How does a lawyer know when a judge is annoyed at him? Maybe it’s when the judge lays out his beef in a first-page footnote in a published opinion. In this decision, Chief U.S. District Judge James Jones pointedly criticizes the policy of the Western District prosecutor of opposing every single crack sentence reduction.
The judge notes that the Western District is fourth in the nation in defendants qualifying for crack sentence reductions (the Eastern District is first) and states, “[T]he government’s blanket objection in all cases does not assist the court … and, in fact, hinders it.”
Ouch.
