Paul Manafort

[fredd bear]

I recently read that Paul Manafort has been sentenced to 47 months in prison. With 9 month served, that brings it down to 36 months.

I don't understand the US legal system.

Here in Oz,  sentences are set, such as:  36 months, with say a non parole period of  24 months. That sentence is then further reduced by 1/3, unless the person has been very naughty while inside.


How does it work in the US?  I'm no admirer of the Trump administration. However, I thought 47 months was pretty severe..

How long will Manafort be most likely to spend in prison.?.

[Yonadav]

I recently read that Paul Manafort has been sentenced to 47 months in prison. With 9 month served, that brings it down to 36 months.

I don't understand the US legal system.

Here in Oz,  sentences are set, such as:  36 months, with say a non parole period of  24 months. That sentence is then further reduced by 1/3, unless the person has been very naughty while inside.


How does it work in the US?  I'm no admirer of the Trump administration. However, I thought 47 months was pretty severe..

How long will Manafort be most likely to spend in prison.?.

He has sentencing for other crimes to look forward to. We have different systems for state and federal sentences. For federal sentences, you can't get very much time off for good behavior (54 days per year). So he will be doing most of that time. In the state system, time off for good behavior is different from state to state. Some states are very generous, and others aren't.

My understanding is that 47 months was a very light sentence. I haven't checked into the facts on the matter yet, but I guess he was expected to get more like 20 years.

[fredd bear]

"My understanding is that 47 months was a very light sentence. I haven't checked into the facts on the matter yet, but I guess he was expected to get more like 20 years."


FUUUUuuuuuuuCk! That's harsh. Here, people do less for murder , rape, and for molesting children. We have no death penalty, and no sentences without the possibility of parole. However, some especially heinous offenders are never released.

I'm basing my comments on what I' was told by a friend I had who had done 12 months for breaking (burglary) in our 165 year old State prison. I suspect Manafort would serve his time in a minimum security prison.(?)

Is there any possibility of a presidential pardon? I was thinking of just before Donald leaves office. I guess that might be a bit too humane for Donald.

[Jackalope]

Get caught selling a bit of reefer in the wrong jurisdiction in the USA and I bet 47 months in wherever Manafort lands will look like a picnic by comparison.

[Fireball]

"My understanding is that 47 months was a very light sentence. I haven't checked into the facts on the matter yet, but I guess he was expected to get more like 20 years."


FUUUUuuuuuuuCk!  That's harsh.   Here, people do less for murder , rape, and for molesting children.  We have no death penalty, and no sentences without the possibility of parole. However, some especially heinous offenders are never released.

I'm basing my comments on what I' was told by a friend I had who had done 12 months for breaking (burglary) in our 165 year old State prison. I suspect  Manafort would serve his time in a minimum security prison.(?)

Is there any possibility of a presidential  pardon? I was thinking of just before Donald leaves office. I guess that might be a bit too humane for Donald.

I think that there may be an issue with the totality of offenses. The other thing that occurs to me that he may have been accused of treason, somewhere in there. I haven't been following his case at all, tbh, but if there was some treason conviction, I'd like that he rotted in a prison 'til death. And fuck the Donald. Fucking TV "personality" gets to be president of the US, that's a travesty, even if Hilary is a shit. The complete world order would be less chaotic with Hilary as president, even though I had to hold my nose when I voted for her.

[brewer]

Taking his/his family's money will be a worse punishment for him than prison.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Isn't he due to be sentenced again, in some other case?

Boru

[Yonadav]

"My understanding is that 47 months was a very light sentence. I haven't checked into the facts on the matter yet, but I guess he was expected to get more like 20 years."


FUUUUuuuuuuuCk!  That's harsh.   Here, people do less for murder , rape, and for molesting children.  We have no death penalty, and no sentences without the possibility of parole. However, some especially heinous offenders are never released.

I'm basing my comments on what I' was told by a friend I had who had done 12 months for breaking (burglary) in our 165 year old State prison. I suspect  Manafort would serve his time in a minimum security prison.(?)

Is there any possibility of a presidential  pardon? I was thinking of just before Donald leaves office. I guess that might be a bit too humane for Donald.

I think that a lot of people who don't live in the US don't understand how sick American society is with its worship of celebrities and wealth. We are notorious for slapping white collar criminals on the wrist for super crimes involving millions of dollars, while throwing the book at poor people. One lawyer has compared Manafort's sentence to the sentence of one of his clients, a poor black woman, who was 'offered' a plea deal in which she would be sentenced to between 3 to 6 years for stealing $100 worth of quarters from a laundry room. Admittedly, there is probably a lot not being said in that comparison, since I assume the woman who stole the quarters must have had priors. But still.

Manafort is not exactly a first time offender. He has multiple offences over a long period of time, and simply got busted for all of them at once. I think that our justice system is a little confused about what a 'first time offender' is.

On the other hand, a close reading of the coverage about this did turn up one interesting nugget. The judge who sentenced Manafort has a long track record of being critical of mandatory sentencing that has prevented him from giving a little bit of leniency to criminals whose crimes involved drugs and guns. He seems to be a judge feels that we sentence people to prison for too long in most cases, and feels that mandatory sentencing guidelines have forced him to give very lengthy sentences to poor people whose crimes involved drugs and guns, while giving more lenient sentences to white collar criminals simply because he is not constrained to mandatory sentencing with white collar criminals.
 
We incarcerate a larger percentage of our population than any other nation in the free world. But we are wealth and celebrity obsessed, and white collar crime is pretty much viewed as respectable. Wealthy people who don't practice tax evasion and deceive financial institutions are cucks. Had it not been for his connections to Trump, Manfort probably would have never been brought to trial.

[The Grand Nudger]

The judge wanted to slap special counsel.  The guy actually said that Paul Manafort had led a blameless life.

[Yonadav]

Most people understand nuance. Except for libtards. Libtards see everything through the lens of their favorite boogeymen, and everyone has to check every single box in the libtard column, and if they don't check one single libtard box, then it is as if they checked every box in the boogeyman column. Libtards see everyone as being either 100% with them or 100% against them. They are the only people on the planet who are even dumber than Trumptards, who can sometimes respect a bit of nuance.

Ellis was most certainly critical of some Mueller prosecutors. But Ellis also has a track record of being more lenient than guidelines suggest for sentencing, when he has latitude to be lenient. He has a track record of being opposed to mandatory sentencing.

I sympathize with Ellis' position, since I feel that mandatory sentencing is obviously legislative over-reach into the judicial branch of government.