Sentencing Questions — Ask the Inmate
The moment a sentence is handed down, everything changes. Families who were focused on the trial or plea negotiations suddenly have a new set of urgent questions about what the sentence actually means in practice. How long will they actually serve? What facility will they go to? What is the difference between the sentence imposed and the time served? This section covers how federal and state sentencing guidelines work, what mandatory minimums mean and when they apply, how good time credits are calculated from the moment of sentencing, how the Bureau of Prisons designates a facility and whether families can influence that decision, what a split sentence means, and what the difference is between concurrent and consecutive sentences when multiple charges are involved. The guidance here translates the courtroom language into plain answers about what happens next. See also our sections on Sentence Reduction, Inmate Transfer, and General Prison Questions and Terminology.
This is one of the most confusing aspects of concurrent sentencing and you are not alone in struggling to understand it. The answer lies in how jail time credits interact with the actual time that needs to be served in prison. Here is what is happening in your husband's situation. Your husband has two concurrent sentences. A 36 month sentence with 503 days of jail credit already applied, and a 33 month sentence with 284 days of jail
Read moreMaxing out a sentence means serving every day of the imposed time without parole, which most people assume means walking out the door with no strings attached. In many cases that is true. But a DUI conviction in another county while on any form of supervised release, including house arrest, creates a separate legal situation that operates independently from the original sentence being completed. Here is how this typically works. Even after maxing out a state prison sentence, a
Read moreThere is no way to predict that with confidence without knowing more about the specifics, including whether new charges were filed, what the judge said at the last hearing, and what the terms of his supervision looked like. Those details matter a great deal in how the judge is going to read this. What can be said is that missing a court-ordered DV review is a more serious misstep than missing a routine appearance. Domestic violence cases carry heightened
Read moreThe typical calculation is 85% of your sentence is what you'll serve. That equates to 15.3 months, with 4 months already served, there is 11.3 months remaining
Read moreFelony gun possession is federal and is a mandatory 5 year sentence
Read morethe mandatory minimum for felony gun possession is 5 years
Read moreSounds like he got three years but the release date hasn't been updated to incorporate about 15% for good time if he behaves
Read moreHe should get credit for every day spent incarcerated. The booking arrest date is the first day, even if they were booked and released, they get a full day's credit. Five years is 60 months, good time is 15% so the actual length would be 51 months not counting some for halfway house (if offered)
Read moreDepending on the length of the sentence (over 12 months) and the bed space available in county, they will probably get moved to a state facility to serve the balance of what time remains
Read morenot likely in a federal case. they are not much on bargaining once they have you
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