{"id":11898,"date":"2010-10-15T14:10:40","date_gmt":"2010-10-15T19:10:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=11898"},"modified":"2010-10-15T14:10:40","modified_gmt":"2010-10-15T19:10:40","slug":"defense-counsel-and-sentencing-tenth-circuit-indicates-that-lawyers-must-advise-clients-on-relevant-conduct","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2010\/10\/defense-counsel-and-sentencing-tenth-circuit-indicates-that-lawyers-must-advise-clients-on-relevant-conduct\/","title":{"rendered":"Defense Counsel and Sentencing: Tenth Circuit Indicates That Lawyers Must Advise Clients on Relevant Conduct"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a criminal-justice system dominated by plea-bargaining and harsh sentencing laws, the core responsibility of a defense lawyer is no longer to seek acquittals at trial, but to minimize the harm suffered by the client as a result\u00a0of a conviction.\u00a0 Ineffective assistance law should reflect this reality.\u00a0 Padilla v. Kentucky <\/em>and its progeny\u00a0(see this post<\/a>) suggest that there may indeed\u00a0be\u00a0a growing appreciation in the courts that defense counsel must be knowledgeable and provide good advice\u00a0about the crucial things that happen to a defendant post-conviction.\u00a0 Although the courts have long recognized as much in capital cases, it is good to see more attention now being given to the role of defense counsel in the noncapital setting.<\/p>\n

Complementing what is happening in the collateral-consequences cases, the Tenth Circuit recently ruled that a defendant\u2019s right to effective assistance was violated when his lawyer did not warn him of the dangers of\u00a0confessing to uncharged\u00a0criminal conduct during a presentence investigation\u00a0meeting with a probation officer.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

In United States v. Washington<\/em> <\/a>(No. 08-3313), the defendant was convicted of distributing about 62 grams of cocaine base.\u00a0 Between conviction and sentencing, Washington submitted to a routine\u00a0interview with a probation officer as part of the presentence investigation.\u00a0 Washington\u2019s lawyer neither attended the interview in person nor advised Washington that admission of uncharged criminal conduct might aggravate his sentence as \u201crelevant conduct\u201d under the then-mandatory federal sentencing guidelines.\u00a0 Washington ultimately admitted to distributing an additional 2.5 kilograms<\/em> of cocaine base, which helped to boost his sentence to the statutory maximum of forty years per count of conviction.<\/p>\n

In arguing that his right to effective assistance was violated, Washington had a serious problem: Tenth Circuit precedent established that the presentence investigation is not a \u201ccritical stage\u201d in the criminal process that triggers a right to counsel.\u00a0 The precedent seems of questionable wisdom to me, but, in any event,\u00a0the majority concluded it was distinguishable.\u00a0 Although the presentence investigation may not be a critical stage, sentencing itself plainly is.\u00a0 Effective representation at a critical stage implies that appropriate preparations are made to maximize the chances of a\u00a0good outcome at the critical\u00a0stage.\u00a0 Thus, while an attorney need not be physically present during the presentence investigation interview, the attorney at least needs to provide sound advice in advance of the interview regarding the\u00a0potential\u00a0effect of admissions on the sentence.<\/p>\n

Washington <\/em>seems clearly correct to me in its reasoning, but two considerations may limit its applicability to other cases.\u00a0 First, the court emphasized the lawyer\u2019s extraordinary ignorance regarding the whole guidelines system (\u201ccounsel\u2019s failure to understand the basic mechanics of the sentencing guidelines,\u201d as the court put it).\u00a0 So what would happen if counsel understood and related to the defendant the concept of relevant conduct in a general way, but did not provide specific counsel regarding admissions or provided misinformation regarding the weight given to relevant conduct?\u00a0 Second, Washington was sentenced under the old mandatory guidelines system.\u00a0 Now that the guidelines are advisory, it is arguably less important for counsel to provide accurate advice about relevant conduct.\u00a0 Given the continuing requirement that sentencing judges calculate and \u201cconsider\u201d\u00a0a guidelines sentence, as well as the data indicating that the guidelines sentence is still routinely imposed in many districts, I would think effective representation still requires good advice about how the presentence investigation affects the guidelines calculus.\u00a0 It is not clear, however, whether the Washington <\/em>court would agree.<\/p>\n

Cross posted at Life Sentence<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a criminal-justice system dominated by plea-bargaining and harsh sentencing laws, the core responsibility of a defense lawyer is no longer to seek acquittals at trial, but to minimize the harm suffered by the client as a result\u00a0of a conviction.\u00a0 Ineffective assistance law should reflect this reality.\u00a0 Padilla v. Kentucky and its progeny\u00a0(see this post) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,28,74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-criminal-justice","category-criminal-law-process","category-federal-sentencing","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11898\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}