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Practitioner?s Notes: Don?t Get Trapped by a Sentencing ?Floor? ? the Importance of the Order in which Co-Defendants Are Sentenced

By Douglas A. Berman

In a multi-defendant case, there?s one factor that is not discussed by the guidelines but, in practice, has the potential to have a dramatic effect on your client?s sentence:  the order in which the co-defendants are sentenced.  How so?  Intra-case proportionality is, like gravity, an unseen force that will have an important impact on where your client comes to rest.  Most judges employ their own personal rough sense of justice ? consciously or not.  As important as downward departures and § 3553 are, there is one almost immutable reality:  the ringleader is not going to get less time than the mid-level supervisor, who is not going to get less time than the mope.  (The one arguable exception is where criminal history categories are materially different...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on August 04, 2008 (boomark / email).