Hello, my name is Chris Morales. I’m a criminal defense attorney in San Francisco, California. I’m a board certified specialist in criminal law. Today we are going to be talking about the federal sentencing guidelines. So, in every federal criminal case if a person is convicted the judge has to decide how much punishment or how much time they are going to do in custody. So, there are two parts to every federal sentencing guideline advisory number. That is a number is associated with the actual crime and a number associated with the person’s
criminal history if they have any. The higher the number the more time in Federal prison. Let’s take an example, how about counterfeiting let’s say somebody is convicted of counterfeiting, which is making false money. So, the base number for a counterfeiting conviction is nine so that’s where we start off. So, numbers are added to that depending on the circumstances. If the amount of counterfeit money found on the person is between two and five thousand dollars then another point is added to the nine making it ten.
If the person actually produced the counterfeit money two points are added making it twelve and when the person is arrested. If there is a gun involved in any way shape or form another two points are added. So, now we are at fourteen points, but there are ways to make those numbers down. Early admission to guilt is really important so, if a defendant early on realizes that they are guilty and they are fruitless to not go to trial and they plead guilty then they can get credited for early admission to guilt and they get a reduction of three
points for that. It has to happen before the U.S. attorney files any motions or has to do any work on the case. So you get a three point reduction. So, now we are at fourteen minus three we are at eleven let’s take a look at what that – how many months in federal prison that would be. It looks like that is – would be between eight and fourteen months in federal prison, but let’s say for example the person, the defendant has a prior criminal record and within fifteen years they have gone to prison twice for over a year there is three points added for each
of those so six points for criminal history. So, that adds months to the actual prison sentence. So, they are in category three and now the prison term has been bumped up to twelve to eighteen months. So, that’s how federal sentencing guidelines work. These are recommendations to the federal judge, so your attorney – your criminal defense attorney can argue to the judge to go lower than those, but that’s pretty much where the judge starts. If you have any questions about the federal sentencing guidelines, please call me at 415-552-1215
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Understanding the Federal Sentencing Guidelines:
Criminal Defense Attorney – Christopher Morales
Practice Area: The San Francisco Bay Area, California
Call us today for a free consultation (415) 552-1215 (Se Habla Español)
Website: www.sfcriminallawspecialist.com
