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Sentencing is a daunting prospect
The hideous nature of an offender’s conduct must not drive us to forget that it is not severe punishment that promotes respect for the law, it is appropriate punishment. Although there are clearly times when anything less than severe punishment undermines respect for the law, it is just as certain that unduly severe punishment can negatively affect the public’s attitude toward the law and toward the criminal justice system. It is no doubt partly for that reason that jurists have referred to the responsibility of sentencing as “daunting.” See United States v. Grober, F. Supp. 2d , 2008 WL 5395768, at *1 (D.N.J. Dec. 22, 2008) (quoting then Chief Judge Becker in United States v. Faulks, 201 F.3d 208, 209 (3d Cir. 2000)). The power and responsibility of a sentencing court is indeed, nothing short of “daunting.” It requires a careful balancing of societal and individual needs, and an ability to determine a sentence based on dispassionate analysis of those often competing concerns. United States v. Olhovsky, No._________, 2009 U.S. App. LEXIS 7895, at *56–1 (3d Cir. Apr. 16, 2009).