Can a Federal Judge Sentence You for a Crime Your Jury Says You Didn't Commit? The Answer May Terrify You

Can a federal judge sentence you for a crime your jury says you didn't commit? In a sane world, the answer would be "no." If a prosecutor charges you with five crimes, and the jury finds you not guilty of four of them, the judge who then doles out the sentence should be able to consider only that one guilty verdict.

Yet federal judges can, and often do, use what's called "acquitted conduct"—charges for which a person has been found not guilty—when sentencing defendants for the crimes the jury says they did commit. It's a horrifying bug in the federal criminal justice system that doesn't get nearly enough attention. Until now.

Sens. Dick Durbin (D–Ill.) and Chuck Grassley (R–Iowa) introduced a bill this week that would expressly prohibit the use of acquitted conduct at sentencing. "If any American is acquitted of charges by a jury of their peers, then some sentencing judge shouldn't be able to find them guilty anyway and add to their punishment," Grassley said in a statement released this week. "That's not acceptable and it's not American."