 years in prison, the government forced the defendants into pleading guilty to the lesser charge and accepting 5 months in jail. Clearly, without the inflated charge, the government had no bargaining leverage, because the lesser charge by itself, using a false Social Security number, carries only a discretionary sentence of 0-6 months. The judges would be free to impose sentence within those guidelines, depending on the circumstances of each case and any prior record. Virtually all the defendants would have received only probation and been immediately deported. In fact, the government’s offer at the higher end of the guidelines (one month shy of the maximum sentence) was indeed no bargain. What is worse, the inflated charge, via the binding 11(C)(1)(c) Plea Agreement, reduced the judges to mere bureaucrats, pronouncing the same litany over and over for the record in order to legalize the proceedings, but having absolutely no discretion or decision-making power. As a citizen, I want our judges to administer justice, not a federal agency. When the executive branch forces the hand of the judiciary, the result is abuse of power and arbitrariness, unworthy of a democracy founded upon the constitutional principle of checks and balances.