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Harsher post-Blakely sentences?

July 12, 2004

There’s reference in the Newsday article linked here to a sentence made harsher following a ruling that the federal guidelines are unconstitutional. Here’s the passage:

Alan Vinegrad, the former Brooklyn U.S. attorney now at Covington & Burling, noted that last week lawyers for a defendant convicted of making false statements asked a Brooklyn federal judge to toss out the sentencing guidelines, which called for 10 to 16 months. The judge agreed, but then imposed a five-year term. “File that under ‘Be careful what you wish for,'” Vinegrad said. “It may well be that Martha Stewart could do worse if the judge did not have the constraints of the guidelines.”

I am very interested, and would like to hear about, the details of this case or any others in which a judge imposed a sentence higher than provided for under the guidelines (absent an upward departure) in this post-Blakely world.