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

Criminal Law

: Sentencing Law and Policy

Third Circuit finds (way) below-guideline crack sentence unreasonable

By Douglas A. Berman

In a lengthy opinion that covers lots of reasonableness review topics, a Third Circuit panel today in US v. Merced, No. 09-1844 (3d Cir. Apr. 20, 2010) (available here), reverses a 60-month sentence given to a crack offender with a long criminal history whose guideline range was 188 to 235 months.  Here is a key concluding paragraph from the main opinion: In summary, we hold that the District Court committed two errors.  First, it may have sentenced Merced pursuant to a personal policy disagreement with the Guidelines; specifically, disagreement with the scope of the career offender provision of U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1.  While granting a variance on such grounds may be permissible, the District Court must, at the very least, explain itself more thoroughly than it has so far...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on April 20, 2010 (boomark / email).