Is that what you anticipate will happen to this judge, because you seem to think that is precisely what he is doing. How about the judges in US v. Watts when the Supreme Court concluded: “For these reasons, “an acquittal in a criminal case does not preclude the Government from relitigating an issue when it is presented in a subsequent action governed by a lower standard of proof.” Dowling v. United States, 493 U.S. 342, 349 (1990). The Guidelines state that it is “appropriate” that facts relevant to sentencing be proved by a preponderance of the evidence, and we have held that application of the preponderance standard at sentencing generally satisfies due process.”
I wasn’t quoting you or putting words in your mouth. I was explaining my position regarding the use of evidence at a sentencing hearing, even if that evidence had been used earlier in a case that resulted in an acquittal on some counts.
It’s not really uncertain at all, as the Supreme Court has been pretty clear about it for awhile. If you wish to argue that a judge shouldn’t be allowed to consider any evidence of actions taken if there was an acquittal, have at it. I think the judge should be allowed to consider almost all relevant evidence at sentencing, even if a jury found the state hadn’t proven a specific charge at an earlier trial. “Highly relevant–if not essential–to [the judge’s] selection of an appropriate sentence is the possession of the fullest information possible concerning the defendant’s life and characteristics.” Judges can, and should, consider evidence of prior bad acts (or prior good acts) by a defendant being sentenced, even if those acts were not proven in court beyond a reasonable doubt.
I did mean “should” and “shouldn’t,” that’s what I get for typing quickly on a phone. I of course defer to your legal expertise on what is legal, and I acknowledged that the judge’s decision was legal in an early post. My bad.
But basically, it comes down to this.
Scenario 1) The defendant is honest about the location of his computer. He is acquitted of arson. The judge is absolutely convinced that the defendant committed the arson, so he sentences the defendant to 2 1/2 years prison.
Scenario 2) The defendant lies about his computer to get an extra grand from the insurance company. The judge believes that this is the first offense for this respected businessman and, in a vacuum, he would sentence him to probation. However, he is also absolutely convinced that the defendant committed the arson, so he sentences the defendant to 2 1/2 years.
Case 1 is very clearly a travesty of justice. Regardless of the defendant’s factual innocence, our society cannot function if acquittals do not stand. The founding fathers knew that, which is why double jeopardy and the right to trial are in the constitution. But in case 2, in my opinion, the judge’s actions are de facto (though not de jure) identical to scenario 1. In both cases, the judge sentences a man for a crime he was acquitted of. The only difference is that in case 2 he has a legal smokescreen.
Now I’ll admit that I’m not a lawyer, and also that my exposure to this issue is limited to a few cases to I’m not informed as I could be. But I’m not seeing how justice or society is served by the judge’s actions in Case 2, when the extremely similar actions of the judge in Case 1 would lead to the breakdown of the criminal justice system as we know it.
That’s not true. In scenario 2, the judge is sentencing a man for the crime he was convicted of. There can’t be a sentencing hearing without that conviction.
But in sentencing that man for the crime he was convicted, the judge gets to consider not just the single act the defendant took that he was convicted of, but rather a whole slew of things. That’s what I keep trying to emphasize, the difference between a trial and a sentencing hearing. They serve vastly different purposes, they have different rules of evidence, they have different burdens of proof, and they allow different kinds of evidence.
In sentencing someone, the criminal justice system recognizes that it should consider more than just the legalistic requirements of criminal trials. And the things it considers in sentencing a person don’t have to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, they don’t have to be based only on evidence admissible in a trial, and they don’t have to be unanimously agreed by 12 citizens who didn’t give specific instructions on what they were finding was proven. Which is why a prior acquittal, if supported by evidence at the sentencing hearing, is admissible, and is proper in sentencing someone.
The only other thing I’ll note is that I think you’re overestimating what an acquittal actually is. As the Supreme Court quoted in Watts said: "[A]n acquittal is not a finding of any fact. An acquittal can only be an acknowledgment that the government failed to prove an essential element of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt. Withoutspecific jury findings, no one can logically or realistically draw any factual finding inferences . . " This idea that an acquittal is somehow a finding of factual innocence is false, and it does not preclude the sentencing court from considering all the evidence.
