“Acquitted conduct” is conduct that led prosecutors to file charges against you, where a jury then acquitted you of those charges. Apparently federal judges sometimes use such behavior when sentencing you for other charges that the jury convicted on. The judge makes his or her own determination of guilt (?) based on preponderance of the evidence and then works that into the sentence (!).
My question: can the judge use his own finding of fact to exceed the maximum sentence allowed by the jury’s conviction? Can a judge hand down a life sentence when the jury convicts a man of a class A misdemeanor but acquits him of the felony charge?
The internet seems to indicate that the judge follows guidelines and that a judicial finding of guilt following a jury’s acquittal can actually increase the maximum sentence. But I strongly suspect that would be unconstitutional, why have a jury if you are just going to ignore its findings? But that is also the general vibe I get from a web search.
IANAL, but the idea is probably that generally speaking, if you are charged with a crime, you either did it, or at least did something suspicious (it is rare for you to get charged with a crime when it’s obvious from the start you are innocent.) And if you get charged-and-acquitted repeatedly, time after time, it starts to look like you are a serial criminal but simply managed to get off each time. So when you are finally convicted of robbery (or whatever,) the judge, in his mind, isn’t sentencing you for just 1 robbery - he’s sentencing you for a whole string of them, of which you were only convicted of one.
IANALEither, but this seems blatantly un-Constitutional to me. IOW I agree with Ginsberg, Thomas, and Scalia in their dissent in Jones v. United States, and Brett Kavanaugh when he was a federal judge in United States v. Bell.
If you are found not guilty, that means the prosecution has failed to show all the relevant parts of an accusation are true beyond a reasonable doubt. For the judge to apply a different standard, like preponderance of the evidence, is a violation of the Due Process clause and of the right to be tried by a jury.
I don’t often agree with you, but in this case I do. If someone is found not guilty, that means not guilty. It doesn’t mean “Let’s punish you for this other crime that I think you committed just because I have the chance to lump it in with a different charge.”
I believe one of the articles cites a Supreme Court ruling that specifically says it doesn’t violate double jeopardy or the Due Process clause, but that they didn’t address the right to trial by jury. I’ll need to read that case later.
Under Apprendi v. New Jersey, any finding of fact which increases a sentence above the maximum prescribed for the crime must be found by a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. However, and what was criticized by the Apprendi dissenters, is that the government may prescribe a rather high maximum sentence and give the judge discretion to go below that and everything is a-okay.
My state still uses indeterminate sentencing with no guidelines. So let’s say that I am convicted of 15 counts of mopery each punishable by 10 to 25 years in prison. The judge has the power to give me probation (no jail time at all) or he can throw the book at me, run everything consecutive, and give me a combined sentence of 150 to 375 years in prison (which means I will not see the parole board for 150 years, an effective life without parole sentence).
So the judge can sentence me from 0 to life without parole on absolutely anything that tickles his fancy including previously acquitted conduct. The only exception is if he is stupid enough to admit that he gave me a harsher sentence because of my race, sex, religion, etc. Apprendi does not touch these types of sentencing regimes.
Sentencing guidelines were enacted by many states and the feds to get rid of this gross disparity and make sentences more consistent by providing certain factors to guide the judge’s discretion. But depending on how they are worded, they might run afoul of Apprendi. Even if a sentence has a maximum of 10 years, but the facts of the jury verdict provide a mandatory ceiling of, say, 2 years, then anything that would put me above 2 years must be found by a jury and not the judge.
That’s another criticism of Apprendi: that well-meaning statutes that serve to make sentencing more fair are thrown out and re-vests a judge with unbridled discretion.
Thank you for the citation, I’ll read it after supper.
My initial reaction based on your summary alone is that unless the sentence amounts to a cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment (for example, a life or capital sentence for mere mopery), it’s a-okay so far as the Constitution is concerned. Both the injustice and remedy would be legislative.