{"id":143,"date":"2008-09-01T15:06:14","date_gmt":"2008-09-01T20:06:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=143"},"modified":"2008-09-01T15:06:14","modified_gmt":"2008-09-01T20:06:14","slug":"a-galling-case-in-the-seventh-circuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2008\/09\/a-galling-case-in-the-seventh-circuit\/","title":{"rendered":"A Galling Case in the Seventh Circuit"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Seventh Circuit has an interesting new sentencing decision, <\/em>United States v. Carter<\/em><\/a>, which nicely illustrates the impact of the Supreme Court’s decision last year in Gall v. United States<\/em>.\u00a0 Robert Carter, the husband of\u00a0defendant Virginia Carter,\u00a0embezzled money from his insurance business over several years.\u00a0 There is no indication that Virgina Carter participated in the embezzlement, but she likely had some knowledge of what was going on.\u00a0 Eventually, for reasons that are unclear,\u00a0she sought\u00a0a divorce.\u00a0 Following the advice of her lawyer, who did not know\u00a0that much of the family income was illegal, Carter attempted to take control of the couple’s liquid assets by transferring them into her own individual bank accounts.\u00a0 Normally, this would be a sound tactical\u00a0move in a divorce setting, but, by virtue of the criminal origin of the assets, Carter thereby became a money launderer.\u00a0 Following conviction, she faced a recommended sentence of 87-108 months in prison\u00a0under the federal sentencing guidelines.<\/p>\n

Notwithstanding the guidelines range, the sentencing judge imposed a sentence of 24 months, based primarily on Carter’s age (61) and the fact that her money laundering was not as serious as the types of offenses contempated by the money-laundering provisions of the guidelines.\u00a0 Prior to Gall<\/em>, an apppellate court\u00a0might have demanded a strong showing that a case was highly unusual before permitting such a large variance from the guidelines (about a 70 percent discount).\u00a0 And, indeed, appealing Carter’s sentence, the government had a good case that Carter’s age was not so unusual (the median age of money launderers is 40, and about 20 percent are over 50).\u00a0 But Gall <\/em>rejected formulations of the appellate standard of review that require a showing of extraordinary artypicality to justify large deviations from the guidelines, emphasizing instead a need for appellate courts to defer to the deeper knowledge and broader experience of district court judges.\u00a0 Following Gall<\/em>‘s lead, Carter <\/em>affirmed, with the Seventh Circuit giving short shrift to the government’s argument that the defendant’s age did not materially distinguish her from the\u00a0typical money launderer.\u00a0 In so doing, the court effectively highlighted the post-Gall <\/em>reality that even usual defendants can get unusual sentences.<\/p>\n

Those who practice criminal law in the federal courts will find much to interest them in Carter <\/em>(for instance, the discussion of the use of comparative statistics in litigating\u00a0sentences)\u00a0but what strikes me most deeply about the case is the way it illustrates the crazy disproportionality of the federal criminal justice system.\u00a0 We live in a odd world when two years in prison\u00a0is regarded as an extraordinary act of mercy for a first-time, nonviolent\u00a0offender whose crime was largely technical in nature.\u00a0 It is odder still to realize that the sentencing guidelines called for more than seven years in this case–especially considering that the average sentence for violent\u00a0<\/em>felonies in this country\u00a0is only about six years (which also happens to be about what Mr. Carter–the real crook in the story–received).\u00a0 Why the Department of Justice felt it would be a good use of taxpayer resources to appeal Carter’s sentence (and, if successful,\u00a0to imprison her for seven years) is a mystery–this seems to me a case of carrying an attractive abstract principle (sentences should be imposed in a uniform, objective manner) to absurd lengths.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Seventh Circuit has an interesting new sentencing decision, United States v. Carter, which nicely illustrates the impact of the Supreme Court’s decision last year in Gall v. United States.\u00a0 Robert Carter, the husband of\u00a0defendant Virginia Carter,\u00a0embezzled money from his insurance business over several years.\u00a0 There is no indication that Virgina Carter participated in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","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":[30,28,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-criminal-justice","category-criminal-law-process","category-seventh-circuit","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143","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=143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}