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Sentencing — rehabilitation

By: WISCONSIN LAW JOURNAL STAFF//September 22, 2011//

Sentencing — rehabilitation

By: WISCONSIN LAW JOURNAL STAFF//September 22, 2011//

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United States Court of Appeals

CRIMINAL

Sentencing

Rehabilitation

Where it is not clear whether the district court’s sentence was imposed for rehabilitative purposes, the sentence must be vacated.

“These remarks intimate (no stronger word is possible) a concern that by virtue of his untreated mental illness and alcoholism, the defendant may be too dangerous to be left to roam at large until these conditions are brought under control. The staff of the Salvation Army facility, in explaining why he had to be removed from the facility and given psychiatric treatment elsewhere, remarked ‘his grandiose/entitled thinking, possible psychotic thinking concerning the above stated sexual ideations, and possible safety concerns due to other clients’ reactions to [his] unwillingness to engage in his own treatment as well as his unwillingness to cope with other races/genders.’ Nothing in the statute, or in the language or reasoning of Tapia, suggests that there is any impropriety to lengthening a sentence because of concern—whether based on mental illness, addiction, or anything else that may weaken a person’s inhibitions against committing crimes—that the defendant is likely to commit further crimes upon release, so that a longer sentence is required for the protection of the public.”

Vacated and Remanded.

10-3416 U.S. v. Kubeczko

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Pallmeyer, J., Posner, J.

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