Word: fuld
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...prosecutors, a far more important concern is whether the sentence fits the offender. Thus, judges throughout the U.S. have leeway to give stiff or light sentences according to the merits of the individual case. After considering the results of broad judicial discretion in New York State, Chief Judge Stanley Fuld of the court of appeals was so dismayed that last week he suggested that it might be necessary to remove the sentencing power from judges altogether and turn it over to "a correction authority or some other agency...
...proposal by Fuld, the state's top judicial official, was a response to a survey of New York's state and federal courts by the New York Times's Lesley Oelsner. She found that sentences are generally much shorter now than they used to be. She also found a wide variation in sentences now given, usually having more to do with the individual judge's attitude than with the offender's background. Without any formal standards to guide them, judges fell back on their instincts, experience or prejudices. In practice what has happened, in case...
...months, virtually nothing happened. Then came the inevitable reports-at least five of them. A study made for Governor Nelson Rockefeller said that New York City would need anywhere from $16,500,000 to $25,300,000 in new funds to achieve faster trials. A report to Judge Fuld said $7,000,000 was necessary for the city plus another $7,000,000 for the rest of the state. Each of the studies used different criteria; some included funds to convert existing buildings into courts, while others concentrated on just the operating budgets...
...York City, a series of administrative reforms managed to clean up the misdemeanor cases, but as Judge Fuld's deadline neared, the felony backlog remained as high as ever. The state's alarmed district attorneys went to the legislature with a bill that would require prosecutors only to have their cases ready within six months-not to get the cases to trial in the crowded courts. The alternative, they warned, might be armies of felons being turned loose...
Last week, only a few days before the Fuld rule was to go into effect, the legislators exercised their powers over court procedure and approved what the D.A.s had requested. But a package of proposed administrative reforms-plus $3,000,000 in extra funds-was also near passage. Some of the nonmonetary changes will take four years to go into effect. Perhaps by then, New York will be ready for its slow-coming speedy-trial rule...