Questions for those opposed to the concept of acquitted conduct sentencing:
Do you approve of judges being empowered to use subjective factors of any sort when passing sentence?
If so, what factors are acceptable? Must the judge formally declare his reasoning?
Would you prefer a system of crime x = penalty y, with no range?
I feel there are certainly factors which are legitimate subjects for a judge to consider in sentencing.
For example, prior criminal history. Let’s say a guy has been convicted on six previous felonies. He’s now been arrested again and he’s on trial for some new crime. His previous convictions are generally not going to be admissible at the trial on the basis that they don’t have a bearing on whether or not he committed this new crime.
But if he gets convicted of that new crime and the judge is now sentencing him, I have no problem with the judge taking his previous convictions into account and giving him a longer sentence based on the guy apparently being a career criminal.
Those crimes were all matters of public record and the guy had a chance to defend himself for all of them at previous trials. And I think past crimes are clearly a relevant factor in this situation. So I feel it’s fair game.
However, and this is critical, if the sentence doesn’t meet the guidelines, on appeal it will probably be overturned and replaced with one that does meet the guidelines. Unless you can justify the deviation from the guidlines. Which is what this case is all about.
I’m a layperson, but does it deviate from the guidelines? One of the grounds for departure is:
Another is:
Doesn’t that cover this situation?
I’d say no. The plea bargain text covers situations where somebody agrees to plea guilty for some charges in exchange for having other charges dropped. So you can argue the person tacitly agreed to his guilt for the dropped charges as well by his desire to not defend himself against them in court.
That’s not what happened in this case. Rahman did not make a plea bargain. (I don’t know if one was offered to him.) He was charged and tried on the charges and found not guilty of the charges. At that point, the judge should not be able to say, “I don’t care what the outcome of the trial was. I still think you were guilty of those charges and I’ll treat you as such.”
At first, this concept seems off, like a way of getting around double jeopardy, but the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. Let’s consider the scenario in the OP, but a little different. Let’s imagine that the DA had instead decided not to charge the defendant with the additional charges related to arson, perhaps because the lying made gathering the evidence difficult, but still got the lying conviction. Now he’s at sentencing, except with no charges and conviction or acquital related to arson. Would he be justified in bringing up that he had lied related to their investigation on his potential involvement in arson or is it simply that he lied relevant?
I think, in general, most people would agree that the punishment for lying ought to depend on what they were lying about. Consider a woman who finds out that her husband lied to her about something. Maybe she asked him if he liked some new dish she cooked, he says yes, then finds out he gave most of it to the dog. Maybe she’s good and it was just one bad dish, or maybe she’s bad in general; she can’t be sure whether or not he likes her cooking in general, she’s only sure he lied about that one dish. Sure, she’ll be a little upset, but I don’t think it would devolve into a nasty argument unless they were already having problems.
Now imagine she asks him where he was last night and he says he was at Tony’s house helping him work on his car, but she had driven by there on some errands and his car wasn’t there. Maybe he was at the bar having some drinks and watching the game because he didn’t want to be home and watch some show she found boring and insisted on watching over the big game. Or maybe he was at Tina’s house sleeping with her. So maybe he just told a white lie to get out of watching American Idol instead of his Alma Mater’s big rivalry game, or maybe he’s cheating on her; based on that, she can’t be sure whether or not he’s cheating on her, she can only be sure he lied about that one thing. But I also think she’d be quite a bit more upset about it and it would probably lead to at least a big argument, or more if they were struggling. Yet, in both cases all she knows is that he lied.
So, it seems to me that context is always relevant when sentencing, otherwise why bother with a range on sentences and not just have a single punishment? So, in the case of the OP, the context of that lie is relevant, and the context is directly related to the other charges since that’s what they were asking him about when he lied. Regardless, they cannot exceed the maximum penalty for the crimes of which he was convicted, so if getting such a sentence seems to harsh, the problem isn’t so much with the judge and sentencing as it is with the law itself that allows such a harsh penalty.
That’s not an “ethics”, it’s a principle of trials, in the US. It doesn’t apply to life in general. For example, a cop can arrest you on suspicion. It’s only in a trial where one is assumed to be innocent until proven guilty. (This is a common misconception about America, even among Americans.)
You should.
That’s how I read it, too.
