Federal Sentencing

• Author: Matthew G. Kaiser
• Pages: 105-192

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Federal

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Federal

Sentencing

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Sentencing

I. Why Do We Send People to Prison?

§4:01 The Fourth Circuit Reverses a Life Sentence Based

on a Death From a Bank Robbery Gone Bad

§4:02 The Fair Sentencing Act: The Battle Between

Following the Rules and Fairness Plays Out in the

Third Circuit

§4:03 Two Ways to Think About Punishment

§4:04 Judge Posner Teaches District Court Judges How

to Avoid the Supreme Court’s Holding in Tapia

§4:05 Change the Seventh Circuit, If Not the

Department of Justice, Can Believe in

§4:06 The Eighth Circuit Reverses a Sentence, and

Shows Why Relying on Criminal Conduct at

Sentencing Without a Conviction Is Troublesome

§4:07 If You’re Going to Throw the Book at Someone,

Throw It as Hard as It Was Thrown at the Last Guy

II. The Federal Sentencing Guidelines

§4:10 Retroactivity in the Federal Sentencing

Guidelines and the Parol Evidence Rule

§4:11 The Sixth Circuit Sends an Escape Case Back for

Resentencing

§4:12 The Eighth Circuit Holds That a Check Is Not a

Machine or a Device

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Criminal Defense Victories in the Federal Circuits

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§4:13 The Ninth Circuit on When the Guidelines Fail Us

§4:14 Important White-Collar Crime Decision by the

Federal District Court in D.C.

III. The Measure of Things

§4:15 Immigration Fraud and the Sentencing

Guidelines Numbers Game

§4:16 Arrests Are Not Convictions: A Sentencing

Judge Is Reversed for an Excess of Candor

§4:17 Judge Posner on Narcotics Wholesalers and

Drug Quantity

§4:18 The Tenth Circuit on Credit Cards, Loss, and the

Sentencing Guidelines

IV. Things to Think About When Imposing Sentence

§4:20 The Seventh Circuit Puts Fast Track Disparity

Arguments on a Slow Track, But Doesn’t Derail

Them Entirely

§4:21 The D.C. Circuit Remands for Resentencing

Because [Redacted]

V. “Crimes of Violence”: How Legalism Defeats Justice

§4:22 The Fourth Circuit Sends a Case Back; or, Why

You Can’t Trust a Probable Cause Affidavit

§4:23 An

En Banc

Fourth Circuit Remands on an

Armed Career Criminal Act Case

§4:24 The Sixth Circuit on Alford Pleas and the Armed

Career Criminal Act

§4:25 Running From a Courtroom and the Armed

Career Criminal Act

§4:26 How the Eighth Circuit Saved Christmas

§4:27 The Ninth Circuit Makes It Easier for Crimes to Be

Violent (Nominally, at Least)

§4:28 The Tenth Circuit Gives Some Criminal History

Relief in a Gun Case

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Federal Sentencing

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VI. Drug Crimes

§4:30 Proving the Measure of Things at Sentencing—

the Fourth Circuit Remands for More

Explanation

§4:31 Prior Criminal Offenses and Hypothetical Bad

Men: The Fourth Circuit Comes Back to Real

People

§4:32 Safety Valve, Government Power, and

Marijuana in the Woods of Arkansas

§4:33 A Man’s Cleverness Reduces His Sentence by 14

Years: The Ninth Circuit, Apprendi, and Pleading

Open

§4:34 The Ninth Circuit on Mandatory Minimums,

Safety Valve, and Time Travel

VII. Other Crimes

§4:35 The Third Circuit Shows How the Sentencing

Guidelines for Fraud Are Complicated; Victims

and Losses Bamboozle the Government and

District Court

§4:36 When Counting Bribes for Sentencing Guidelines

Purposes, You Only Count the Ones That

Actually Happened

§4:37 The Second Circuit on Fraud, the Federal

Sentencing Guidelines, and Mass-Marketing

§4:38 The Third Circuit Says It Is Hard to Abuse the Trust

of Someone Who Doesn’t Trust You, Especially If

That Someone Is the IRS

§4:39 Why It Is Probably Better to Pick Up the Phone of

Someone You’ve Shot Than to Take Their Phone

at Gunpoint and Then Shoot Them

§4:40 A District Judge Can’t Sanction a Lawyer for

Filing A Motion Even If He Really Hates the

Lawyer’s Client; Also, a 60-Year Sentence

Requires a Lot of Explanation