Not Guilty Chapter 15 | Sentencing

SENTENCING MAY TAKE PLACE on the day of the guilty plea or trial, or it may take place on a later date. When sentencing and trial take place on separate days, that is called a bifurcated proceeding. With felony pleas, the Court will want to know whether the defendant wants a Sentencing Assessment Report or Sentence Advisory Report (“S.A.R.”) which will be prepared by the Department of Probation and Parol (“P&P”), usually within sixty days of the Court requesting it. Someone from P&P will meet with the defendant. The S.A.R. will cover the Defendant’s criminal history, mental health and medical history, family history, employment history, substance abuse history, and other factors, and also discuss the likelihood of recidivism, and ultimately make a recommendation to the Judge what they think the appropriate outcome is in this case (from probation to treatment to a number of years to be served in prison). The officer from P&P does not know to ask about mitigating or good activities that the defendant has engaged in during his lifetime. If he coaches little league soccer, is very involved in his church, earned employee of the year at work, or whatever the situation may be, the defendant should be sure to tell the person interviewing him about those things, so they can be included in the report. The S.A.R. will be made available to the Defendant’s attorney prior to sentencing, and the Defendant and his attorney should review that document together to make sure everything is correct. The court will review that document when deciding what sentence to issue.

Negotiated Plea. The defense attorney and the prosecuting attorney may negotiate and try to reach an agreement about what the outcome of a case should be. Defendants don’t like not knowing what the outcome will be, and this also reduces both the prosecutor’s risk and the degree of effort involved (and the pains of asking the victim to testify). The court is not required to follow the terms of the agreement, but they almost always do. In the event that the court were to reject the terms of the offer, the defense attorney could move to withdraw the guilty plea. The defense attorney cannot withdraw a finding of guilt after a trial. An example of a negotiated resolution would be an agreement for probation, rather than sending a defendant to prison. If you are pending sentencing in a criminal matter. Go talk to a lawyer about your case!

Blind and open pleas. The prosecutor may not be willing to make an agreement, or the defendant may feel that the offer made by the prosecutor is not good enough. The defendant may instead choose to enter a plea to the Court without knowing what the judge’s decision will be. The decision would be entirely up to the Judge, although both the defense attorney and the prosecutor would have the opportunity to ask for what they want and argue why they should get it. Once the judge makes a decision, the defendant cannot withdraw his or her plea. This situation should be handled with care, and should only be done at the advice of a skilled and knowledgeable attorney who is familiar with your situation.

Judge: “Is there any reason we cannot move on to disposition today?” Lawyer Dan: “No, your Honor.”

Judge: “I will suspend imposition of sentence and place the Defendant on probation for a period of five years supervised by the Missouri Department of Probation and Parole. There will be conditions of probation. Did you go over those conditions with your attorney?”

Alexis: “Yes.” Dan whispered to Alexis, “Your Honor”. Alexis: “Yes, Your Honor.”

Judge: Good. Go meet with the folks from Probation and Parole and go over your conditions. As long as you are successful on probation, I won’t see you again, but if something goes wrong, I have the whole range of sentencing available to me, and you could go to prison for up to four years on this. Do you understand? On the DWI Defendant is sentenced to two days to be served in the county jail. I am going to authorize that to be served on house arrest with a GPS monitor. Can you get that hooked up today? Good luck.”