Legal Question in Criminal Law in Virginia

myson is in a Va. prison for the first time. He has been in the county jail on several occasions but has never had a weapons charge or hurt anyone. He used his girlfriends credit card and charged $400.00 and entered a unsecured chicken house used for storage and took a generator off a trash pile that the court valued at $10.00. The min sentence guidelines were 11 months and the max guidelines were 2 years and 7 months. He had been approved for a s/a program but the judge went over the guidelines and gave him 31 years and suspended all but 8 years. It was very clear that the judge was sentencing him for child support and not the crimes he was being sentenced for. He had been taken into court for child support while he was waiting to be tried for the credit cards and the chicken house and that judge gave him 90 after he got out not having any idea the judge would give him that kind of sentence. His lawyers were court appointed, shouldnt they have appealed a sentence that went that far over the guidelines. They advised him to plead guilty, which he was, but 31 years for a non violent crime sound like to much to me. Thanks for your opinion.

Asked on 1/13/10, 5:17 pm

2 Answers from Attorneys

Michael Hendrickson Law Office Michael E. Hendrickson

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Yes, from your account of the matter, something might be amiss with the judge's sentence as described, and therefore you might want to have an independent criminal defense counsel review the pertinent documents and facts associated with this particular imposition of sentence and advise you, accordingly.

Answered on 1/18/10, 8:38 pm

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