No the 40-175 speaks to the plea deal that was agreed to.  25-40 years was what they had agreed he should be sentenced for this hearing but since the judge went just a BIT over he now has the option to back out of the plea deal.  Either way this man will never have a breath of free air again.

That would be a life sentence. He's not getting any lethal injections.  

(Though if it's true what people claim about prisoners' sense of justice, it could be a de facto death sentence.)

I've had the same problem listening to her as you expressed.  However, this was a sentencing affair that was almost impossible to screw up.  You have easy-peezy ingredients:  (i) a crime that everyone abhors, (ii) a plea agreement, so all the hard work is done (rather than having to conduct a trial), (iii) a defendant who everyone hates, and (iv) a parade of charismatic victims. 

A better judge would have let the victims tell their stories, and let the profundity of that carry the day.  Let the story tell itself, with minimum narration.  When you sentence, talk about the crime, the victims, and the defendant.  In a case like this, you can go on a bit about the nature of the crime and the system, but after that there's nothing really to say.

In short, there's no perfect storm here.  She's a mediocre jurist given a golden opportunity, and she used her special brand of alchemy to turn that gold into bronze.

Her decisions in this sentencing procedure should not be understated.  Like you said (and I'll say it all again because you're dead on) her untimed, no-limit impact statement roster allowed every survivor to unload as much of their emotional baggage on their attacker as they felt they could muster.  That decision allowed that list to grow from 88 initially to 140+ by the time all was said and done.  That's about 60 people who were so empowered by the process this judge set in motion that they were motivated to take the stage for themselves. 

And in that process, a news story that everyone in this state has complained for months (years?) was not getting near the attention it deserved blew up into a national story pretty much over the weekend.  Now Lou Anna Simon is getting raked over the coals.  USA Gymnastics canned their board and is cleaning house.  Joel Ferguson was allowed to illustrate the ineptitude of MSU leadership.  Geddert or whatever his name is at Twistars has been suspended and now will "retire".  All of that in the last week alone, as these 150 girls and women dumped their fractured hearts and souls on the courtroom floor for the world to see and take notice.

Yeah, Aquilina was a little dramatic in sentencing.  But if she didn't take this so personally, if she just stoically read off a 100 year sentence last Wednesday like a good lawperson, how much of that would have happened?  How much appropriate national and world attention was brought to this solely because of her attitudes toward this crime?

So yeah, I'm okay with her being a little sing-songy in her reading of the sentence.

You're right - I am arguing style points.  I think in a serious major trial like this style matters.  There should be a sense of decorum that I found lacking here.  Two points, though:

• As far as the conviction goes, give 100% of that credit to the prosecuting attorney's office.  They negotiated the plea.  All the judge did was approve it after the prosecutor and defense counsel hashed out the terms.  The judge gets virtually no credit for the conviction (and shouldn't, since judges are not charged with convicting people).
   
• The national media attention was going to be there as soon as there were 150+ victims stepping up to make statements.

So to give the narcissistic judge her due, she made one critical and important decision - let in anyone who was a victim speak at sentencing (whether a complainant or not), even if it meant a week of court time.  That was a commendable decision, so I'll grant her that.*

*Though she even undermined that by mentioning her decision to allow the non-complainant victims "was the right thing to do" and "she gets paid the same whether she did that or not".  Again she could not resist blowing her own horn.

on the what is said and the circumstances.  Very unlikely.  A Judge can really say whatever he or she wants to a defendant during a sentencing if the sentence that is eventually passed is within the sentencing guidelines of the jurisdiction or, as in this case, there was a sentencing agreement.  And even if the Judge sentences a defendant above the guidelines, if there are legitimate reasons for the upward departure an appeal based on such statements would most often be futile.  Most successful appeals based on the conduct of a Judge have to do with something the Judge said or allowed in the presence of a jury well before sentencing.

Not just to MaizeAndBlueWahoo, but all the folks who replied.  I had three cynical theories about why she was being self-serving:

• Michigan county circuit judge can be a lonely existence, and she could simply have been basking in all the attention.  Judges can't really fraternize with other lawyers as readily once they're on the bench, and it can make some of them odd ("Black Robe Fever")
   
• She has aspirations to become some sort of celebrity judge or some higher political aspirations.
   
• She is campaigning from the bench.  Circuit court judges in MI are elected officials, and she saw this as an opportunity to do some free campaigning.

ALSO, I forgot the most cringe-worthy thing she said repeatedly:  "Members of the media should know that I will not interview them unless there is also a victim - now survivor - with me."  Because remember, it's not about me. 

It's my opinion that this amounts to using the victims like props, and it's not appropriate behavior for a judge.

...but statistics on that sort of thing are always difficult to substantiate with significant reporting issues. I know that it's a very real concern. When I was a volunteer in prison, we were required to undergo training on sexual assault and sexual relations between inmates and staff. 

As much as I understand the anger at Nassar, and agree that his crimes are heinous, I don't think it says much of us as a society that we root for individuals (even evil ones) to be assaulted or subject to punishment beyond what the law metes out. The effect is not only to harm the criminal but also our society.