Sorry this took a few weeks to post; it's well worth watching for anyone interested in sentencing reform. Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery (Class of 2001) debates Carissa Byrne Hessick, Associate Professor of the College of Law at ASU. See this previous post for the report that she and ASU prepared on sentencing reform recommendations for Arizona. Montgomery wouldn't budge, and kept referring to the flimsy Fischer report on prisoners in Arizona (commissioned by AZ prosecutors) to justify his positions. They all keep pulling that thing out like it has substance.On the bright side, Mr. Montgomery has otherwise indicated to some community advocates that he's willing to look more closely at how people with mental illness are being prosecuted and sentenced in our community - and his office is prosecuting at least one of the officers who assaulted prisoners in the county's psychiatric wing of the jail (here's the latest update on Gerster) Hopefully, he also finds it troubling that for every one seriously mentally person in an AZ psychiatric hospital, we have ten more behind bars here. Having his people already enlightened and on our side in that particular fight would make a lot of things possible.
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