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I'd be willing to accept your statement at face value. Are there any good indicators for laymen what likely punishments he would have been facing if he would h

I'd be willing to accept your statement at face value. Are there any good indicators for laymen what likely punishments he would have been facing if he would have continued to trial and lost? What sort of crimes typically have similar actual and enforced punishments? I'm wondering where on the scale it gets slotted. Is it between assault and shoplifting or grand theft and kidnapping?

girvo 13y ago
Setencing is hard. Prosecutors have the incentive to put as many charges on them as possible, to get a guilty plea, but not all of them make it through, so it's hard to know what is going to happen until the defendant goes to trial. This goes for all sorts of crimes (most of them, in fact).
- adestefan 13y ago
  You don't know what's going to be the final result until the defendant is actually sentenced. Of course this is all dependent upon the jurisdiction, but in most judges have significant leeway in the sentencing.
  - girvo 13y ago
    Sorry, that's what I meant, yeah.
dragonwriter 13y ago
> Are there any good indicators for laymen what likely punishments he would have been facing if he would have continued to trial and lost? For federal crimes, sentencing is generally governed by the federal sentencing guidelines. [1] The application is conceptually simple -- there are guidelines for determining the offense level for each base crime, guidelines for grouping offenses (some of which just keep the most serious, some of which start with the most serious and increase based on other offenses), and guidelines for adjustments to the offense level for various factors such as actual harms inflicted, the defendants criminal history, the defendants acceptance of responsibility, and so forth, and finally guidelines to translate offense level into sentence. But the details are quite involved. Perhaps the most important thing to note, in the federal guidelines, is that in most cases, where multiple convictions are handed down for offenses involve the same victim and the same act or transaction, or different acts or transaction as part of the same plan or scheme, the offense level is set by the single most serious count alone -- charging multiple counts of the same charge basically just increase the chance of getting a conviction. For state offenses, sentencing is handled by state-specific rules. [1] http://www.ussc.gov/Guidelines/2013_Guidelines/index.cfm http://www.ussc.gov/Guidelines/2013_Guidelines/index.cfm

girvo 13y ago

Setencing is hard. Prosecutors have the incentive to put as many charges on them as possible, to get a guilty plea, but not all of them make it through, so it's hard to know what is going to happen until the defendant goes to trial. This goes for all sorts of crimes (most of them, in fact).

adestefan 13y ago
You don't know what's going to be the final result until the defendant is actually sentenced. Of course this is all dependent upon the jurisdiction, but in most judges have significant leeway in the sentencing.
- girvo 13y ago
  Sorry, that's what I meant, yeah.

dragonwriter 13y ago

> Are there any good indicators for laymen what likely punishments he would have been facing if he would have continued to trial and lost? For federal crimes, sentencing is generally governed by the federal sentencing guidelines. [1] The application is conceptually simple -- there are guidelines for determining the offense level for each base crime, guidelines for grouping offenses (some of which just keep the most serious, some of which start with the most serious and increase based on other offenses), and guidelines for adjustments to the offense level for various factors such as actual harms inflicted, the defendants criminal history, the defendants acceptance of responsibility, and so forth, and finally guidelines to translate offense level into sentence. But the details are quite involved. Perhaps the most important thing to note, in the federal guidelines, is that in most cases, where multiple convictions are handed down for offenses involve the same victim and the same act or transaction, or different acts or transaction as part of the same plan or scheme, the offense level is set by the single most serious count alone -- charging multiple counts of the same charge basically just increase the chance of getting a conviction. For state offenses, sentencing is handled by state-specific rules. [1] http://www.ussc.gov/Guidelines/2013_Guidelines/index.cfm http://www.ussc.gov/Guidelines/2013_Guidelines/index.cfm