Sabo merely pronounced the sentence the jury unanimously arrived at.

Similarly, cases are randomly assigned to judges. Sabo had no control over Jamal's' or indeed any other defendant's'case being assigned to him.

Of course the Guild knows all this, or one hopes they do - they are lawyers.

I wonder if Jamal ever regrets his 'political trial' ploy. Twenty five years later he still isn't man enough to admit what he did.