From 1987 until 2005, defendants found guilty in U.S. federal court were punished according to the United States Sentencing Guidelines (“USSG”). The USSG manual contained the rules for determining the range within which the judge’s sentence had fall. Factors that went into the determination included the offense for which the defendant was convicted; certain factors about the offense such as how much money was involved in a financial crime, the role of the defendant in the overall scheme, and other factors concerning the defendant’s conduct; and the defendant’s criminal record. The court was required to sentence within the applicable guideline range (expressed in a range of months) unless the case was extremely unusual or qualified for one of the few exceptions allowing the judge to depart from the guidelines. Guideline sentencing was a complicated aspect of federal criminal cases.
However, the United States Supreme Court, in January 2005 declared the mandatory nature of the guidelines unconstitutional. Now, the United States Sentencing Guidelines Manual is merely advisory. In practice, however, most federal judges follow the USSG closely. Federal criminal lawyers can help calculate your USSG range and will often challenge the Government’s sentencing calculations.