Post-Conviction Relief for Immigrants

The sentence may be rendered invalid by judicial error in excluding relevant evidence from consideration at sentence, which must be based on complete information.  “In order for the sentencing judge to make an intelligent decision on an appropriate disposition of a defendant at the time of sentencing, the judge should be provided all the relevant information about the offense and the offender.”[397]

The Supreme Court has stated:

Highly relevant — if not essential — to [the sentencing judge’s] selection of an appropriate sentence is the possession of the fullest information possible concerning the defendant’s life and characteristics.  And modern concepts individualizing punishment have made it all the more necessary that a sentencing judge not be denied an opportunity to obtain pertinent information . . . .[398]

Federal statute and sentencing guidelines impose similar standards.[399]

            Therefore, a sentence should be vacated where the court refuses to consider information relevant to the imposition of sentence.

[397] Cafone, Vacation of Illegal Sentences, Chap. 46, in Criminal Defense Techniques § 46.03 (2003).

[398] Williams v. New York, 337 U.S. 241, 250, 69 S.Ct. 1079, 93 L.Ed. 1337 (1948).

[399] 18 U.S.C. § 3661 (“No limitation shall be placed on the information concerning the background, character, and conduct of a person convicted of an offense which a court . . . may receive and consider for the purpose of imposing an appropriate sentence.”); U.S.S.G. § 1B1.4, comment (“The recodification of this 1970 statute . . . makes it clear that Congress intended no limitation would be placed on the information that a court may consider in imposing an appropriate sentence under the [Guidelines].”).