Well, howdy there internet people? It's Bob again. So today we are going to talk

about sentences and journalists, but not the writing kind of sentences. We're going

to talk about something else.

Lately, we have been talking a lot about how journalists convey information and how they can be better in some ways.

And the thing is, what I'm about to say, most journalists know, not all, but most.

And when they don't, when they don't convey it accurately, it doesn't help establish accurate expectations.

And this is something that we are already getting questions about as far as Trump's laptop.

Not Trump's AIDS laptop, I guess.

And it deals with sentencing in the federal system.

And this led to a lot of questions during the sentencing for those involved with the sixth.

And I'm sure it's going to lead to questions when it comes to the seditious conspiracy thing.

So we're going to talk about how federal sentencing works. How many

times have you heard the phrase facing a maximum of 20 years and then the person walks out with like an 18 month

sentence. Does that mean that the judge was soft? No. No. The maximum amount is a number established by Congress. This is the

absolute most you can sentence this person to for this crime.

That's not what judges really pay attention to.

Because of a court case called Booker, I think, they pay attention to something called the

sentencing guidelines. The federal courts, they're part of the federal government.

There's a chart. There's a chart for everything.

The way federal sentences work is every crime is assigned an offense level.

That offense level corresponds to a range of months.

So on the chart, up and down, you have the offense level.

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