Federal Judge Cites Stress of Sentencing as Major Reason for His Retirement
U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina has imposed some unusual punishments during his 31 years on the federal and Washington, D.C., bench.
He ordered two men to write books about their misdeeds. He requires most defendants to return to his courtroom every six months during their supervised release. But the difficulty of sentencing is a major reason that Urbina retired last month from his job as a federal judge, the Washington Post reports.
“For Urbina,” the Post says, “sentencing has always been filled with stress and doubt—of agonizingly weighing the crime against the defendant’s past, of worrying about what message to send to the public and of feeling that he was never given the proper tools to rehabilitate offenders.”
Urbina is one of the more lenient sentencing judges in the Washington, D.C., federal court, the story says. The judge explained his misgivings. “I do not have a passion for punishment,” he told the Post. “If there is a way the court can contribute to the rehabilitation process, it is more likely the person will return to the mainstream.”
