Summarize the limits on the rights of offenders at sentencing, and explain the reasons for the limits

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

When defendants become convicted offenders, they lose many of the safeguards they had during the trial. Most of the procedural safeguards written into the Constitution were originally intended to protect abuses of defendant's rights during the trial itself. Also, giving too much attention to defendant's rights at sentencing would restrict the flexibility judges need to impose the right sentence—one that would satisfy the objectives of retribution and/or punishment.

Flexibility in sentencing allows trial judges to use information outside the official record of a trial. Offenders have no right either to confront or to cross-examine people who have supplied unfavorable sentencing information about them. Trial judges can also consider the conduct of defendants during the trial.

Two rights defendants don't give up at sentencing are the right to counsel and the right to equal protection of the law. The right to counsel assures that they will have assistance in arguing for the appropriate sentence. Equal protection assures that offenders are treated relatively equally. Thus, the court could not sentence offenders who are too poor to pay fines to prison, while freeing those people able to pay the fine.