Bush Administration: Restore The Binding Nature of Sentencing Guidelines
As announced by Alberto Gonzales on June 1, 2007:
Restore Binding Nature of Sentencing Guidelines:For every federal crime, the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines provide a range of punishments in which a criminal convict’s sentence should fall. In U.S. v. Booker, the Supreme Court held that the Sentencing Guidelines are advisory, freeing federal courts to go below the guidelines range when they deem it reasonable to do so in specific cases. The proposed Sentencing Reform Act will:
Restore the binding nature of the guidelines by making the bottom of the guideline range for each offense a minimum sentence that must be imposed when the elements of the offense are proven; and
Provide rights of appeal to both the United States and the defendant to challenge the sentencing determinations made by the district court.
Except, of course, in the case of Special Assistants to the President and Chief of Staffs for the Vice President whose silence on the wrongdoings of the Vice President must be maintained.
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