When the statutory maximum and typical sentences are so far apart I’m not sure it makes a practical difference. The further apart these two values get the more outrageous it can seem.
If legislatures reduced the maximum sentences to some small multiple of the guidelines it would help avoid the issue of defendants being, effectively, punished for crimes that they were not convicted of.
Out of curiosity, does it make a difference if those facts were introduced at the same trial, or if the evidence was introduced at a separate trials? Does it matter if the two crimes were related?
As an extreme hypothetical, if the defendant had been acquitted of a rape ten years ago, could the judge decide that he likely committed a rape by a preponderance of the evidence and increase the sentence for the false statements accordingly?
Are you asking about legally or morally? I don’t want to confuse the “is” or “should” thing again.
It depends on the jurisdiction (and other things, but I don’t want to get all legalistic), but as a general rule, yes. That is legally, yes. Morally? It depends. Suppose the guy in your example was acquitted by a Mississippi jury who acquitted him because they thought black women can’t be raped no matter what. Or that the backlog of DNA testing led to no DNA evidence at trial, but later it gets done and proves he was the one who raped her. Or the jury, against the instructions of the judge, decided the victim was drunk so she deserved it. I wouldn’t have a problem with the use of a prior acquittal in any of those cases as evidence to show the defendant being sentenced is a bad man.
That’s a much broader issue than just acquitted conduct sentencing, though. The wider the range of criminal penalty, the greater potential for both justice (mitigating factors reducing a sentence, first-time offenders being treated with more mercy, aggravating factors increasing a sentence) and injustice (harsher sentences for minorities or those unlucky enough to draw a particular judge, slaps on the wrist for the politically connected).
Isn’t that what’s happening here? Let’s say a defendant is accused of burglary and carrying a weapon during a crime. At his trial, he’s found guilty of burglary but found not guilty of the weapons charge. The sentence range for burglary is one to three years and the judge sentences him to three years and states that the weapon was the reason he gave the defendant the maximum sentence rather than the two year sentence he would have normally given.
Isn’t the defendant being punished by being sentenced to a third year of prison?
“It depends on the jurisdiction (and other things, but I don’t want to devolve the thread into legalisms), but as a general rule, yes.” Note: this is not legal advice, nor a conclusion based on any specific jurisdiction.
I have to say I’m curious about why what looks like a rather straightforward case of arson was tried in a Federal court rather than a Wisconsin state court. Anybody know?
I agree that it is a fine line, but the third year was permissible simply for the burglary. A judge can use whatever to determine a sentence. For example, it’s not illegal to sit at home all day and drink whiskey, but if a judge decides that I need a boost in the ass to get myself straight, he can give me the max for another crime I commit because I sit at home and drink all day.
Likewise, just because a jury didn’t find that the perp carried a weapon beyond a reasonable doubt, a judge might find that he did carry a weapon by a preponderance of the evidence and use that for a higher but still legal penalty for burglary.
That’s one way to look at it. Alternately you can say the defendant was not offered a better than max sentence because of circumstances outside of the burglary conviction. Or… other burglars were offered a better than max sentence because of their individual circumstance, which do not happen to apply to your person.
Let’s say your burglar WAS convicted on the weapons charge, and is now subject to sentencing for both crimes, would it be more acceptable for him to get 3 years + the weapons charge? If that 3 year sentence included the weapons aspect, then he’s punished twice for having a weapon. If that 3 year sentence is not OK, then under what circumstances would it be OK?
Judges are given discretion to assign sentences within a particular range. If burglaries deserves no more than 2 years, then THAT should be the maximum, not 3 years.
let’s say the defendant commits a burglary. While doing so, he grabs the TV and knocks the giant TV stand over killing the owner, passed out on the other side of the TV stand.
The guy is charged with burglary and murder, and is acquitted on the murder charge. (Sounds reasonable, the prosecutor should have tried for involuntary manslaughter or something).
But the judge throws the book at him - during the course of the burglary, a person died. you were not convicted of a crime for killing him, but your burglary actions caused a death, so this is a much more serious burglary than a simple smash-and-grab. Full sentence for you!
This is taking into account the totality of the circumstances - of the crime for which he was convicted, including consequences that resulted in a concurrent acquittal on another charge. You don’t have to ignore the death just because he wasn’t convicted for it.
Isn’t a judge supposed to have some reasonable grounds for imposing a sentence? He can’t give you a maximum sentence because you have red hair or some other arbitrary standard of his own.
The charge would be felony homicide - and the defendant should have been convicted of it. If he wasn’t convicted of the crime, there’s no reason to act like he committed it.
One issue people should keep in mind is that Feras Rahman may be genuinely innocent and not just technically innocent. The prosecution argument was that he could have committed the arson (he was the owner of one of the restaurants that burned down and would have had the keys to get in after hours) and he might have had a motive (he collected insurance from the fire). But there was no clear evidence linking him to the crime - the prosecution admitted it wasn’t sure if Rahman started the fire himself or had some unknown person do it.
The defense pointed out that while Rahman was one owner, there were other owners who also had access to the crime scene. And Rahman’s restaurant was successful and another owner was heavily in debt - so Rahman had less of a motive for seeking insurance.
The big point against Rahman was that he lied to investigators. He falsely claimed that a computer he owned had been burned in the fire and it was found that it was actually at his home. He apparently lied about this to bump up his insurance payout (and he was convicted of this charge). But this made the investigators suspicious of Rahman, who has no alibi because he is single and was home alone in the middle of the night. The defense claims the investigators stopped looking at the other possibilities and just worked on building a case against Rahman. The defense also point out that Rahman is apparently not a competent criminal - his lie about the computer was quickly exposed - and that if he had committed arson, the investigation would have uncovered evidence of him planning the crime. But the prosecution produced no evidence that Rahman bought any arson material, researched arson methods, or hired any professional arsonists.
The jury looked this over and found Rahman guilty of lying to investigators over the computer but not guilty of arson. I don’t think the judge should have second-guessed that decision and decided that he believed Rahman committed arson.
And why the fuck shouldn’t that be the way it is? Your own ethics are that someone is presumed innocent unless proven guilty. The criminal has not been proven guilty. Yet your entire fucking argument is that “not guilty” doesn’t mean “innocent.” IT DOES FOR YOU AS A PART OF THE LEGAL SYSTEM!
The more I find out about what judges are allowed to do, the more I disrespect them, since they are so out of touch with the consensus morality. A judge has fascistic control over his courtroom, being able to abridge freedom of speech because it hurts his feelings. He is fucking required to lie to jurors and tell them that they have to find in concert with the laws when they don’t. Most courts push for jurors to be stupid by taking away their other sources of knowledge. And now I find out that they can use the variability of sentencing to punish someone for a crime that a jury says there was insufficient evidence to prove.
They can’t even follow their own ethics, finding loopholes in them to let them punish people they think are bad rather than follow the clear intent of the justice system. When you can’t even keep up with your own morality, what value do you have? This a corrupt system, and I have fewer and fewer reasons to follow it.
The thing the justice system seems to forget is that most people follow the law not because they will be punished if they don’t, but because they find it immoral not to do so. You aren’t capable of watching everything, so people could get away with things all the time. The reason they don’t is because they agree with you–they respect the laws of the land. The more shit like this you do, the less that respect runs.
I mean, I used to actually feel guilty filesharing. I don’t now. I have my own reasons for believing it okay, and I no longer respect the criminal system to have any good reasons why I shouldn’t, because they keep proving this desire to be punitive rather than seek justice. Capricious practice of law encourages the lack of respect they are so freaking worried about.
Quite the hissy fit there BigT. I’m not sure how your loss of respect for judges leads you to the conclusion that piracy for you is OK, but that shouldn’t get in the way of your rant.
Now, if you want to discuss why there are different rules for sentencing than for trials, we can do that. But I’m not sure it will appease your anger.