Reply to post: Re: Sooo, they fined him less than he spent to do it legally

FYI: Faking court orders to take down Google reviews is super illegal

Malcolm Weir Silver badge

Re: Sooo, they fined him less than he spent to do it legally

Federal sentences of less than 12 months result in the prisoner serving 100% of the time (although any pre-trial detention time counts towards the total. This is per the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984.

For sentences of more than 12 months, "85%" of the sentence must be served, but after that the prisoner can be paroled if their behavior was good. The average is length of stay is, apparently, 88% of the sentence.This is largely because the federal Bureau of Prisons ignores the plain text of the statute -- 18 U.S.C. § 3624(b) -- and uses random percentages instead of the 54-days-per-year in the text. This callous disregard by the BOP was challenged, and upheld, by the Supreme Court, so instead of 54-days-per-year, the actual credit for good behavior is 47 days. (OK, so the rationale is not wholly insane, but the dissent in the case - https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/09-5201.pdf -- is a lot more rationale for people who can both read *and* count!)

So a judge sentencing someone to "a year and a day" may actually be doing the defendant a favor, as a 366 day sentence works out at 319 days in prison, while a 365 day sentence requires 365 days in chokey!

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