Detailed accounting of US District Judge Aileen Cannon’s (modest) sentencing history
CBS News has this notable new lengthy piece on sentencing decision-making by US District Court Judge Aileen Cannon. The piece is headlined “Federal judge in Trump case has limited track record in criminal cases, hews closely to DOJ sentencing recommendations,” and here are excerpts:
If Trump is convicted, Cannon would be responsible for handing down any sentence. Federal judges typically have wide discretion when imposing sentences, though they often take into account recommendations by prosecutors and defense attorneys.
A CBS News review of a half dozen of Cannon’s recent criminal cases shows she has taken a harder line on criminal defendants and hewed closely to federal prosecutors’ sentencing recommendations in cases involving violence or child exploitation. She has even exceeded those recommendations for some defendants.
In a May 2023 case involving fentanyl trafficking, Cannon handed down a sentence that was more than four years longer than the sentence recommended by federal prosecutors…. In February, Cannon also imposed a stiffer sentence than recommended by prosecutors in the case of Nicholas Sorgenfrey, a Port St. Lucie man who pleaded guilty to possessing child exploitation images…. Cannon sentenced Sorgenfrey to 144 months in prison, exceeding the prosecution’s recommendation of 119 months. In a firearms and narcotics case, Cannon sentenced Lance Reterree, 44, to approximately 11 years in prison, just one year less than the sentence recommended by the Justice Department.
The CBS News review of Cannon’s recent criminal cases also found she showed more leniency in two recent nonviolent white-collar fraud cases.
She handed down a 27-month prison sentence, six months less than 33 months recommended by prosecutors, in the case of Daniel Bouaziz, who pleaded guilty to money laundering in a counterfeit art scheme out of his Palm Beach County art gallery…. In a September 2022 case, Cannon issued a sentence of 32 months in prison for Juan Guillermo Gonzalez, a Miami-area business owner accused of defrauding government agencies. The sentence was nearly 25% shorter than the one recommended by prosecutors, who accused Gonzalez of “obtaining information from U.S. departments and agencies and improperly using it for commercial advantage and private financial gain.”
The cases offer only a limited glimpse into Cannon’s brief tenure and her handling of criminal cases. Catherine Ross, a law professor at George Washington University, said Cannon’s record is too short to be able to detect a pattern that might indicate how she could determine a sentence in the Trump case.
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