Again I agree: no. Actually, they specifically do NOT cover it:
Is it clear that the defendant did it to conceal the commision of another offense? He was aquitted. If that other offense had not come to trial, this would be arguable. As it was ajudicated, IMHO it is not arguable. Obviously, the judge’s opinion was different than mine, and I have no idea of precedent or correct legal interpretation.
It wasn’t dismissed as part of a plea agreement, and the charge was pursued. This clearly doesn’t apply.
I think defense should appeal the sentence.
What is your take on what an acquittal means? Does reality somehow warp around the events that occurred so that it never happened? Does an acquittal suddenly mean that the defendant is innocent, that he did nothing wrong whatsoever? Shall the entire world be forced to consider that the defendant didn’t do it, or can we make up our own minds?
Or does an acquittal mean the government was unable to prove the defendant not guilty at that trial?
To me, an acquittal means the latter, but does not go much further than that. The acquittal is about that one trial, at that one time, with that one jury. It means he can’t be retried for that charge of course, but it also doesn’t mean the rest of the criminal justice system has to pretend it never happened.
It means the latter (assuming you meant “the government was unable to prove the defendant guilty”, but IMHO should enjoin the judge from assuming guilt, since it’s a matter “with prejudice” and guilt was not proven.
How about this as a definition of “acquittal”? “The legal system has not proved the case, therefor the legal system cannot punish the defendant for it.”
Doesn’t it necessarily follow from that that everything the legal system considers in punishing a defendant for must then be proven beyond a reasonable doubt in a trial?
Alright, I accept your arguement that acquitted conduct doesn’t fit under either of those criteria, but must instead stand alone.
I now ask: given that you both seem to accept the idea of a harsher sentence based on conduct that was not charged. How does that substantially differ from conduct that was acquitted? In either case, it’s an enhancement based on conduct for which a conviction was not secured.
Sure, and I’m okay with that. For instance, it still allows consideration of prior convictions.
Actually, I take that back. Once the crime is proved, a judge can consider other things during sentencing which might not be proved, such as the severity of impact on the victim, etc. But IMO, any lengthening or shortening of the sentence should not be linked to some other crime that a defendant has been acquitted of.
Would it be ok if the prosecutor never even charged arson, just the false statement, and after the conviction told the judge, “We decided there wasn’t enough evidence to convict for arson, so we didn’t charge him, but we think you should hammer him on that basis on the sentence he was convicted of”?
Yes, but that’s the only thing it would allow, unless you’re advocating full trials into everything the judges considers, including employment, family situation, prior non-convicted conduct (like diversion courts for domestic abusers or any uncharged conduct), likelihood of harm of the conduct, the remorsefullness of the defendant, the impact on the victims, the amount of damage done, the defendant’s conduct during the trial, the defendant’s reputation in the community, the likelihood of re-offense, the mental state of the defendant, the status of the victim, rehabilitation potential, deterrence effect, the protection of the public, any suppressed evidence, prior treatment for drug or alcohol abuse, or any of the myriad of things a judge considers.
The criminal justice system has long recognized that sentencing requires a much more flexible approach than the legalistic nature of a criminal trial. Once a conviction is obtained, the judge is given a much wider latitude in the factors he/she considers in determining the proper punishment. There are still standards of proof and evidentiary requirements, but not the extent at a trial.
These differences are a recognition that not every crime is the same, that not every defendant is the same, and that the highly legalistic nature of the trial sometimes ignores reality and the need for flexibility and judicial discretion to do justice. Those are the reasons why sentencing allows the judge to consider a great deal of things that don’t have to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt to a unanimous jury.
The prosecution would still have to prove the offense to the judge at sentencing. You would prefer the judge ignore everything except the exact conduct the defendant took that was the basis of the conviction? No longer should the judge be allowed to look at “the totality of the circumstances”, but only could consider the precise actions that led to the exact elements of the offense? I’m not sure that’s anymore just.
According to the law cited above, that’s specifically allowed. Seems a bit dicey to me, though.
Not to the same degree of proof that a conviction would require.
The judge can look at many things, as I’ve noted, but not IMO at a crime that the defendant has been acquitted of or not even charged with.
Of course, I understand that the judge CAN look at those too under current law, but IMO it shouldn’t be calculated into the sentencing.