Why Don’t I Know What My Sentence Is Going To Be When I Plead Guilty?

In federal court, you will not know what your sentence is going to be when you plead guilty. This is one of the primary differences between the federal court and state court. In state court, if you were entering a plea, it would normally say that you are entering a free and voluntary plea, that no one has promised you anything else in exchange for this plea of guilty other than the plea-bargained for arrangement. The attorney would then tell the judge what the plea bargain is. If the judge went along with the plea bargain, then there wouldn’t be any right to appeal. But, if the judge didn’t go along with the plea bargain, then the defense could withdraw their guilty plea and not get sentenced by it. That is not the case in federal court. In Federal court, a guilty plea is entered not knowing what the sentence will ultimately be.

The plea paperwork or the magistrate judge that takes your plea will make it very clear that no promises are being made to you about what your plea will be. They will further state that any representations that your lawyer has made to you about your plea should not be relied upon. After your plea has been given, probation will come in and do the pre-sentence report. When they do the report, they are going to calculate where you are in terms of your criminal history points and offense level. Unless there are objections, modifications by agreement with the probation department, or objections that the judge sustains, the calculations from the report is the range used to sentence you. Additionally, the judge can sentence you outside that range.

The judge can deviate downward or upward from the range. When you enter a plea, if you’ve never been in the federal system before, it is completely natural for it to feel unnatural. It may feel like you are entering a plea without knowing what is going to happen at all, and that is exactly what you are doing. It’s a scary thing to do, and often, it takes a lot of talking through the alternatives and discussing the reasons why we are entering into the plea.

There are a lot of reasons apart from having a plea bargain locked in place to still enter a plea of guilty in federal court, but unfortunately, when you enter your plea, you will not know what the sentence is going to be.

For more information on Pleading Guilty In A Federal Case In Texas, a free initial consultation is your next best step. Get the information and legal answers you are seeking by calling (512) 478-9898 today.