The Nation - News from May 1, 1988

U.S. District Judge Marvin Shoob in Atlanta rejected federal sentencing guidelines, saying they violate the constitutional separation of powers. In the case of two convicted bank robbers, he said he would sentence them as though their crimes had occurred before a mandatory sentencing schedule went into effect last November. Shoob said the rules “are not simply guideposts to aid the exercise of judicial discretion. . . . They reduce the role of sentencing judges to filling in the blanks and applying a rigid, mechanical formula.” He said the U.S. Sentencing Commission, which produced the guidelines, was acting “in place of the judge.”