The latest chapter in the amazing sentencing story of Patrick Lett
Regular readers may recall the amazing sentencing story of my client Patrick Lett. This local press account reports on the latest amazing news in his amazing case:
Patrick Lett walked out of a federal courtroom in Mobile Friday as a free man. Considering the twists and turns that his case has taken over the last 3.5 years, that was no small event.
The Army veteran from Pascagoula watched in April 2006 as U.S. District Judge William Steele handed down a five-year prison sentence. Within days of the hearing, Steele entered a judgment amending the sentence to the 11 days Lett had spent in jail, trying to correct what the judge, himself, now calls a mistake.
But the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Mobile appealed, and the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Steele could not change his mind. That sent the case back to Mobile, where it appeared all but certain that Lett would be sentenced to prison for five years.
But Steele on Friday agreed with the defense that a decision by the U.S. Sentencing Commission to change advisory guidelines for certain crack cocaine offenders gave him newfound discretion to reduce the five-year prison term. Steele sentenced Lett to time served — the sentence that the judge felt that Lett deserved all along….
Steven Butler, the chief of the appellate division for the prosecutors’ office in Mobile, objected that the short sentence was “procedurally and substantively unreasonable” and argued that the judge exceeded his authority. Prosecutors could take the case back to the appeals court, although Butler on Friday gave no indication of his next move.
Lett, 40, is a veteran of both the first Gulf War and the current Iraq war. He left the Army in 2004 when he began selling crack cocaine in Monroe County for his cousin, Michael Lett. After about five weeks that fall, Patrick Lett quit peddling drugs and rejoined the Army. He was back in uniform by the time a federal grand jury indicted him.
Steele said he was impressed by Lett’s military service, the testimony of his fellow soldiers and his reform, which was unprompted by an encounter with the criminal justice system. The judge said he sees many a defendant who tells him he has repented and changed his ways. “But the difference between them and Mr. Lett is that all of them repented after they had been caught,” he said.
Though I have been proud to have a chance to represent Patrick Lett in various appellate proceedigns, both Patrick and I were especially lucky to have the pro bono help of former Ohio State Solicitor Douglas Cole (who is now at Jones Day). Doug Cole deserves more credit than me for helping to secure this outcome for Patrick.
Some related posts on the Lett case: