What facts should matter (and not matter) most at federal sentencing after Hunter Biden is convicted by jury on three felony counts?
These are heady times for historic sentencing proceedings. As New York state actors are working through the process of preparing for former President Donad Trump’s state sentencing after his conviction last month on 34 state felony counts following a lengthy trial, we know now that federal actors need to start working through the process of preparing for current President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, to be federally sentenced after his conviction today on three federal felony counts following a short trial. Here are the basics via the New York Times‘ latest live update:
A jury in Wilmington, Del., on Tuesday found Hunter Biden, President Biden’s long-troubled son, guilty of three felony counts of lying on a federal firearms application in 2018, a grievous personal blow to the Biden family as his father enters the final months of a brutal re-election campaign. He could face up to 25 years in prison, but first-time offenders who did not use their weapons to commit a violent crime typically receive no jail time….
Here’s what else to know:
A sentencing date was not set: The judge in the case, Maryellen Noreika, did not set a date for sentencing, but said it would typically be about 120 days after the verdict — that’s early October, or about a month before the election. Although the maximum possible sentence Mr. Biden faces is more than two decades behind bars and $750,000 in fines, federal sentencing guidelines call for a fraction of that penalty.
No pardons are coming: President Biden has said he will not pardon his son. The president kept his distance from the trial and was out of office on Oct. 12, 2018, when Hunter Biden asserted he was drug-free on a background check at a time when he was addicted to crack cocaine.
His legal troubles are not over: The Delaware case, brought by the special counsel David C. Weiss, is widely regarded as the least serious of the two federal indictments against Hunter Biden brought last year. He still faces serious tax charges in Los Angeles stemming from his failure to pay the government during a yearslong crack, alcohol and spending binge; the trial is scheduled to start in September.
I have not yet sought to work through the likely (advisory) guideline calculations for Hunter Biden, but I have already seen reports that the estimated guideline range would be for over a year of federal prison time. Even after the Supreme Court made the guidelines advisory, federal judges are duty bound to still consider them at sentencing along with the other sentencing factors detailed by Congress in 18 USC § 3553(a).
But, of course, many of the instructions in 3553(a) are quite vague — eg, judges must consider the “nature and circumstances of the offense and the history and characteristics of the defendant.” That vague phrase and others in federal sentencing law prompt the question in the title of this post. Should Judge Noreika give particular weight to, or make a focused effort to limit her consideration of, Hunter Biden’s struggles with addiction at the time of his offenses? His indictments on various other alleged crimes and other alleged misbehaviors? The wide range of unique consequences associated with being the son of a president?