"The favorable sentence that eluded the defendant in the criminal proceeding appears to be the sentence he or others in his position would have received in the ordinary course, absent the failings of counsel," he wrote.
Mr. Conte said the government gave favorable sentences to the Balco defendants in plea negotiations after postponing a court hearing that was going to focus on Mr. Novitzky's conduct.
Not until after these people testify will the Government determine the quality of and "truthfulness" of the person's testimony in its decision to recommend a favorable sentence for their own crimes.
A review of a book of mine, mostly favorable, but one sentence was like a shiv between the ribs, and that is the sentence I remember.
For example: the descriptive sentence in (P1) has quite narrow descriptive content, namely, that the speaker approves of the particular object or act to which she is referring; the imperative sentence has especially direct emotive force, strongly commanding one's audience to have similar favorable attitudes; and both sentences are, of course, about attitudes.
The trial prosecutors apparently did not know and so did not tell Mr. Goldstein's lawyers that Mr. Fink had repeatedly received reduced sentences for providing prosecutors with favorable testimony in Mr. Goldstein's case and others.
This process works well when done within the criminal justice system, where terrorism suspects have provided substantial amounts of actionable intelligence information in return for reduced sentences or other forms of favorable treatment.
Concerned that the Supreme Court will overrule the more liberal federal judges of the Ninth Circuit, as it did in a medical marijuana case last May, some public defenders are scrambling to challenge sentences quickly, making use of the favorable ruling for as long as it lasts.
In a memorandum last week to Kathleen Hawk Sawyer, the director of the Bureau of Prisons, Mr. Ashcroft said that the practice violated federal sentencing laws that require imprisonment and that it offered favorable treatment to white-collar criminals.
Opponents of the laws, which set mandatory minimum sentences even for minor crimes, saw this year as favorable to their cause.
