NY news: I am still waiting for the response from the Federal Judge. The latest US Supreme Court ruling on that Blakely Case has all the inmates here on the edge of our seats.

Actually, it applies in my case but does more harm than good to me.

When we Fed types get sentenced, the judge has a specific formula to follow. The thing they are all complaining about. The Supreme Court ruled that if you are not originally indicted for an offense, the judge cannot give you time for it. The funny point is that if the guidelines did not exist, the judge could still give you whatever time he wanted to, as long as it was less than the statute amount.

In my case, without the guidelines, the judge could have given me anything between zero and ten years, and not had to actually "prove" how he arrived at the amount. That is how my NY Sentence is. The judge did not have to justify the amount of time he was giving me at all, as long as it was less than the maximum. If the eight and a half year part of the ten years of Fed time I was given could now be erased, I would also lose the double punishment argument.

On a last hope basis, if I do lose the current battle, I could file to have the eight and a half years declared illegal, and force the time to be credited to my NY Sentence. That would then open up the "plea" deal which was based on the fact that the NY time was consecutive to the ten year Fed sentence.

The net result is that if Congress throws out the sentencing guidelines, the judges would be free to give any amount of time they want and there would be no constitutional error.

So, can you follow any of that?
  ¶ 10:57 PM