25 years is a long, long time. He's going to spend the best years of his life in federal prison and come out the other side in a world that's moved on without him. 25 years ago the World Trade Center buildings were still standing.
IMO, if we're thinking of sentencing someone to 50 years or life in prison, we should cut to the chase and execute them instead. It's faster and cheaper for the taxpayers, and arguably less cruel.
Unless he dies, gets a pardon, commutation, or sentence reduction first, the minimum he can serve under existing law is ~21 years based on a 25 year sentence and maximum good conduct time.
You're usually a very accurate poster on legal matters, but this contradicts the linked article:
SBF may serve as little as 12.5 years, if he gets all of the jailhouse credit available to him," Mitchell Epner, a former federal prosecutor, told CNN.
Federal prisoners generally can earn up to 54 days of time credit a year for good behavior, which could result in an approximately 15% reduction.
Since 2018, however, nonviolent federal inmates can reduce their sentence by as much as 50% under prison reform legislation known as the First Step Act.
Are you saying the article is wrong, or did you maybe not consider this possibility?
So, yes, I forgot to account for FSA earned time, of which up to 12 months can be applied to early supervised release (essentially, parole, though its not called that) and the remainder for pre-release custody (home confinement or residential re-entry center insteas of prison.) so, by completing the right activities, SBF could be on a parole-like status in ~20 instead of ~21 years, and in custody but not in actual prison in ~12.5 years.
That's not an automatic reduction (or even as close to it as good conduct time), as it requires successful participation in specified activities, but it is generally available except for a defined list of mostly violent offenses.
and a million others correcting the "85%" meme that HN parrots incessantly (not sure why anyone would expect programmers to be experts on federal incarceration nuances)
we don't execute for financial fraud and white collar crimes. I do think prisoners should be given an option for assisted suicide in cases where they get 50+ year sentences, however. Obviously there would be more complexities to that like wait times and mental evaluations.
IMO, if we're thinking of sentencing someone to 50 years or life in prison, we should cut to the chase and execute them instead. It's faster and cheaper for the taxpayers, and arguably less cruel.