The crimes that he was convicted of have wide sentencing guidelines. 10 years to life and 20 years to life. If you're convicted of a crime that carries, say, 1

The crimes that he was convicted of have wide sentencing guidelines. 10 years to life and 20 years to life. If you're convicted of a crime that carries, say, 1 to 3 years in prison then the judge could not sentence you to anything more than that. So even if you had some weird murder for hire chats on your computer - you would still get 3 years max. Mitigating and aggravating factors don't have to be proven beyond reasonable doubt. So the moral of the story is - if you do something illegal - don't commit violent acts as part of it. Judges really don't like that.