# 30 years?  No way!  But what's Libby's ACTUAL prison exposure?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/30-years-no-way-but-whats-libbys-actual-prison-exposure/328936>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [November 1, 2005, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/30-years-no-way-but-whats-libbys-actual-prison-exposure/328936 "2005-11-01T17:52:40Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\
**Post date:** [November 1, 2005, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/30-years-no-way-but-whats-libbys-actual-prison-exposure/328936/1 "2005-11-01T17:52:40Z")

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Kos diarist **DC Pol Sci** does [this analysis](http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/10/29/132531/73) of the no-longer-mandatory [Federal sentencing guidelines](http://www.ussc.gov/2004guid/) to reach the conclusion that Scooter Libby, if convicted on all counts, is looking at between 6.5 and 9 years in prison.

I’ve got two (forum-relevant) thoughts about this:

1. That’s a lot more believable than 30 years; and

2. I still don’t know enough to have any idea whether DC Pol Sci is right or wrong on most of his major points.

I realize that the sentencing guidelines are a world unto themselves, but do any of our SDMB legal eagles have enough experience to either critique DC Pol Sci’s analysis, or do one of their own, to determine what they’d warn Libby his exposure might be under the guidelines, if he’s convicted on all 5 counts?

And given that the guidelines are now definitively guidelines, what might the likelihood be of a judge giving Libby a lower sentence than the guidelines recommend, and what might induce a judge to give a lower sentence than indicated by the guidelines?

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**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\
**Post date:** [November 2, 2005, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/30-years-no-way-but-whats-libbys-actual-prison-exposure/328936/2 "2005-11-02T21:09:27Z")

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“Sure is quiet around here.”

“Yeah. _Too_ quiet.”