It's caused by legislators push on mandatory sentencing. You see it on reddit all the time, omg that judge was too lenient. So legislators use that outrage to introduce bills to strip judges of sentencing power. Instead gives that power to District Attorneys who can Tag on as many charges as they want. Let's say you steal $20. Well technically a DA can give you one count that costs 2 years for that $20 or charge you a count for each dollar.. which would be 20 counts at 2 years per count. If found guilty your screwed and the judge can't help you cause mob rules and legislators mandated mandatory sentencing. We don't know the specifics of any case. Even heinous ones. Media and police tend to be biased and one sided and that's all the side we ever hear cause that's who's in control, not the defendent who probably has no money, which is sad. Witch hunt 101. As long as someone burns we don't care about the truth. Mandatory sentencing needs to go away and individual sentencing by a case by case basis needs to be the justice. No 2 cases are the same. But to legislators who want the votes, they will easily circumvent the constitution to skew justice to get their easy powerful job.