It Encourages Adoption Of Many Foster Kids; Mothers Lose Contact CHEEKTOWAGA, N.Y. -- In January 2004, Tamika Davis was leaving a department store in a mall with her son, when security officers nabbed her for stealing men's jeans and shirts. Her children, an 11-year-old boy and a 7-year-old girl, were eventually sent to foster care. Last summer, while Ms. Davis was completing her jail term, child-welfare authorities moved to end her parental rights, so the children could be available for adoption. [continues 3462 words]
How Judges Punish Defendants For Offenses Unproved in Court Stories of Five Convicts Show That Charges in Dispute Can Multiply Prison Time The Supreme Court Steps In Laurence Braun learned the hard way that being acquitted of a crime doesn't always stop you from being punished for it. Mr. Braun, former co-owner of a New York company that defrauded the U.S. Postal Service, was convicted by a New York federal jury in 2002 of racketeering and conspiracy. Had he been punished just for those crimes, he probably would have gotten around 21/2 years in prison. [continues 3385 words]
Martha Stewart, one of the nation's most famous felons, has assumed a new role: prisoner advocate. In an e-mail to a Wall Street Journal reporter, Ms. Stewart says she is worried that striking down federal sentencing guidelines, which the Supreme Court did Wednesday in a landmark ruling, could "depress" some of her fellow inmates at the minimum-security Federal Prison Camp in Alderson, W.Va. In the Jan. 5 e-mail, Ms. Stewart, convicted in federal court in March 2004 for lying about a stock sale, wrote that what worried her most about a ruling shooting down the sentencing system "is the hope that the Supreme Court has raised in the minds of so many incarcerated women and men that their sentences will be automatically shortened if the court throws out the guidelines." [continues 699 words]
Lawmakers Move to Regain Control Over Prison Terms; 'Congress Has Ample Power' The fallout from Wednesday's landmark Supreme Court ruling quickly emerged with initial moves yesterday by the Justice Department and Congress to reassert control over federal sentencing and limit the broad discretion the court gave federal judges. The court ruled that federal sentencing guidelines, enacted two decades ago to standardize prison sentences nationwide, are unconstitutional because they violate a defendant's Sixth Amendment right to be tried by a jury. [continues 1699 words]
Federal Judges Are Handed Broad Discretion, and Told to Use Rules As Suggestions Ball Is Now in Congress's Court Federal sentencing guidelines, enacted two decades ago to standardize prison sentences nationwide, are unconstitutional because they violate a defendant's Sixth Amendment right to be tried by a jury, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled. The decisions, in a pair of 5-4 rulings, handed broader discretion to federal judges by telling them to consider the guidelines merely as a suggestion. The guidelines had bound judges to mete out punishment based on a 1,800-page sentencing manual written by a congressionally established commission. The system forced judges to boost sentences based on factors that a jury hadn't ruled on. Now judges are permitted, but not required, to do so. [continues 1727 words]
In Wake Of Ruling, Disarray Plagues Federal Sentencing Supreme Court's June Verdict Leaves Judges Confused; Some Issue Two Decisions Mr. Pena Makes An Objection NEW YORK -- At Manhattan's federal courthouse, Judge Shira Scheindlin has had a new policy since August: She doesn't sentence any defendants unless they ask for it. Three floors down, Judge Jed Rakoff has a different but equally unusual policy: He gives every defendant two sentences, based on two different sets of rules. Disarray has enveloped the federal court system for the past six months since a Supreme Court ruling hinted that the guidelines governing federal sentences may be unconstitutional. As federal judges wait, and wait some more, for the divided high court to deliver a final verdict, they have come up with a myriad of ways to sentence defendants. [continues 1985 words]
Rules on Reducing Sentences Vary Across U.S. An Edge For Some Crime Bosses A 'Little Fish' Gets 19 1/2 Years On Jan. 28, 2004, federal agents stopped a fishing boat and a pleasure boat as they sped into a Florida inlet from the Bahamas carrying 380 kilograms of cocaine and 487 pounds of marijuana. Ringleader William "Billy" Stevens, 46 years old, was arrested along with Henry Rudnitskie and one other man. Messrs. Stevens and Rudnitskie both sought to cooperate with authorities, lawyers in the case say. But Mr. Rudnitskie was turned down because "anything he knew came from Billy," says Mr. Stevens's lawyer, Alvin E. Entin. Only Mr. Stevens got credit for cooperation. He received an 11-year sentence while Mr. Rudnitskie, 57, was sentenced to 19 years and seven months. [continues 2446 words]
