At 06:04 PM 1/9/97 -0500, Black Unicorn wrote:

On Wed, 8 Jan 1997, Mark M. wrote:

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Sentencing enhancements:

There is a big book called the Federal Sentencing Guidelines Handbook (or some such). To arrive at the appropriate sentence range, you add up the points of all the offenses the defendant was convicted of (Assume Bank Fraud is 18 points, Murder 35 or whatever- I dont remember them offhand) and run across a chart which has "criminal history catagory" on the vertical axis. Where the two meet gives you the sentence range. I'm not near my office right now, but if there is enough interest I will dig up the current handbook and run a sample sentencing through.

The most common one I see is "Victims helpless or infirm" which usually boosts 2 to 5 points.

Sentencing enhancements are not double jeapordy either. I don't see how you can argue they are. For example, there is a provision in bank fraud sentencing guidelines which enhances the sentence according to the size of the loss, and I believe there is a kicker if the financial institution folds.

I believe the highest base offense level was "Espionage" or some such.

There are also sentencing limiters. "Defendant displays clear remorse." I think is one.

Go out to a law book store and take a look at the guideline book. It's actually a lot of fun. "Ok, say I killed my wife for her coke stash and recruited my brother to dump the body..."

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In one case, the defendant was convicted of possession of cocaine with intent to distribute but was found not guilty of possession of a firearm related to a drug charge (apparently, this is a crime).

It's both a crime and an enhancement for most federal drug offenses.

I have seen in the paper where a person has been convicted of using a scanner in the commition of a felony. In my opinion, this is exactly how crypto would be a crime, when using it in the commission of another crime. In most cases, it seems, the scanner is used to monitor the police bands so that the criminals will have advance warning when to hide thier actions. Of course, around here, a person owning a scanner for monitoring the police and fire bands is normal. It is just one more way of gathering news. Please correct me if any of my facts are in error.