Sentencing Guidelines – Basic Overview
A person charged with a felony is going to hear their attorney
talk about “sentencing guidelines” and because this often creates a lot of fear
and confusion, I thought it would be helpful to offer a brief overview on what
exactly sentencing guidelines are and how sentencing works in Michigan.
The first thing to understand is that the number your attorney
(or judge, prosecutor, or probation officer) uses when describing sentencing
guidelines refers to the range of months that judge must sentence you to for
the minimum portion of your sentence.
The maximum is set by the statute and your attorney doesn’t have much say at
all what happens on the back end of a sentence. A defendant is at the mercy of
the Department of Corrections and the parole board. However, most inmates are
paroled as soon they are eligible to it is important to work hard to get the
minimum number (the sentencing guidelines range) down to the lowest amount
possible.
For example, if a particular person’s sentencing guidelines
are 51-80 months and the person is convicted of a 15 year felony, the maximum
sentence is 15 years and the minimum part will be between 51-80 months. The
judge has the discretion to sentence the defendant to some term between 51-80
months before the defendant is eligible for parole. So the final sentence may
be 60 months to 180 months or 5-15 years.
People often get confused when they hear their attorney say
the guidelines are 10-23 months on a ten year felony and think that the person
will be out in 23 months at the latest. That is NOT the case. The 23 months is
the maximum for the minimum portion of the sentence. The judge could set the
minimum as low as 10 months or as high as 23 but it will be a set number within
that range.
Some crimes have mandatory minimum terms and some require
life in prison. There is another tricky category that sets the penalty at “life
of any term of years.” In those cases, the judge can set the maximum wherever she
feels fit; often a chilling proposition. In many cases, however, there is a
plea agreement to a lesser charge that removes this possibility. I have also
had clients that are convicted of a crime that has “life or any term of years”
get a maximum sentence of only 5 years, so it isn’t necessarily a “death
sentence.”
In a future blog, I will discuss the factors that go into
determining a person’s sentencing guideline range.
Ryan Maesen
Criminal Lawyer
Grand Rapids, MI
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