US judge to decide Stone’s fate
In their letters on the federal criminal case against Roger Stone, Alan Gershel and Lee Estes (“The Feedback File,” Free Press, Feb. 13) fail to mention the fact that the sentence in the Stone case will be determined by the trial judge.
The president’s rhetoric on the government’s initial sentencing recommendation ignores the fact that it was based on the guidelines scoring for his offenses. The assistant United States attorneys were only following the probation officer’s recommendation. The senior justice officials in the Department of Justice who support a lesser sentence were simply disagreeing with the guidelines scoring.
Both the president and the Department of Justice officials fail to take notice of the federal court procedures for sentencing established by Congress and the United States Sentencing Commission. Under the procedures, the ultimate sentencing decision, as noted above, lies with the trial judge.
As of yet, there is no evidence that United States district judges are intimidated by the president.
Avern Cohn
Detroit
(The writer is a judge in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.)
Give kids resources, not penalties
Regarding the State’s the state’s third-grade read-or-flunk law, I support educators’ and Gov. Whitmer’s efforts to resist this short-sighted law. Bureaucrats need to stop micro-managing our hard working teachers and principals and allow them to do the jobs they were trained for and have experience in, and provide them with the resources to do those jobs. It is anticipated that 5,000 third-graders would be flunked under this law, at a cost of $40 million to taxpayers, because of the extra year in the K-12 system. This amount would be better spent on early literacy efforts.
It’s time for this Republican state Legislature to realize that cutting Education dollars to provide tax cuts that skew toward the wealthy ends up costing us far more in the long run. Let’s start investing in our state’s most valuable resource, our children.
Donna Sawmiller
Commerce Twp.
First World problem?
Mel Tucker, the new football coach of the Michigan State University Spartans, stated “Leaving Colorado was the toughest thing that I’ve ever done in my career, my life, actually.” I don’t know what kind of life Mr. Tucker has had, but leaving a job at a second-tier university that pays $14.75 million over 5 years for one at a far more prestigious university that pays $33 million over 6 years, and includes a nearly blank check to put together a staff, appears to be a “no-brainer.”
Considering the turmoil MSU has recently gone through, MSU was probably desperate enough to rename itself MTU — Mel Tucker University — to get him to fill their opening.
William D. Krull
Roseville