A federal attorney explains how defendants can challenge government claims at sentencing even after pleading guilty. In one case, cross-examining a witness about drug weight led a judge to cut the sentence from 11-13 years down to six years. Material facts are disputable at sentencing hearings.
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I want to spend some time talking about federal sentencing, um, and today I want to kind of focus more specifically on what's called like a contested federal sentencing proceeding. Um, in federal court, you know, the sentencing process is really very different than what you have at the state court level. There are various factors that the court has to take into consideration. There's, you know, more evidence that you're allowed to present at a federal sentencing. There are objections that you can raise to certain factors that the government is trying to attribute to you that can impact your sentence. And you resolve those issues at a sentencing hearing. And so, for example, I had a case a while back where there were a number of witnesses who had put drug weight on my client. And we had like 3 of them who were pretty minimal amounts on him, but then we had this one witness who was acting like my client was Al Capone, just putting all sorts of criminal activity on him and all sorts of drug weight. And my client was just adamant. He's like, "This guy is just lying. He's not telling the truth, and we're going to have to prove this." So, you know, his sentencing came up. I mean, he, he had pleaded guilty because he was guilty of dealing some drugs. You know, our, our beef was just that he wasn't dealing that amount of drugs. And so we issued a subpoena to this one particular witness who was putting all of the drugs on my client. At the time he was being housed like down in Arkansas. They brought him back into South Carolina. We put him on the stand and we cross-examined him. And sure enough, I mean, when he was on the stand, you know, the drug weight started falling away. Um, even the judge decided to start asking him some questions. Well, all of a sudden, you know, my guy who's looking at 11 to 13 years roughly walks out with about a 6-year sentence. Um, and it's because we contested the drug weight during that sentencing proceeding. So that's very different than what you have in state court, but it is something that you need to keep in mind if you are facing these kinds of charges. I mean, just because the government says it's true doesn't mean you have to plead guilty to it. Or if you do plead guilty to it because, you know, maybe you are doing some, some, you know, activity that's not right, that's illegal, You know, you're not stuck with the full story that the government is sort of presenting to the court. And so, if there are material aspects about your situation that you want to challenge, you can more than likely do that during a contested federal sentencing. So, something to talk to your attorney about. If you have any questions about federal sentencing or about a contested federal sentencing proceeding, please feel free to reach out to us. We can be reached at area code 803-445-1333, or, I mean, visit us at our YouTube channel. I'm trying to kind of put more videos up there to help educate people who are going through some of these issues. So my YouTube channel is, you know, I think Elizabeth Franklin Vest PC. So please find us over there as well. And you can always visit us at our website, which is www.elizabethfranklinbest.com.
