I made a mistake in my first post to this thread when I said, "a typical sentence in a case like this is 3-10 years in prison. Not life."

I've since done some more checking and have found that a typical sentence for such an offence is actually 2-4 years.

Other than Pollard, the stiffest sentence ever handed out for spying on behalf of a friendly country was to Steven Lalas, who spied for Greece. He got 14 years.

Michael Schwartz spied for Saudi Arabia. He was discharged from the Navy with no time served.

Peter Lee spied for China. He got 1 year in a halfway house.

Samuel Morrison spied for Great Britain. He was sentenced to 2 years and was released after 3 months.

Philip Selden spied for El Salvador. He got 2 years.

Steven Baba spied for South Africa. He got an 8 year sentence that was reduced to 2 and was released after 5 months.

Sharon Scrange spied for Ghana. Her 5 year sentence was reduced to 2 years and she was released after 8 months.

Jean Baynes spied for the Phillipines. She was sentenced to 41 months and was relaesed after 15 months.

Abdul Kader Helmy spied for Egypt. He got 4 years and was released after 2.

Geneva Jones spied for Liberia and got a 37 month sentence.

Frederick Hamilton spied for Ecuador and also got 37 months.

Joseph Brown and Michael Allen both spied for the Phillipines and got 6 and 8 years respectively.

Robert Kim spied for South Korea. He got 9 years and was released after 7.

Thomas Dolce spied for South Africa and got 10 years. He was released after 5.

The maximum sentence for Pollard's offense is now 10 years. He's already served double that amount of time.

And how about Albert Sombolay. He spied for Iraq during the first Gulf War. He got 19 years. Pollard has already served longer than that.

As the Rabbi said. Nobody is saying that Pollard was innocent. However, justice demands a sentence that is proportionate to the crime. By any stretch of the imagination, Pollard has done his time and paid his debt to society.