Melvin Watt: “Mr. Chairman, I would point out the inconsistency of my colleague's argument. Typically, he is the very person in this…”

“Mr. Chairman, I would point out the inconsistency of my colleague's argument. Typically, he is the very person in this body who is talking against the delegation of authority that we should be exercising to the executive branch. There is nothing in the language in this bill which even requires the prosecuting attorney to tailor the aggravating factors in any way. There is not even any language that suggests that the prosecuting attorney must make it somehow appropriate, as he has characterized it. The prosecuting attorney could say the defendant got an F on his report card in the 10th grade and that could be an aggravating factor. He could pull any aggravating factor, unrelated to this offense, unrelated to anything else, that he wanted to pull and specify it. I would suggest, and I would ask my colleagues not to give that kind of discretion to prosecuting attorneys. We should not be pulling in prosecutors and giving them the authority to write the laws in this way. Additionally, the defendant deserves to know in advance the aggravating factors that will be considered. I would say that under this bill, given this discretion, the defendant will never be able to understand and know what aggravating factors will be considered.”