Sentencing reform, statutory mandatory minimum sentences, and the quest for justice: Our discussion with retired federal District Judge Mark W. Bennett

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The honorable Mark W. Bennett is a retired U.S. District Court Judge, and the former Chief Judge of the Northern District of Iowa.  Judge Bennett retired from the federal bench in 2019, and is now Director Emeritus of the Institute for Justice Reform & Innovation at Drake University Law School.  

Judge Bennett is known for his advocacy for sentencing reform—including his criticism of the federal sentencing guidelines and statutory mandatory minimum sentences—for his research on implicit bias, and, unusually, for his prison visits to check up on hundreds of the defendants he sentenced.  For some of those inmates, Judge Bennett has written, he is the only visitor they have ever had.  Equally unusually, Judge Bennett has often met with the families of those he’s sentenced, at their request, to explain his sentences.  

We were honored to discuss with Judge Bennett his own quest for justice, his experience sentencing thousands of federal criminal defendants, and so much more.