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Seventh Circuit finds inadequate district court's sparse justification for way below-guideline sentence

By Douglas A. Berman

The Seventh Circuit in US v. Brown, No. 09-1028 (7th Cir. June 22, 2010) (available here), provides district judges with yet another important reminder that they need to explain fully the bases for their sentencing judgments. Here is how the opinion in Brown gets started: When Rodney Brown pleaded guilty to distributing more than five grams of crack cocaine, it looked as if he was about to go to prison for a long time.  Brown had a prior drug conviction, and so he faced a mandatory minimum sentence of 120 months? imprisonment.  To make matters worse, his two previous convictions for aggravated assault qualified him as a career offender for purposes of § 4B1.1 of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, and this bumped up his recommended guidelines sentence to 262-327 months? imprisonment...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on June 22, 2010 (boomark / email).