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Second Circuit finds procedural problems with re-sentencing after 15-year delay

By Douglas A. Berman

They say bad facts make bad law, but today's ruling from the Second Circuit in US v. Hernandez, No. (2d Cir. May 5, 2010) (available here), strikes me as an example of ugly facts resulting in a very sound sentencing ruling. Here is how the panel opinion starts in Hernandez: Defendant-appellant Hector Hernandez appeals from a judgment entered in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (Platt, J.) in 2009, which re-mposed a 405-month sentence of incarceration after remand from this Court back in 1993. The record indicates that the district court evidently started with an assumption -- invalid after so long an interval--that the baseline for the re-sentencing was the sentence imposed in 1991, and thereby failed to properly consider the factors set out in 18 U...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on May 06, 2010 (boomark / email).