Sentencing on Review

When it comes to dealing with convicted defendants, a trial judge speaks with great authority, and appeals courts usually decline to review his sentences. The theory is that by training, experience and knowledge of the particular case, the trial judge is best equipped to determine a just punishment. Now the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has imposed a new limitation on the sentencing power of trial judges in its jurisdiction.

After Janice Weston, 31, was found guilty in Seattle of possessing more than a pound of heroin, Federal Judge Roger Foley said that he was inclined to give her the minimum term of five years. Then the judge read the presentencing report, which portrayed her as more than a simple drug offender. It quoted narcotics agents who said that Weston had been "the chief supplier to the western Washington [State] area." Judge Foley then gave her the maximum prison term--20 years.

The court of appeals was chary of interfering. But it could not ignore the fact that after Weston was convicted of one offense, she was then convicted, in effect, of a more serious crime on the basis of "unsworn evidence detailing otherwise unverified statements." As a result, her sentence was quadrupled. The appeals court concluded that the narcotics agents' allegations were so flimsily supported that they would not even have justified issuance of a search warrant. It ordered that the defendant be resentenced without the use of those statements unless more persuasive proof could be found.

Though the majority strained to say that full-scale trial standards still need not apply to presentencing reports, Dissenting Judge James Carter said that the ruling would "open up Pandora's box." In his view, courts will now have to review countless claims that presentencing reports did not meet proper standards.

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