NCJ Number
111749
Date Published
1988
Length
18 pages
Annotation
To prevent the Federal sentencing guidelines from shifting sentencing discretion from judges to prosecutors in the context of plea bargaining, judges must make full use of their sentencing discretion under the guidelines and exercise the judicial power the guidelines provide to control plea bargaining.
Abstract
Under the Sentencing Reform Act, judicial discretion is preserved in the statement that 'the court shall impose a sentence sufficient, but not greater than necessary, to comply with the purposes (of punishment) set forth in paragraph (2) of this section.' Under this provision, imposing the least restrictive sentence required to accomplish the specified purposes of punishment is as much a statutory obligation of judges as the obligation to use the guidelines. Under the statute, sentencing remains the trial judge's responsibility. In an effort to control prosecutorial discretion in determining judicial sentencing options through plea bargaining, the guidelines impact four types of plea bargaining: 'implicit' bargaining (sentencing defendants who plead guilty less severely than those convicted at trial), 'sentence' bargaining (a sentence recommendation reached through plea bargaining), 'fact' bargaining (prosecutorial stipulation to facts that fit the sentence sought), and 'charge' bargaining (negotiating a charge to which the defendant will plead guilty to obtain a lesser sentence). The guidelines permit judges to control prosecutorial discretion in plea bargaining to a great extent to ensure that the punishment received fits the crime committed. Judges must use every means possible under the guidelines to retain judicial sentencing discretion. 60 footnotes.