Upward Departure

The Rebecca Streeter-Chen sentence has hit the ground with a thud. No jail time.

I can’t say that I’m surprised given my past musings (and personal leniency) on the matter. But revisit this post from August if you’re interested to see what might have happened had she been tried in federal instead of state court. I conclude that, at a minimum, she’d be serving 18 months in federal prison.

I said from the beginning that this case “felt” different to me and I was moderately sympathetic to Streeter-Chen’s plight. But now I’m pretty well cured of that.

The only major defense claim, it seems, is that as “the mainstay of the family,” Streeter-Chen is needed to raise and support her two children. The president of the Rockland Historical Society (from which she stole) said his “first concern was for her children.”

(It’s worth at least noting that maybe what’s best for the kids is a little time away from the felon and her apparently-unable-to-function-drunk-husband. You know, keeping in mind that this “mainstay of the family” brought her kids with her when she committed the crime.)

I know the federal sentencing guidelines have ample flaws but one of them is not erring on the side of leniency. While that may be a problem with other crimes, leniency seems to carry the day in book/map/manuscript crimes whenever a judge has unfettered discretion.

In general, I’m not a big proponent of federalizing state and local issues. But that wouldn’t have been the case here: Streeter-Chen committed a federal crime, pure and simple. She should have been in federal court.

If the state also wanted to deal with her (a la Forbes Smiley) then fine. But leaving this serious crime in the hands of Rockland County was clearly a mistake. Unless absolutely forced into it by statute, there seems to be a pathetic unwillingness on the part of the judiciary to take these crimes seriously.

Does anyone think that if she stole $60,000 dollars in cash from the historical society she’d have gotten probation?

This entry was posted on Friday, November 9th, 2007 at 10:22 pm and is filed under Uncategorized, Rebecca Streeter-Chen. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.