![]() Another example of good character may reveal how the defendant volunteered with vulnerable populations, like the elderly or at-risk children. For example, the writer may recall when he saw the defendant tutoring others so they could advance their career. If the writer has known the defendant for decades, the writer may share personal stories or experiences. Ideally, the writer should express how he or she knows the defendant. Good character reference letters help the judge understand the defendant as an individual. There isn’t any need to write about the crime, and there isn’t any need to write about the sentence. That person should write about what he has seen, or what he knows about the defendant. He would rather hear from a janitor or a street sweeper who speaks about knowing the defendant for 10 years. As Judge Bennett said, he wants to hear about the defendant’s character. ![]() When character reference letters avoid the flaws above, they go a long ways toward improving the outcomes for a defendant at sentencing. Never submit character reference letters that tell the judge how to do his or her job, by recommending an appropriate sentence.Form or template letters may do more harm than good.Letters from high-status people fail unless writer truly speaks about the defendant’s character.Submitting more letters than necessary does not always help.When thinking about character reference letters, start from the premise of what to avoid: Those people do not know all of the facts of the case, the law, or what constitutes an appropriate sentence. Likewise, judges do not want friends and family members telling him about an appropriate sentence. Many judges have resisted the federal sentencing guidelines because they believed that Congress should not influence a sentence length, because members of Congress do not know the facts about an individual defendant. Judges do not want anyone to tell them how to do their jobs. The worst character reference letters imply an appropriate sentence length. All too often, he said, people of high stature may write character reference letters out of a sense of obligation, but not because they know anything about the defendant. Yet Judge Bennett said that he doesn’t pay any attention to letters from “senators” or so forth unless there is truth. ![]() Judges also reject an amateurish strategy that many defendants try: they seek character reference letters from people of high status. ![]() He dismissed those letters as being insincere, which did not help the defendant get the outcome he desired. As a consequence, the judge received scores of character reference letters that had the same phrasing. Many of the people that received the template followed it verbatim. He tells a story about the wife of a defendant who sent out a template on ideal character reference letters. All of them, it would seem, consider character reference letters as a useful resource when deliberating over the appropriate sentence.īefore thinking about a strategy on character reference letters, I encourage readers to watch the excerpt from the interview I conducted with Judge Bennett. In the findings published in the Alabama Law Journal that described Judges’ Views on Allocution in Sentencing, he spoke about what he learned from a survey he distributed to more than 900 federal judges. He spoke about one defendant who submitted 100 character reference letters.Įlsewhere, I wrote about the study on allocution that Judge Bennett orchestrated. On average, Judge Bennett said that defendants submit between seven and nine character reference letters. He based his estimate on the fact that he has sentenced more than 4,000 people. Judge Bennett said that he has read somewhere between 30,000 and 40,000 character reference letters. In the fall of 2016, I interviewed Judge Mark Bennett and he spoke specifically about Character Reference Letters. Scroll to the bottom of the PrisonProfessors Resources Page.) You will find many free resources to help you prepare. But what makes a good character reference letter for the court? Besides reading this article, Every defendant has an opportunity to submit character reference letters that may make an impression on the judge. Thinking through an effective sentencing strategy includes thoughts about the character reference letters. Character Reference Letters and Their Influence at Sentencing
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