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New sentencing opinion assails guideline conception of "similarly situated"

By Douglas A. Berman

District Judge Nancy Gertner is in fine form with a new opinion in US v. Garrison, No. 07cr10142 (D. Mass. May 20, 2008) (available for download below).   Though covering lots of important post-Booker ground, Judge Gertner takes particular aim at the sentencing guidelines concept of "similarly situated" as highlighted by this passage:The Guidelines define "similarly situated" only with reference to the particular guideline categories.  If a defendant had an offense level of 14 and a criminal history of I, the Guidelines assumed that you were similarly situated to other 14s and Is.  But in this case -- and perhaps many others -- that is a false assumption. Similarly situated with respect to the Guideline categories does not necessarily mean similarly situated with respect to the defendant's actual role in the criminal endeavor or his real culpability...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on May 21, 2008 (boomark / email).