A judge who is reportedly a possible candidate of Joe Biden’s to fill Justice Stephen Breyer’s seat on the Supreme Court, gave an arsonist who set a fire that killed a father of five during the 2020 George Floyd riots Minneapolis a reduced sentence to half the time he should have served for the crime.
According to a CBS affiliate, Minnesota US District Court Judge Wilhelmina Wright is on Biden’s potential list of nominees and meets the President’s announced qualifications for the Breyer’s replacement by being a black female. Wright became the state’s first black female federal judge six years ago.
Last month, Wright sentenced Montez Terriel Lee Jr., of Rochester, New York, to 10 years in federal prison after being convicted for arson that resulted in a man's death. More than two months after the arson, 30-year-old Oscar Lee Stewart was found dead in the rubble. Lee set the blaze during the riots after George Floyd's death.
While sentencing guidelines indicated that Lee should be incarcerated for over 200 months, a memo from the US Attorney's office for the District of Minnesota at the time of sentencing recommended a lesser sentence and Wright agreed. The US Attorney stated that while "Mr. Lee committed a crime that cost a man his life," his motives for setting the blaze should be taken into consideration at sentencing.
"Mr. Lee’s motive for setting the fire is a foremost issue," the US Attorney's office wrote. "Mr. Lee credibly states that he was in the streets to protest unlawful police violence against black men, and there is no basis to disbelieve this statement.
"Mr. Lee, appropriately, acknowledges that he 'could have demonstrated in a different way,' but that he was 'caught up in the fury of the mob after living as a black man watching his peers suffer at the hands of police.'
read more here: https://thepostmillennial.com/possible-biden-scotus-pick-gave-lesser-sentence-to-rioter-for-deadly-2020-arson-attack
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