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Supreme Court's Sentencing Guidelines Decision

BY Larry D. Soderquist
January 26, 2005

On Jan. 12, the Supreme Court, in United States v. Booker, found portions of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines unconstitutional. For the last few years, corporate officers and directors have been forced to take a personal interest in criminal justice and in the Sentencing Guidelines. This has been especially true after the United States Sentencing Commission raised the guideline's penalties for white-collar crime in response to the Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002.

Before the Guidelines

Before the Guidelines, the issue of sentencing was simple. After a defendant was convicted, the judge would review a sentencing report that contained facts to consider in sentencing. The judge would also have personal knowledge about the defendant, some learned at trial and some during a sentencing hearing. The judge would then impose what he or she considered a just sentence. For white-collar crime, this could be as high as the statutory maximum, which might be several decades in prison when multiple counts of the same crime were involved. Or it could be as low as probation or a suspended sentence.

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