Giving him another sentence based on a laughable third charge would have sparked outrage domestically and internationally.Mr Putin needed to find a way to release Mr Khodorkovsky that would reflect well on his presidency.
In sum, the argument that repeating a trivial crime justifies doubling a 25-year minimum incapacitation sentence based on a threat to the public does not raise a seriously debatable point on which judgments might reasonably differ.
The effect is to conjure the feeling of spontaneity; he seems to be improvising his way through each sentence based on a vision, or piece of music, in his mind.
Responding to Mr. Burton's appeal, Burton v. United States, No. 99-9902, the Solicitor General's office told the court that imposing a life sentence based on a factual determination by the judge was "plain error" under the Apprendi decision.
Prosecutors objected to ideas like banning a death sentence based on a single person's testimony, while death-penalty foes said the clear conclusion was to ban capital punishment.
Under the New Jersey hate-crime law that the Apprendi decision invalidated, the jury determined guilt of the basic offense and the judge then decided whether the defendant should receive an enhanced sentence based on a finding that the crime was motivated by bias.
Sifting through grammatical analyses and querying native speakers, they found that every language consists of sentences based on a verb phrase surrounded by modifiers in predictable patterns.
It's also the only state that imposes a death sentence based on a threshold of 10 juror votes rather than a unanimous vote by all 12 jurors. .
Syed's case strikingly similar to that of George's, since he is serving a life sentence based on a shaky witness testimony and inconclusive evidence and he, like George, has always maintained his innocence.
"We made major changes to the department's charging policies related to nonviolent drug offenses; we put sensible limits on when it was appropriate to seek stiffer sentences based on a defendant's prior criminal record; and we took steps to improve reentry processes in order to reduce the chances that incarcerated individuals reoffend after they exit prison," Holder said in his remarks.