A federal judge in Utah said he reluctantly sentenced a small-time marijuana dealer to 55 years and one day in prison because of harsh mandatory minimums imposed by Congress that he said he couldn't avoid. U.S. District Judge Paul G. Cassell of Salt Lake City sentenced Weldon Angelos, a 24-year-old first offender, to the lengthy term. Mr. Angelos was a successful music executive with two young children at the time of his arrest. His case has been highly publicized in recent months because of the harshness of the mandatory minimum sentence he faced. [continues 228 words]
A divided Supreme Court yesterday raised critical questions about the future of the 17-year-old federal criminal-sentencing system under which more than 60,000 convicts are sentenced each year. In a two-hour hearing, the nine justices heard arguments about the constitutionality of federal sentencing guidelines, which were enacted in 1987 to standardize sentences for similar crimes nationwide. But legal specialists say disparities remain. The judicial system often adds years to sentences for conduct that has never been proven to juries beyond a reasonable doubt or admitted to by defendants. And prosecutors can enhance or cut sentences based on information they provide probation officers and judges before sentencing. [continues 1235 words]
How Judges Punish Defendants for Offenses Unproved in Court Stories of Five Convicts Show That Charges in Dispute Can Multiply Prison Time The Supreme Court Steps In Laurence Braun learned the hard way that being acquitted of a crime doesn't always stop you from being punished for it. Mr. Braun, former co-owner of a New York company that defrauded the U.S. Postal Service, was convicted by a New York federal jury in 2002 of racketeering and conspiracy. Had he been punished just for those crimes, he probably would have gotten around 2 1/2 years in prison. [continues 3395 words]
For the nation's federal judges and the defense lawyers and convicts who come before them, June 24 was a momentous day. For Douglas Berman, a 35-year-old law professor at Ohio State University in Columbus, the day marked the beginning of his Warholian moments of fame. On that date, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down tough sentencing guidelines used in Washington state. The high court said any factor increasing a criminal sentence must be admitted by the defendant in a plea deal or proved to a jury. Since then, Mr. Berman has become the chronicler of the sweeping effect of the Blakely v. Washington ruling on the nation's courts. [continues 1044 words]
Judges, Prosecutors Put Aside Federal Guidelines, Fearing They're Unconstitutional 'Boiling Frustration' On Bench When the Supreme Court last month struck down tough sentencing guidelines used in Washington state, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor dissented. She feared the ruling would wreak havoc on the nation's federal courts. She was right. Although the 5-4 ruling technically affects only one state's court system, the Justice Department is forcing prosecutors of federal crimes to draft indictments and sculpt plea bargains in compliance with it. That has thrown into confusion the sentencing of nearly 250 federal defendants every day. And tens of thousands of old cases are up in the air again as defense attorneys try to get long sentences thrown out. [continues 2008 words]
The Department of Justice is telling federal prosecutors to bring fresh indictments against certain defendants to guard against any impact from a recent Supreme Court decision involving sentencing rules. Deputy Attorney General James Comey, in a July 2 memo, also instructed prosecutors to "immediately" seek waivers from all defendants who agree to plead guilty to bar them from later using the Supreme Court ruling as a basis to challenge their plea agreement. The high court decision last month said that judges can't act alone to increase prison sentences based on facts that juries never consider or that defendants don't plead to. The ruling applied to state sentencings, and the Justice Department memo repeated the administration's stance that it doesn't apply to federal sentencing guidelines -- while at the same time instituting precautions intended to make sure the ruling won't result in lower sentences in federal cases. [continues 1136 words]
Stepping up the Justice Department's battle with federal judges over sentencing guidelines, Attorney General John Ashcroft has directed government lawyers to report on judges who give out softer sentences and to start appealing those sentences in far higher numbers. The move, circulated in an internal memo last week, was anticipated under a measure known as the Feeney amendment, adopted by Congress in April to strengthen judges' adherence to new, stricter sentencing guidelines. Many judges, including U.S. Chief Justice William Rehnquist, view the new rules as a further attack on their independence. [continues 1178 words]
