U.S. Panel Seeks Same Sentence for Same Crime

New guidelines aimed at assuring greater uniformity in sentences for federal crimes will dramatically change the way offenders are punished, the head of the U.S. Sentencing Commission said Monday.

“Unwarranted disparity has been a problem in our system because it does not allow for certainty in sentencing, and many times fairness is missing,” said Federal Appeals Court Judge William W. Wilkins Jr. of Greenville, S.C.

“Now sentences will be mandatory in nature. Similar defendants who commit similar crimes will be sentenced in a similar fashion, regardless of the judge or what area of the country it is.”

Under a law scheduled to go into effect next year, parole has been abolished through a determinate-sentencing system in which federal trial judges will impose the sentence the offender is to serve, with only limited consideration for good behavior.

Judges will be required to consider a long list of factors about the offense and the offender and to impose a sentence within narrow limits that permit only a 25% variance between the minimum and maximum that can be served.

Congressional Action

The former indeterminate system gave judges wide discretion in sentencing and, along with such factors as parole and time credited for good behavior, resulted in significant disparities in the time actually served by offenders for similar crimes.

The seven-member sentencing commission, made up of federal judges and other legal authorities, was established by Congress in 1984 to draft a complex system of guidelines for implementing the new law.

The guidelines will apply only to the federal court system. Several states, including California, also have moved to implement determinate-sentencing systems in recent years.

The commission is to hold hearings here today and has scheduled testimony from many witnesses, including federal judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys and representatives of victim’s groups.

The guidelines are to be presented to Congress next April and, unless they are overturned, will go into effect along with the new law six months later.

Wilkins, in a meeting with reporters, said the present system lacks elements of certainty vital to the criminal justice system. A convicted armed robber might draw a sentence of 10 years in one case, and in another case a robber might receive probation, he noted.

Proposed Guidelines

The commission already has issued a detailed 170-page preliminary report setting forth a proposed list of guidelines for determining sentences for all federal crimes and telling judges how to weigh the surrounding factors in the offenses.

In a drug case, for instance, a judge may be called upon to consider the amount of contraband the offender was caught with, whether minors were involved in the offense, whether he had prior convictions, whether he cooperated later with authorities and whether he used illegal drugs. The judge would weigh those and other factors and then come up with a permissible sentence.

A judge could go outside the guidelines in unusual cases, but such sentences would be subject to appeal.

Wilkins said that in earlier hearings in other cities, some federal judges opposed the guidelines. “Any time you have a change, you’re going to have opposition--and here we have a system that has given virtually unlimited discretion to judges for 200 years,” he said.

Several major issues remain to be resolved by the commission, Wilkins said, including:

- How to allow plea bargaining to continue without permitting it to be used to circumvent the sentencing guidelines.

- How much consideration to give an offender who cooperates with authorities.

- How to distinguish among several people convicted of the same offense who played substantially different roles in the crime--such as in a drug conspiracy.

Wilkins said it is possible that the commission may decide to target certain crimes with strict sentencing guidelines that would prove strong deterrents.

He noted that only 14% of those convicted of price-fixing, fraud and other white-collar crimes receive prison sentences and that the average time served is less than four months.

“We may want to change that,” he said. “This is one area where we believe we can deter crime.”