Pretty much everyone in the system agrees that the Guidelines tend to be too harsh for economic offenses, especially as the loss amount (as computed under the Guidelines) becomes the main driver of the Guidelines figure.
As for the rest, I haven’t seen a transcript of Judge Kaplan’s sentencing remarks. The federal system gives very broad discretion to the sentencing judge (unless there is a mandatory minimum, which there wasn’t here). So while we can conclude that Judge Kaplan believed a 25-year sentence was “sufficient, but not greater than necessary” to achieve the purposes of sentencing, I don’t know why he believed that.
Why did SBF only get 25 years when the prosecution called for 40-50 (and the sentencing guidelines call for 110)?
Pretty much everyone in the system agrees that the Guidelines tend to be too harsh for economic offenses, especially as the loss amount (as computed under the Guidelines) becomes the main driver of the Guidelines figure.
As for the rest, I haven’t seen a transcript of Judge Kaplan’s sentencing remarks. The federal system gives very broad discretion to the sentencing judge (unless there is a mandatory minimum, which there wasn’t here). So while we can conclude that Judge Kaplan believed a 25-year sentence was “sufficient, but not greater than necessary” to achieve the purposes of sentencing, I don’t know why he believed that.