Federal Judge Decries Mandatory Minimum Sentences

Less than a day after leaving his post as a federal judge, Kevin Sharp voiced frustration with mandatory minimum sentences. “The drugs-and-gun cases, you say it like that and it sounds like they’re all dangerous. Most of them are not,” said Kevin Sharp, who left his judgeship as Chief U.S. District Judge in Middle Tennessee after six years to start a Nashville office for the employment and civil rights law firm Sanford Heisler, which will now be known as Sanford Heisler Sharp. “They’re just kids who lack any opportunities and any supervision, lack education and have ended up doing what appears to be at the time the path of least resistance to make a living.” At a 2014 hearing where Sharp reluctantly sentenced a young man to life in prison, he said, “Each defendant is supposed to be treated as an individual. I don’t think that’s what’s happening here.”