zlacker

>>tafda+(OP)
20 years is the maximum, not what he'll get. Skimming the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, I make it:

* A base level of 14 for an obstruction of justice charge (§2J1.2)

* -2 for acceptance of responsibility (§3E1.1)

Assuming no previous criminal history, that's a guideline sentence of 10-16 months. If he can get it down one more point to a level 11 sentence, that's a Zone B sentence and can be entirely served on probation.

The DoJ press release is at https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/santa-barbara-county-ma..., but the plea agreement isn't available (yet), which would indicate if they've agreed on an offence level and any adjustments.

EDIT: Found the plea agreement; see comment in thread

>>waiwai+q6
Found the plea agreement: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cacd.88...

Agreed to (page 10):

* Base level of 14 for obstruction of justice

* +2 for the extensive planning enhancement (b)(3)(B)/(C)

No agreement w.r.t:

* Criminal history (which I believe is fairly standard)

* +2 for aggravated role - §3B1.1(c).

* Going outside the guidelines

~ I'm surprised there's no acceptance of responsibility reduction reserved by the defendant; feels like the DoJ were pressing reasonably hard on this one (tbf, seems entirely reasonable given the conduct here) ~ Correction: this is agreed on p. 2/3

If the court sentences to 18-24 months (p. 12), both parties have waived right to appeal. (And aligns with the minimum level of 15 on p. 3)

>>waiwai+6e
is there a video or a simple follow through how one would be able to practically search through city/state/federal court cases with your speed and precision?

>>sfmike+BN
I'm afraid I'm not aware of any how-to guide. City/County/State tend to be harder; federal court dockets are all uploaded to PACER (https://pacer.uscourts.gov/) which has fairly good search options, though be advised that there's a usage charge. Lots of stuff then gets uploaded to RECAP (https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/), but it is inherently less complete than PACER, though if you do start using PACER, I strongly recommend installing the RECAP browser extension as that will upload any documents you view to RECAP, as well as advise you when a copy is already available on RECAP.

For what it's worth, this one was:

1. Find the DoJ press release (I think this was just Google search for a few keywords)

2. Accidentally notice that the press release said that the plea agreement had been filed in court

3. Open the court's PACER instance, and search for the defendant's name

4. Open the docket for the case, and download the plea agreement

5. Skim through (ignoring the factual background since I was looking for the sentencing information)