I’m just going by news reports, of course.
Based on those my understanding was that the government was asking for 10 years consecutive, meaning that she would serve the 10 years after the state sentence was completed. If she served the state maximum of 4 years that would translate into a total of 14 years.
Judge Larimer took 2 years off the government’s position and made the sentence concurrent, meaning that she’ll be serving her state and federal sentences at the same time, for a maximum of 8 years.
In the world of criminal sentencing, this is a considerably more lenient sentence than the government was asking for, and I have to give Judge Larimer credit for bringing a little, a tiny little bit, modicum, sliver of perspective in handing out his sentence. It is still way too much for what she actually did, even assuming it’s all true. Which I doubt.
It’s still very troubling that there isn’t one single living person in the chain of causation besides Dawn Nguyen that is suffering any consequences at all, even though there’s an abundance of candidates. How is it that a 21 year old woman is singled out for 8 years but the parole board members who released Spengler don’t miss so much as a paycheck?
It’s so disproportionate. Disproportionate based on the nature of the act being punished (signing a form), disproportionate given the nature of the defendant – a young and evidently productive citizen with no criminal history – and disproportionate given that there are many others with a very similar, if not greater, level of culpability who have not even been prosecuted, let alone imprisoned.
More fundamentally, turning someone like that into an arbitrarily selected scapegoat that the angry mob vents their anger onto is unspeakably cruel. Not as cruel as what Spengler did, but I don’t see how adding to the cruelty helps anyone or anything.
Ugh.
Lawyers on Strike 
How a person gets 8 years for a non-violent crime with no intent to hurt anyone is beyond the belief. It’s downright sickening. I cannot even fathom how any sane person can think this is justice.
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Well, I got 15 years for allegedly growing an ounce of weed. The real issue was Civil Forfeiture laws that are now revised. In Missouri, back in 1991, no probable cause was required, only a “complaint” and “information” (not indictment) were necessary to obtain [my] land and vehicle. At the criminal trial, 28.83 grams of marijuana “leaves” picked from “somewhere” by cops was what finally led to the conviction. I took the case to SCOTUS four times, the last time in 2010, only to be shot down by Heck v. Humphrey, 114 S.Ct. 2364, 2372 (1994). The D.C. District’s Chief Judge shot me into the appellate court within 30 days (a record time?) because I “proved” perjury on the face of the record. That includes then Governor of Missouri on an extradition warrant in violation of 18 U.S.C. Sec. 3182. Not many former prisoners have sued a Governor successfully, but Heck v. Humphrey trumps all valid claims. I would post my change.org petition here if I was a member of the site, for what little it is worth. See Rosendahl v. Jeremiah Nixon, et al. (2009) by simply typing it on Google. I am the “Poster Child” for both Wrongful Conviction as well as why someone got 15 years (served the sentence) for what as a marijuana possession charge is only a misdemeanor, and of course, not an extraditable offense. Without posting a link, you could sign my petition for a pardon by typing: Barack Obama and Missouri Governor: Grant a Pardon and Change Marijuana Laws onto Google if my otherwise successful lawsuit(s) don’t grab your attention. You might consider that the PERJURY of a Governor on an extradition warrant trumps the entire due process of law, or in other words, handing an Indictment to a trial court without submitting it to a Grand Jury, and begs the question: Does the Trial Court obtain JURISDICTION in such a case??? Does Heck v. Humphrey apply to a jurisdictional challenge???
Rolf Rosendahl
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You might look at a case that came down from the 2nd circuit in January called Poventud v. City of New York:
http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=1340171372648599238&hl=en&scisbd=2&as_sdt=5,33&sciodt=6,33&as_ylo=2014
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That case is the reason I posted replies here. It is “just another” case that will not reach SCOTUS, or will be truncated into meaningless drivel. My state habeas corpus attorney said that when he argued Spencer v. Kemna, 923 U.S.1 (1998), they (SCOTUS) wanted to dispense with BOTH federal Civil Rights AND federal habeas corpus in that decision. And, all the praise of Justice Thomas about “natural law” seems ridiculous to me since he is the 8th Circuit Justice who has already seen my case more than once. When was the last time SCOTUS granted a habeas corpus petition???
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The last time the SCOTUS granted an original habeas corpus petition was 1925. In 1935 they heard and wrote an opinion in Mooney v. Holohan, 294 US 103 but didn’t grant it; they remanded to the California courts. More recently in 2009 they wrote an opinion on the original habeas corpus petition of Troy Davis but didn’t decided it, sending it back to the district court in Georgia, which denied it and Davis was subsequently executed.
That’s about it for any significant “original” habeas activity in the SCOTUS in the past century.
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Well, it seems to me that it is “law 101” that state trial court jurisdiction cannot be based on PERJURED Governor’s Extradition Warrants and indictments cannot be submitted without Grand Juries or, at the very least, what both 18 U.S.C. Sec.3182 and virtually all states under The Compact require at minimum “an affidavit of a credible witness sworn by oath” to a judge. The California Magistrate refused the documents sent by the trial court one of which was “an amended Information (charge)” without any supporting affidavit by any witness. Were it not for this Governor’s Warrant, I would have been released and could have sued the police who arrested me in California in 1993 (also without warrant or probable cause). The original “charge” in 1991 had been dropped because the Civil Forfeiture was the only thing that they sought, and in Missouri, “no probable cause hearing” before a judge is a violation of statutory law in itself. State ex rel. Buresh v. Adams, 468 S.W.2d 18, 20-22 (Mo. banc 1971) “No jurisdiction exists absent the required preliminary hearing.” The Poventud v. City of New York case was decided based on the reversal of the conviction, which satisfies the Heck v. Humphrey rule. The very fact that PERJURY “would necessarily invalidate a conviction” was determined by a federal court, and “the merits” of the claim had already been proven by documents and Admissions “on their face,” so why does a jurisdictional claim even fall into the category of Heck? It is because Heck was decided by SCOTUS in order to be used as a defense in all prisoner lawsuits due to the mass incarcerations of “The Drug War” of the 1990s. When a prosecutor uses Civil Forfeiture Laws to support its search and seizure in a criminal case, it is Double Jeopardy where the state forfeiture action was NOT “in rem” but “in personam” under Missouri statutes. The Civil Forfeiture action was titled: “State v. Rosendahl” and NOT State v. Property at blah, blah. But the federal courts simply cited Usery v. U.S. (1996), even though a “federal court must consider the state law” as controlling in such a case. SCOTUS again protected the rampant abuse of forfeiture laws of the 1990s until Congress changed them in 2000.. The Missouri Supreme Court changed them in 1993, and that’s when “a conviction or guilty plea” became a requirement of forfeitures, and that’s when they came after me in California. Perhaps SCOTUS will institute a “Catch-22” S.Ct. Rule to protect against its own abuse(s) if the Poventud case catches on as an obvious circuit split..
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