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Sentencing Commission Report on Booker

Sentencing Commission report on Booker decision finds not much has changed
 3/17/06
 
The U.S. Sentencing Commission published a report (click here to download the report) in March 2006 indicating that not much has changed in the federal sentencing system since Booker, the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling 14 months ago that made the nearly 20-year-old mandatory guideline system into an advisory guideline system, thereby giving judges more freedom to decide for themselves what a fair sentence is. The Sentencing Commission's report found that federal defendants are getting slightly longer prison sentences since the Booker decision, and that judges are by and large following the sentencing guidelines, as they did before the Supreme Court's decision in January 2005. In fact, the Booker report found that in nearly nine of the cases cited, the judge sentenced defendants within the guideline range, or sentenced them below the range because the prosecutor asked the court to do so, or gave them a sentence harsher than the guideline sentence.
 
Quick facts from the report:

  • About 67,000 people were sentenced over the past year to an average 58 months in prison, compared with 57 months from the previous year. Sentences increased in length since Booker.
  • Before Booker, judges sentenced inside the guideline range a little over 90 percent of the time. Since Booker, judges have been sentencing within the guideline range 85.9 percent of the time. This represents a mere 5 percent increase in below guideline sentences since Booker.
  • Since Booker, the government sponsored downward departures in twice as many cases as defense sponsored departures. The government sponsored departures in 23.7 percent of all cases in the year following Booker, an increase over past years. This past year, judges sentenced below the guideline range in only 12.5 percent of cases.
  • If the government disagrees with the judge about a below guideline sentence, they can appeal and occasionally they do. The courts have reversed 15 below guideline sentences and affirmed only six.