Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Criminal Law Blogs -> Fourth Circuit Blog

Criminal Law

: Fourth Circuit Blog

No 3582 Reduction in Statutory Departure Cases

By Jonathan Byrne

US v. Hood: This is another case dealing with issues arising from the retroactive application of the amended crack Guidelines. In this case, actually two consolidated cases, the defendants were subject to mandatory minimum sentences of at least 240 months in prison, but received significantly shorter sentences (100 and 108 months) after providing substantial assistance. Each applied for a further reduction under the amended Guidelines. The district courts denied the motions, each holding that the sentences were not "based on" the changed Guideline ranges, but on the mandatory minimum sentence, which was greater than the Guideline ranges.On appeal, the Fourth Circuit agreed. Even though the district courts referred to Guideline calculations when initially imposing sentence (as part of determining the extent of the departures), the sentences were still "based on" the mandatory minimum, as it became the Guideline approved sentence when the Guideline range was less than the statutory minimum...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Circuit Blog on February 23, 2009 (boomark / email).