US Sentencing Commission has now released here its "3rd Quarter ... Preliminary Fiscal Year 2018 Data." As previously noted in this post when the USSC released data on offenders sentenced during the first half of fiscal year 2018, the Commission has altered how it accounts and reports sentencing data. This new data run explains "the Commission is again updating the way it presents quarterly data. In this report, all analyses that involve a comparison of the position of the sentence imposed to the guideline range that applied in the case are presented in a new way. Sentences are now grouped into two broad categories: Sentences Under the Guidelines Manual and Variances." As I see it, this means within-guideline and "traditional departure" sentences are grouped together, while all Booker-allowed variances are broken out distinctly.
As I have said before, nothwithstanding this repackaging aside, we can still look at the "within-guideline" number on Tables 8 and 8A for direct comparisons on this front between the first three quarters of of FY 2018 and all federal sentencing data from the last full year of the Obama Administration (in this FY 2016 data report). Doing so shows that the within-guideline sentencing rate has increased from 48.6% in FY 2016 up to 50.5% in the first three-quarters of FY 2018. Without a more intricate and sophisticated analysis controlling for caseloads and other factors, this upward movement in within-guideline sentences does not alone provide conclusive evidence that "Trump era" changes in prosecutorial policies and practices is having a direct impact on federal sentencing outcomes. But these new data continue to be suggestive of trends to watch as more cases more through the pipeline and as new federal prosecutors and judges are impacted by new commands and advocacy from Main Justice.
Prior related post:
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