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Defendants Receive A (Short-Lived?) Benefit From A "Judicial Gaffe"

By Douglas A. Berman

After Francis Lawrence and his co-defendants successfully filed motions to reduce their sentences under the retroactive sentencing guideline reductions for crack cocaine offenses, the district court?apparently inadvertently?included language in the sentencing orders that converted each sentence into ?time served.?  Within a few weeks after realizing its error, the court modified the orders to correct the language.  The defendants appealed, challenging the court?s authority to substantively modify their sentences outside of the seven-day window permitted by Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 35. A Seventh Circuit panel now vacates the amended sentence, ruling that because the error was not ?clerical? under Rule 36 (which would otherwise allow unlimited time to correct clerical errors), the Judge could not amend the order past the deadline...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on July 28, 2008 (boomark / email).