Sentencing Guidelines Forum

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JakeTappers

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Sentencing Guidelines

Post by JakeTappers » Sat May 27, 2017 2:35 pm

I'm clerking now and hoping to become an AUSA with limited trial experience. Trying to familiarize myself with the sentencing guidelines as a small selling point when asked "why you" v. A state prosecutor with trial experience.

I have a copy and have been reading but what's the best way to crack this thing in terms of practicality. It's huge and I can follow along with the guidelines in sentencings but to have a more general understanding I'm not sure how to go about it with the extreme volume and lengthy commentary on each and every point.

Jchance

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Re: Sentencing Guidelines

Post by Jchance » Sat May 27, 2017 3:29 pm

Why don't you ask your judge for guidance? I'm sure s/he is well versed in the guidelines.

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A. Nony Mouse

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Re: Sentencing Guidelines

Post by A. Nony Mouse » Sat May 27, 2017 3:40 pm

If you go to the commission website I'm pretty sure there's a primer there for applying the guidelines. Beyond that, identifying which guidelines apply to particularly common kinds of cases might be a way to narrow this down. Do you do much with the sentencing in your court? (I only did for really contested ones.) Having a specific defendant's criminal history and offense to work through is really the best way to see how they work in practice, so yeah, talk to your judge - maybe ask to see the PSRs for upcoming sentencings and work through the calculations?

RaceJudicata

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Re: Sentencing Guidelines

Post by RaceJudicata » Sat May 27, 2017 4:16 pm

Try and get ahold of the materials that probation uses to train new probation officers on writing sentencing reports. I took a class w/ a federal judge and one of our assignments was to prepare a sentencing memo + present it. We used those materials as the fact pattern. I doubt they are publicly available anywhere, but I'm sure your judge can help you get ahold of them.

ETA:

http://www.ussc.gov/education/training- ... ing-basics

http://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files ... ksheet.pdf

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