 
|
|||||||||
              
|
Sentencing data to list race, gender
Thursday, August 10, 2000 By Tim Molloy, The Associated Press
A state commission voted unanimously yesterday to release sentencing records listing the race and gender of every criminal defendant in Pennsylvania and the names of the judges who sentenced them.
The release will, for the first time, enable researchers, reporters and watchdog groups to study the records of individual judges and determine if they are consistent in the sentences they hand down.
"It opens up the door to what we really want -- to find disparities in the sentencing," said Charles T. Stokes, president of the Pennsylvania State Conference of NAACP Branches. He said the NAACP may use the records to issue report cards on whether judges appear biased.
The Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing voted to release the records in response to requests from The Associated Press, The Philadelphia Inquirer and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Centre County Judge Charles Brown, one of four judges on the 11-member panel, cautioned that no records could reflect all of the factors judges consider when they hand down a sentence. But, he said, the records should be made public because they are paid for with public money.
"It's almost a no-brainer," Brown said. The records include defendants' prior records, the severity of the offense, and other factors judges use to decide sentences.
An AP analysis of sentencing records from 1996 found that, on average, blacks received longer sentences than whites for several types of violent crimes, even when their offenses and prior records were the same.
The records did not identify sentencing judges.
All sentencing information is public but is kept separately for almost all of Pennsylvania's 67 counties.
The commission, with 13 full-time employees and a budget this year of about $910,000, is the only clearinghouse of sentencing information from across the state.
The commission will first release records identifying particular judges and the race and gender of defendants who were sentenced in 1998. It has spent more than a year compiling the records, which include all 107,684 sentences judges reported that year.
Only a defendant's most serious offense will be included because it is usually the most important to the sentencing judge.
The AP reported in June that while the commission had collected judge, race and gender information about each 1998 case, it would not release the records in a way that would link specific judges and the sentences they imposed with a defendant's race or gender.
The commission had agreed to release one set of records that included judges' names and the sentences, but not defendants' races or genders.
Another set of records listed sentences with defendants' races and genders but not judges' names.
Mark Bergstrom, the commission's executive director, said yesterday the commission had not previously linked the information because no one had expressed an interest in it.
He said in June he was also concerned that people examining judges' records could misinterpret them and unfairly accuse some judges of being biased. He said no particular judge had objected to the release of the information because the issue hadn't been raised.
Minnesota, Washington and Virginia release information on particular judges' records, but only Minnesota lists the races and genders of the defendants.
The U.S. Sentencing Commission, which tracks federal court cases, releases studies on sentencing disparities but does not release records on particular judges or defendants.
|
||||||||
