Pitched battle over federal sentencing of elderly offender

Today’s Knoxville News Sentinel has this remarkable article about a long-running battle over the sentencing of a severely ill 84-year-old federal gun offender.  Here’s the lead:

A veteran judge on Wednesday refused to imprison an 84-year-old man, defying federal sentencing guidelines, the Justice Department and an appellate court mandate.

The judge is Senior US District Court Judge James H. Jarvis, and the article reports that Judge Jarvis said he could not, in good conscience, imprison the defendant:

“I think it’d be cruel and inhuman treatment to put this man in the general prison population in the state he’s in now,” Jarvis said. “We’ve got to do our best to do justice.”  The judge did, however, order Bostic to be under house arrest and electronically monitored for a year.