Sitting judges rarely give interviews. But the 69-year-old Rakoff, a former prosecutor and white-collar defense lawyer who was appointed by President Clinton in 1996, sat down recently with Fortune in his chambers in the U.S. courthouse in lower Manhattan. While Rakoff would not discuss the Gupta case because an appeal is pending, he made clear his objection to inflexible sentencing guidelines. In a wide-ranging conversation, Rakoff also talked about the public’s revulsion with white-collar crime and the paucity of prosecutions after the financial crisis, as well as the quality of mercy.
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