Considering juvenile relevant conduct

Steve Minor of SW Virginia law blog fame was kind enough to send me word of US v. Whittington, No. 5:04CR00025 (W.D. Va Oct. 26, 2005) (available here), a very interesting district court ruling by US District Judge Glen E. Conrad.  In Whittington, the “defendant contests the inclusion in the presentence investigation report of conduct which predated his eighteenth birthday for consideration as relevant conduct at sentencing.”  Here are snippets of Judge Conrad’s ruling in Whittington:

[A] defendant who may not be properly chargeable with certain conduct because of his youth at the time the conduct occurred, may nonetheless retain sentencing exposure for that conduct….  Although a court has no power to hold a defendant criminally liable for acts committed prior to his attaining majority, it may hold him accountable for those acts during the sentencing process….  In the case of a conspiracy such as the one at issue, the Sentencing Guidelines make it incumbent upon the court to consider all of the reasonably foreseeable conduct of others in furtherance of the conspiracy when sentencing the defendant.