At 07:01 AM 10/31/97 -0500, John Young wrote:
Greg,
What's your take on repeated delay in Jim's sentencing:
perhaps I'm just low on conspiracy juice this week, but I think that Kent's suggestion that he's in the hospital is probably the best - his recent letters/calls to Blanc mentioned a persistent staph infection. If he'd been released, I expect that the docket would indicate that. (it's possible that they've got a "phantom docket" which has parallel but different entries .. but I doubt it.) I'm reluctant to wander down the "Is Jim a narc? Is Jim not a narc?" path because it's too difficult to reach a dependable conclusion with the little information available .. especially given that the feds may be trying to make it look like he is, or isn't, or is but appears not to be, or whatever. Too many people applying too much spin. My occam's razor thinks he's in the jail ward of the local hospital, explaining why John got his books back and why the sentencing hasn't happened. If the feds wanted information from him, they've already got it .. and if they're going to hold him until he testifies against co-conspirators, it's going to take a lot longer than a continuation until mid-November. So I doubt that's the reason for the delay. And, to answer Tim's question re why he can't be sentenced immediately - because that's not how it works in federal court. Federal defendants submit to lengthy interviews with a probation officer, who then draws up a report which summarizes the defendant's social/political/economic/pharmaceutical background, lists the defendant's prior history of education/crime/whatever, and so forth. The judge then imposes a sentence based on the PSR (presentence report) and the guidelines range, which creates a relatively narrow range of sentences matching a particular crime. The idea is that the punishment should both be tailored to the defendant, and be relatively standard across crimes of similar severity. More re determinate sentencing at <http://www.ussc.gov>. -- Greg Broiles | US crypto export control policy in a nutshell: gbroiles@netbox.com | Export jobs, not crypto. http://www.io.com/~gbroiles | http://www.parrhesia.com