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In the Courts

By ALM Staff | Law Journal Newsletters |
November 26, 2012

Eighth Circuit Dissent Provides Passionate Rebuke of Guidelines Sentencing in High-Loss Fraud Cases

On Nov. 7, 2012, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit issued a relatively non-controversial opinion in United States v. Spencer, —F.3d.—, 2012 WL 5416151 (2012), in which the court ruled on several evidentiary challenges and upheld a below-guidelines sentence against a substantive reasonableness challenge. In his dissent from the majority's opinion, however, Circuit Judge Myron H. Bright offered a notably passionate and thoughtful critique of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines as applied to high-loss fraud sentences. In his dissent, Judge Bright criticizes the reliance the sentencing guidelines place on loss in sentencing calculation, likening the injustice of this approach to the critiques levied by many critics regarding the emphasis of weight calculation in drug sentencing.

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