Sentencing Guidelines

Asserting that a Supreme Court decision last month had created "a wave of instability in the federal sentencing system," the Justice Department asked the court yesterday to review as soon as possible two federal drug cases that call into question sentencing guidelines. Justice Department lawyers asked the high court to hear the cases as early as September. The Supreme Court gave attorneys for the defendants in the two cases a week to file responses to the government's motions. Meanwhile, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco overturned the sentence of a Montana methamphetamine dealer, which had been enhanced by a federal trial judge.

Police identify victims of fatal shootings Yesterday, police identified three men found fatally shot Wednesday in separate locations in the city and whose deaths appear to be unrelated. No arrests had been made. Shortly before 3 a.m., Eastern District police found Demetrius M. Saulsbury, 22, of the 3400 block of Elmley Ave., in the 1700 block of N. Washington St. in the Broadway East neighborhood suffering from a bullet wound to the head. He died a short time later at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

It was a bad day for Milton Tillman.Fresh from serving a two-year sentence for trying to bribe a Baltimore zoning officer, the one-time owner of a popular nightspot was back in federal court yesterday, this time to find out how long he would spend behind bars for his convictions in a sweeping tax-fraud case.His attorneys said Tillman learned his lesson. They said he should get credit for the time he already served. They said he didn't lie to his probation officer about a criminal conviction; a lie could increase his time in federal prison.

U.S. District Court Judge John G. Davies' sentencing of Sgt. Stacey Koon and Officer Laurence Powell, the two Los Angeles police officers convicted in the Rodney King beating, was much more lenient than most observers anticipated. They could be out in 26 or 27 months.Federal prosecutors recommended sentences that would have kept one of the officers in prison for at least six years and the other for a minimum of just over seven and a half years. So we are not surprised Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. of the NAACP charged that the sentences "display a wanton disparity, discrimination and inequity based on race.

A Waldorf man convicted of trying to kill his pregnant girlfriend, a Crofton hairdresser, was given a life sentence Tuesday by an Anne Arundel County judge. Prosecutors contended Charles Brandon Martin, 33, sent a letter from his jail cell after he was convicted in the 2008 shooting that disabled Jodi Torok that sought to have the man acquitted of being the triggerman killed. Jail officials intercepted the letter and gave it to prosecutors. The letter was authenticated by a Maryland State Police expert, over the objection of the defense, at the hearing before Judge Pamela L. North.

A 20-year-old Perry Hall man is expected to receive a 10-year prison sentence after pleading guilty Monday in Carroll County Circuit Court in three marijuana-distribution cases.Frederick N. Boston Jr. will receive that sentence under a binding plea agreement, said Carroll County State's Attorney Jerry F. Barnes, who prosecuted the case.Boston pleaded guilty to three charges of distributing marijuana -- a total of 1 1/2 pounds sold for $2,150 on three occasions in November, as well as conspiracy, and employing a juvenile and use of a handgun in drug dealing.

A pedophile who molested two Baltimore County brothers a decade ago will learn today the punishment he faces for sending one of them a videotape containing sickening scenes of childhood sex in 1995.Within 15 months of the mailing of the tape, Justin Wilke, 19, his brother, Matt, 22, and their father, Don, 56, took their own lives, filling their cars with clouds of carbon monoxide in separate suicides.Peter Dudley Albertsen II, 35, a former camp counselor and substitute city school teacher, faces up to 10 years in prison for trafficking in child pornography when he is sentenced today by U.S. District Judge William M. Nickerson.

The problem was this. In one federal courtroom, a judge handed out a sentence of 10 years. In another, someone charged with the same crime got a two-year sentence. "The feeling was judges simply had too much discretion," says Erik Luna, an associate professor at the University of Utah College of Law. "You had `Hang 'em High Harry' and "Set 'em Loose Bruce.'" The solution, crafted in the 1980s by a coalition of senators that stretched across a broad spectrum from Strom Thurmond to Edward M. Kennedy, was a set of regulations designed to ensure that the punishment fits the crime.

A West Baltimore man captured on video attacking a police officer on New Year's Eve was convicted of second-degree assault last month in a rare bit of swift justice in the city. Manuel Imel, 40, was sentenced to 10 years in prison, with all but one year of the term suspended, for tackling an officer who was in the middle of arresting a second man. A recording of the incident was widely viewed online at WorldStarHipHop.com. It shows two officers trying to handcuff a man in the street as a crowd watches, apparently upset.

OKAY, let's get this straight once and for all. There is no --en oh -- guarantee in the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution that O. J. Simpson or anybody else gets a quote fair unquote trial. The amendment says:"In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense."