Bennett began his own firm, Babich, Bennett, & Nickerson, now known as Babich Goldman, after law school. He was in private practice in Des Moines, Iowa from 1975 to 1991 and also served as general counsel to the Iowa Civil Liberties Union from 1975 to 1989, specializing in employment, civil rights, and constitutional litigation.[1] Bennett argued before the Supreme Court of the United States once and wrote several successful petitions for certiorari.[3][4] He served on numerous committees for the Iowa State Bar Association and the Iowa Trial Lawyers Association.[1]
Bennett is an outspoken opponent of mandatory minimum sentencing.[6] Several of his decisions opposing strict applications of sentencing laws have been reviewed by the Supreme Court of the United States.
In a 2003 case, Judge Bennett was reversed three times by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit for considering post-sentencing rehabilitation when sentencing a defendant who had subsequently recovered from drug addiction and gained stable employment. The Supreme Court then granted certiorari and reversed the Eighth Circuit in 2011, adopting Judge Bennett's position.[7]
In 2007, a divided Eighth Circuit, sitting en banc, reversed Judge Bennett after he refused to apply the 100:1 powder/crack cocaine sentencing disparity.[8] The Eighth Circuit was then reversed by the Supreme Court, which held that District Court judges could categorically reject that ratio.[9]
In 2015, when an offender faced a mandatory thirty-year consecutive sentence, Judge Bennett wished to consider the mandatory minimum when sentencing on its predicate offense, but believed that he could not under Eighth Circuit precedent. The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The Supreme Court granted certiorari and unanimously reversed the Eighth Circuit, holding that Judge Bennett could follow his preferred approach.[10]
Bennett is also notable for his practice of visiting defendants he sentenced in prison; by 2019, he had visited more than 400.[11]
After retiring from the federal judiciary, Bennett joined the faculty of Drake University Law School, where he is Director of the Institute for Justice Reform and Innovation. He is also a fellow of the New York University School of Law's Civil Jury Project.[3] He has taught at law schools and hundreds of continuing education seminars in 41 states and publishes frequently in the areas of civil procedure and trial advocacy.[12][3] Bennett's scholarship, especially on implicit bias and the law, has been cited more than one thousand times.[13] Bennett is also a co-author on an employment law treatise and works as an arbitrator and mediator.[3]
References
^ abcdeConfirmation Hearings on Federal Appointments: Hearings Before the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, One Hundred Ninth Congress, First Session, Part 4. Government Printing Office. 1996. p. 712.
^ abRogers, Aaron; Callahan, Margaret (2018). No One is Above the Law: The Story of Southern Iowa's Federal Court. Des Moines, IA: Lexicon Content Marketing. pp. 241–254.
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