Pretty much every day you can read about someone who was arrested & the press loves to add this line at the end of the article. “If convicted of all charges s/he may spend up to eleventy-trazillion month/years in prison.” Yet rarely, it seems, is anyone sentenced to the maximum.
Without knowing specifics of a case, or of the defendants past criminal history (assume this is their first offense, if necessary) is there some ballpark percentage of the possible maximum that I could guess as to how long they’ll really be in for or does it really vary that much by things like type of crime, # of charges (even though you can be charged with multiple offenses for one ‘event’ - theft, conspiracy, receiving stolen property, etc.) the judge’s reputation, the defendant’s prior criminal history, etc.? Is there a different average percentage for pleading guilty vs. going to trial?
This past Friday brought us 2 indictments & one guilty plea in the NJ Bridgegate case & today there was a story about a local ongoing police corruption trial, both of which talked about maximum sentences. One of the articles talked about how many months David Wildstein may receive, despite pleading guilty. I assume he’ll get far less than the maximum.
Can the public reasonably say s/he’ll really get x amount of time from a given possible maximum?
In the federal system, there are formal sentencing guidelines, with points added and taken away for prior criminal history and specific facts of the crime. So it’s often possible to get a fairly accurate range ahead of time.
In my state, the jury not only convicts but imposes a notional sentence, which the judge can modify under certain circumstances. So guessing this is often less accurate.
Most jurisdictions have some sort of guidelines, either statutory or vide caselaw (or both). Depending on the circumstances, the sentence could vary wildly for the same crime, depending on aggravating factors, credit for guilty plea, incarceration undergone, antecedents and a whole host of factors. A lawyer would be oftentimes able to guess the range, “1st time drug offence, personal use only, guilty plea at first opportunity”= probably just a fine in xyz range".
Misdemeanors often have sentences which are just “not more than 1 year in jail” (or sometimes, 6 months). Absent extreme circumstances or a long list of priors, a person charged with a misdemeanor isn’t going to do anything close to a year. A drug possession misdo, for example, either goes to diversion (do a drug class, case dismissed) for a first-timer or maybe something like 20-30 days for a multiple-timer.
Felonies have more specific sentences (for example, low level ones will often say “the judge has the choice of three sentences, 16 months, 2 years or 3 years, depending on factors.” However, the judge can still grant probation instead and make (less) jail time a condition of that probation. I had a guy who was charged with multiple felony grand theft autos, was facing something like 11 years max. Ended up pleading it out early so he only had to do 5 months in “custody” (he actually got to do ankle bracelet at home).
(This is all at the state level, so, different from what Bricker outlined at the federal level)
But as a non-lawyer, can I read a story with the line about the maximum # of months/years & say, on average, the person will do, say, 35% of that # if they plead guilty & 60% of that if they go to trial or is that too much of a generalization?