The decision to take a long look at white-collar sentencing in North Alabama's federal courts was easy.
The late U.S. District Judge Edwin Nelson pretty much made the decision for us when he set Mari Sanders free.
Though Sanders in 2001 was convicted of using an 11-month scheme to steal more than $187,000 from her bank employer and, though evidence revealed she had stolen more than $33,000 from a previous employer, Nelson sentenced her to eight hours in custody.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the judge to reconsider the sentence. But Nelson stuck to his guns, again sentencing her to eight hours.
Federal courts reporter Val Walton had seen drug defendants go to prison for years. She also had repeatedly seen white-collar thieves like Sanders go