Under our Constitution, the jury trial is supposed to be the cornerstone of criminal adjudication. The independence of citizen jurors has always been understood to be an indispensable structural check on executive, legislative, and even judicial power. And that independence has always entailed a special solicitude for jury acquittals, which are intended to have unassailable finality. Yet prosecutors and judges routinely do end‐runs around this intended finality — and thus, around the jury trial itself — through the pernicious practice of “acquitted conduct sentencing.”
“Acquitted conduct sentencing” refers to the scenario in which a judge sentences a defendant not just upon the charge for which they were convicted, but also based upon alleged conduct underlying charges for which they were acquitted. For example, in Jones v. United States, the defendants were charged with both (1) distributing small amounts of crack cocaine, and (2) a conspiracy to distribute large amounts of crack cocaine. The jury convicted on the distribution charge, but acquitted on the conspiracy charge. Common sense and basic constitutional principles would seem to dictate that the defendants be sentenced only on the basis of their distribution.
But bizarrely, the judge in that case effectively disagreed with the jury’s verdict, concluded that the defendants did engage in the charged conspiracy, and sentenced them far more harshly than would otherwise have been warranted. While the Guidelines sentencing range for the distribution charge would have “only” been 27–71 months (still a wildly excessive punishment, but beside the point here), the three defendants in Jones were ultimately sentenced to 180, 194, and 225 months — in essence, punishing them about four times more harshly solely because of alleged conduct for which they were acquitted.
Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/addressing-gross-injustice-acquitted-conduct-sentencing
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