In the American justice system, those accused of criminal conduct are presumed innocent until proved guilty and convicted by a jury of their peers. Yet many people might be surprised to learn that some federal defendants are punished for charges that they were actually acquitted of.
It’s past time to implement guidelines that eliminate the pernicious and unjust practice of so-called “acquitted conduct sentencing.”
Last month, the U.S. Sentencing Commission — an independent agency that sets sentencing guidelines for the federal judiciary — published proposed amendments that would restrict the ability of judges to take into account conduct for which defendants have been found not guilty when imposing punishment.
“At the sentencing phase of a trial,” C.J. Ciaramella of Reason magazine explains, “federal judges can enhance defendants’ sentences for conduct they were acquitted of if the judge decides it’s more likely than not — a lower standard of evidence than ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ — that the defendant committed those offenses.”
Consider the case of Dayonta McClinton, who was 17 when he robbed a CVS Pharmacy in Indiana at gunpoint to steal drugs. The government alleged that he also shot and killed one of his co-conspirators, though a jury ultimately acquitted him of that charge.
Despite the acquittal, the judge overseeing the case agreed with federal prosecutors that McClinton might have been guilty of the killing. Sentencing guidelines called for him to do 57 to 71 months behind bars for the crimes for which he was convicted. But the judge added an additional 13 years to his sentence.
This is simply not consistent with due process and other vital constitutional protections or the tenets that undermine our legal system.
Several Supreme Court justices, along with a few members of Congress, have raised objections to this practice. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, while serving on a federal appeals court in 2015, wrote that the use of acquitted conduct “seems a dubious infringement of the rights to due process and to a jury trial.” Justice Sonia Sotomayor has also expressed skepticism.
Meanwhile, Sens. Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, and Dick Durbin, Democrat from Illinois, have repeatedly proposed legislation to reform acquitted conduct sentencing rules.
The U.S. Sentencing Commission should pass the new guidelines. No man or woman should face additional jail time for conduct that they weren’t convicted of in a court of law. If the commission gets cold feet, Congress should move forward with proposed reforms or the Supreme Court should take a closer look at this practice.
