Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Criminal Law Blogs -> Sentencing Law and Policy

Criminal Law

: Sentencing Law and Policy

Eleventh Circuit rejects arguments for a right to counsel at crack sentence modification proceedings

By Douglas A. Berman

Addressing an interesting right to counsel issue, the Eleventh Circuit today in US v. Webb, No. 08-13405 (11th Cir. April 13, 2009) (available here), concludes that "there is no statutory or constitutional right to counsel for a § 3582(c)(2) motion or hearing [and thus] the decision to appoint an attorney is left to the discretion of the district court."  I believe that this Webb ruling is the first circuit decision on this right to counsel issue in the application of the US Sentencing Commission's recent reduction of crack guideline sentences, but the Eleventh Circuit says that other circuit have come to the same conclusion in earlier decisions: The notion of a statutory or constitutional right to counsel for § 3582(c)(2) motions has been rejected by all of our sister circuits that have addressed the issue, and we agree with this consensus...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on April 13, 2009 (boomark / email).