Beyond that, the specific reasons for the wildly disparate sentences are revealing. Serrano got 60 months because he became a snitch and testified against the others. Castro, the gun-supplier, was acquitted. In Judge Weinstein's mind, that acquittal was unquestionably the product of the Government's dreaded taboo - jury nullification. Jury nullification of sentences deemed too harsh is increasingly reflected in refusals to acquit.
Jurors are aware of the huge sentences that result from conviction.
He even attributed the jury's refusal to convict defendant Molina of use of a machine gun during the crime as another example of jury nullification. That left him open to the vagaries of the sentence that the prosecutors demanded - not the sentence that was just or fair. That's why the statute of justice weeps. Feel free to use this snippet in any way you want. I think it tells a great tale.