Those are federal sentencing guidelines. I am not entirely he was charged with a state offense whose mandatory minimum sentence for the count was 5 years. Accor

Those are federal sentencing guidelines. I am not entirely he was charged with a state offense whose mandatory minimum sentence for the count was 5 years. According to the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Federal_Sentencing_Guidelines http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Federal_Sentencin... wiki, state judges are not bound at all to these guidelines. You are absolutely right, he would probably not have spent the rest of his life in jail. However, staring down the barrel of a minimum 5 year imprisonment with the possibility of more, depending on whether or not the judge had a bad day seems way too risky. In my opinion, there should be no mandatory minimum sentences. Each action is literally taken on a case-by-case basis, so what purpose do they serve other than to force defendants into plea bargains?