Friday, June 22, 2007

SCOTUS holds that courts may presume sentence imposed with the Guidelines is reasonable

In Rita v. United States, SCOTUS held that when the federal courts of appeals review federal sentences for reasonableness, the courts may presume that a sentence imposed within a properly calculated United States Sentencing Guidelines range is a reasonable sentence.

the presumption reflects the fact that, by the time an appeals court is considering a within-Guidelines sentence on review, both the sentencing judge and the Sentencing Commission will have reached the same conclusion as to the proper sentence in the particular case. That double determination significantly increases the likelihood that the sentence is a reasonable one.

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