I said a lot of prayers during the week before sentencing. I awoke on the morning of December 29, 2005 thinking that, since I had not heard anything from my attorney, I was likely to be sorely disappointed with the sentence I was to receive. Unfortunately, that was accurate thinking.
At that point I hadn’t given up hope until I met with my attorney in the Federal Building in Springfield before the sentencing. He told me that the U.S. Attorney’s off ice had advised him that they would not consider dropping either of the two remaining “gun charges”, as a “ matter of policy”. That meant that I would, at best, receive 32 years.
As it turned out, the judge decided that if she didn’t include the 8 years plus one month from the sentencing guidelines as well, there would be no punishment assessed for the seven remaining armed bank robbery charges. This addition brought the total sentence to 40 years plus 1 month. I was rather surprised that the 32 years weren’t deemed to be sufficient.
Essentially here is what happened after the onset of the sentencing hearing; First the judge asked my attorney if there had been any changes in charges as a result of his efforts. Being told “no”, she issued some instructions and called on the Assistant U.S. Attorney to speak. Notwithstanding that the case and the conditional guilty plea had been handed to him on a platter, so to speak, he did his best to paint me as a vicious criminal, reading into the record portions of a letter sent in as a victims statement from the only person who responded to the U.S. Attorney’s inquiries.
I had read this letter in it’s entirety. It seemed fake, either lifted from a novel or coached by a prosecutor or probation officer. It contained numerous inaccuracies. This  if not from a lady who was working alone in a bank which, if my recollection is correct, turned in losses amounting to approximately $3,000 more than what was taken in their robbery. Suspicious! However, if in fact she wrote the truth as she believed it, and truly suffered the effects she described, I owe her the most humble apology and can only reassure her that she was never in danger from me. I’m glad that there were no other bank employees that felt the need to submit statements.
*Special Note  If for no other reason, perhaps for pure interest, I would include the fact that there was one other bank that reported greater losses then I could account for; this one, too, by approximately $3,000.00. Of course, this doesn’t change my culpability one iota, but I do find it interesting.
Finally the prosecutor finished and my attorney was asked to speak. My attorney, who attended Lewistown Community High School with me, was very eloquent in my defense, pointing out facts that exemplified good citizenship. He mentioned, among other things, that I had served as a village trustee, a chairman of the Lewistown zoning board of appeals, as president of the Lewistown Jaycees, etc. All very good, but all to no avail.
The judge’s mind was made up and her duty more or less dictated to her by virtue of the prosecutor’s decision to retain statutory charges. In other words, sentencing was at least 75% controlled by the prosecutor. Had the armed violence charges been dropped, and sentencing done in accord with the federal sentencing guidelines, I would have likely received no more than 10 years, a substantially lesser penalty, but one more in line with the “nature and circumstance and the history  and characteristics of the defendant”.
*Special Note  The Federal Sentencing Guidelines for Armed Bank Robbery dictate that a five- level enhancement be applied as a penalty for having a weapon involved, so it’s not as though there would be no penalty assessed, which makes it appear that in cases like mine a charge added on for use of a firearm is overkill, excessive punishment. Why? “Policy” is just not a good enough answer!
18 USCA §924 (c) (1) (A) (c) and (D) is the title which gives authority to prosecute and sets terms and conditions for “gun charges” involved with crimes of violence or drug trafficking crime.  Paragraph (C) is of special interest in that it states that “In the case of a second or subsequent conviction under this subsection, the person shall (i) be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of not less than 25 years.” My question as a layman, would be whether, since all of my charges had been rolled into one case, and the guideline sentence calculated on the basis of combined charges, a “second subsequent conviction” truly exists.
I’m of the opinion that congress meant to apply this statute to someone other than a first-offender. Of course, I would expect the prosecutor to take the opposite view. He is on record now as having done so. Paragraph (3) (A) and (B) are also of interest. It states that “For purposes of this subsection the term “crime of violence” means an offense that is a felony and (a) has as an element, the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person or property of another, or (b) that by nature, involves a substantial risk that physical force against the person or property of another may be used in the course of committing “the offense”.
Paragraph (3) (B) allows the government to determine “substantial risk” subjectively, and so even in the face of a defendant’s record of non-violence, and even when the defendant has advised victims that no harm is intended repeatedly, the crime can be labeled “violent” and the 25-year penalty applied. Is this “right”? I don’t know. I’m probably the wrong person to ask. I do believe that right-thinking citizens should take a little time to contemplate this sort of thing, and decide whether it’s what should be part of sentencing criteria.
We’ve all heard that “ignorance of the law is not excuse”, haven’t we? But how do we reconcile that with the fact that very few common citizens in this country are aware of laws like “924C”, and how do laws that are essentially “invisible” serve as a deterrent to crime? Certainly a 40-year sentence such as I have received, which already is getting a lot of publicity, should serve as a deterrent. I hope so. Maybe in that way some good could come of it.
That’s probably more discourse on criminal law than most people will find interesting, but I feel strongly that sentencing should lie in the hands of our judges, acting in accord with Federal Guidelines, and not in the hands of prosecutors who way well have their own agendas. They appear to be after “wins” and reputations and career enhancement and justice may be suffering in the process.
The judge handed down the 40-year sentence with expressed regret, and went on to explain other punishment such as restitution of funds, etc. In this regard, she ruled identically with recommendations made by the Parole Officer who conducted the pre-sentence investigator. (The parole officer and the prosecutors seen to have an inordinate amount of power in the justice system as it exists today. Is this what citizens want?)
The judge adjourned the hearing. I shook hands with my attorney, who promised to file for an expedited appeal in the afternoon, turned and again was cuffed for transport back to the Christian County Jail. My thought on leaving the Federal Building was that it wouldn’t have taken a 40-year sentence to show me the error of my ways. It was day 496 of my incarceration. Lesson learned!
Since the sentencing, I’ve done some thinking and some writing. I’ve never been much of a philosopher, but I have started to examine some aspects of life that heretofore I paid little attention to. We take too much for granted, I think, and we place too much confidence in our systems and administrations. Even so, I still believe in the good of humanity and the fact that there is still true Justice- somewhere...        .
I did what I did during very dark period of my life. I have no good explanation as to why. It had to be a combination of things, I guess. It was an aberration in what had been a good life. There is no question that I deserve to be punished. My only complaint is with the harshness of the sentence. It exceeds even what has been given to multiple murderers. Why?

William A. Ginglen
January 1, 2006