Aside from your political leanings, I don't understand why any character witnesses should have any bearing on the nature of a crime that is independent of that character analysis. What you do everyday in the eyes of an individual is impractical to what you did in the process of a crime.
If I steal an iPhone from a Verizon store and get caught, is the fact that I volunteered at a soup kitchen once and help shovel my neighbor's walkway somehow treat me to less of a sentence?