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Guideline Goodness: Part I

By Melody Evans and Kirk Redmond

A new series of guideline amendments are effective as of today. While the downward revisions to the crack guideline will garner the most interest, a small change to the criminal history guidelines should also have a big impact. The commission has amended § 4A1.2 in a way that will eliminate many common offenses from counting as criminal history points. Subsection c of the criminal history guideline used to count a wide variety of garden variety offenses as long as the defendant was sentenced to at least one year of probation or thirty days in jail. Among these offenses are: - driving while suspended - disorderly conduct - hindering a police officer (misdemeanor obstruction) - insufficient funds check - local ordinance violations - resisting arrest - trespassingThese offenses, in our experience, often had a substantial impact on a client?s criminal history score...continue to full post

Full post as published by Kansas Federal Defender on November 01, 2007 (boomark / email).