On Friday, Judge Preska sentenced human rights attorney Steven Donziger to the maximum sentence of six months in federal prison for misdemeanor contempt of court charges filed by Judge Kaplan, a pro-Chevron former tobacco industry lawyer.

Preska handed down this sentence despite multiple calls for Donziger's release, including from the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, members of U.S. Congress, the European Parliament, 68 Nobel Laureates, and virtually every major international environmental justice and human rights organization, including Amnesty International.

The charges were prosecuted by a corporate law firm appointed by Kaplan himself, who also hand-picked Preska to try the case. This makes Kaplan the "aggrieved party," the person who filed the charges, picked the prosecutor, selected the judge, and still remains officially assigned to the case. None of this bears any resemblance to what U.S. students are taught about "exceptional American justice."

During sentencing, Preska offhandly dismissed the recent decision by the UN Working Group, which directs the U.S. government to immediately release and compensate Donziger, condemning his detention as a human rights violation. The respected human rights body also said that both judges had shown "a staggering lack of objectivity and impartiality."

Demonstrating her complete lack of understanding or concern for the human rights situation in Latin America, Preska employed a brutal metaphor that "only the proverbial two-by-four between the eyes will instill in him any respect for the law."