Re: Jim Bell sentencing delayed

[Greg Broiles <gbroiles@netbox.com>]

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