WLF Advises U.S. Sentencing Commission to Adopt “Predictable, Proportionate, and Uniform” Sentencing Guidelines

“Free markets flourish when the rule of law yields a predictable, proportionate, and uniform sentencing regime. Wrongdoers should be punished fairly—not arbitrarily.”
—Zac Morgan, WLF Senior Litigation Counsel

Click here to read WLF’s brief.

(Washington, DC)—Washington Legal Foundation (WLF) today urged the U.S. Sentencing Commission to adopt amendments to that agency’s Sentencing Guidelines that promote a predictable, proportionate, and uniform regime for calculating sentences for federal offenders.

Federal law requires federal judges to use the Commission’s Sentencing Guidelines in calculating an offender’s prison time. Judges take a point value derived from the crimes a defendant is convicted for, adopt enhancements or reductions based on how the Guidelines treat mitigating or aggravating factors, and arrive at a recommended sentencing range. While the Guidelines are discretionary—a judge may deviate from proposed range—the Commission’s recommendations still set the general pace of sentencing in federal cases.

WLF counseled the Commission to adopt proposed amendments that would index the dollar figure of economic loss for a crime to inflation—so that inflation alone doesn’t bump an offender into an elevated and disproportionate sentence. The comments also support simplifications to the calculation tables and changes that incentivize self-motivated rehabilitation. WLF cautioned against proposals aimed at advanced technology or smuggling in potentially unproven additional offenses as “non-economic harms” meriting a sentencing enhancement.