Noticing the interesting (but perhaps not too consequential) guidelines "loss" issue lurking in the college bribery cases

This Wall Street Journal piece, headlined "Weighing the Sentencing of Parents in the College-Admissions Cheating Scheme," effectively covers the high-profile hearing yesterday that focused on whether defendants in the college admission scandal cases have produced "loss" in the technical parlance of the guideline sentencing world.  Here are excerpts:

A federal judge prolonged the suspense Tuesday over whether parents who have admitted to cheating to get their children into college will serve time in jail, deciding not to rule following a hearing on sentencing guidelines.

In a packed courtroom, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani heard arguments in a legal debate that has pitted federal authorities against one another in the high-profile college admissions case.

Federal probation officials have pegged sentencing guidelines for the parents at zero to six months — a range often resulting in probation — finding there was no direct financial loss to any victims. Prosecutors are arguing that some prison time is the way to send a strong message that admission spots at prestigious U.S. universities can’t be bought and have proposed ways of calculating loss.

The government is asking for one to 15 months of imprisonment for the 11 parents set to be sentenced in the coming weeks, including actress Felicity Huffman on Friday. “This was a massive nationwide fraud case fueled through bribery, fraud and corruption,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Rosen told the judge....

In a sign of what’s at stake — prison time or none — defense lawyers for the 15 parents who have pleaded guilty and for the 19 who haven’t admitted guilt filled the gallery of Courtroom Nine, spilling into the empty jury box. Other lawyers dialed into a conference line, though none spoke during the hearing.

A more lenient ruling by the judge could prompt more parents to plead guilty, defense lawyers said, while others might decide to try to clear their names at trial, figuring a light punishment is the worst outcome.

Judge Talwani gave no clear sign of how she’ll rule, but she didn’t reschedule Ms. Huffman’s sentencing currently on the calendar for Friday, suggesting a decision could come soon. She asked a series of often technical questions and indicated that a public airing of the legal dispute was a good thing.

Tuesday’s hearing represented a public clash that has dogged the largest college-admissions scandal ever prosecuted by the Justice Department: Who are the financial victims, and how should the length of any prison terms be decided?

Determining appropriate punishments is complex. Sentencing in federal fraud cases are typically calculated based on direct financial impact, either as loss for the victim or gain for the perpetrator. In plea agreements, the government considered the amounts parents paid to admitted scheme mastermind William “Rick” Singer as a proxy for loss, while also taking into account factors such as how actively parents participated or involved their children.

That means prosecutors are recommending one month of incarceration for Ms. Huffman, a sentence at the low end of the zero-to-six-month range. The “Desperate Housewives” and “American Crime” actress has admitted to paying Mr. Singer $15,000 to fix her daughter’s SAT score. But they are asking for substantially more prison time for some other parents, based on the amounts they admitted to shelling out to Mr. Singer.

Prosecutors say victims include the affected colleges, including the University of Southern California and Georgetown University, and standardized testing agencies. Colleges have been sued, have had to revamp policies and conduct costly internal investigations, they said. “All these events I talked about cost money,” Mr. Rosen said. “Money that came out of the victims’ pockets.”

Probation officials, who prepare influential sentencing recommendations for the court, have so far found that the parents’ conduct caused no clear pecuniary harm, according to a recent memo filed by Mr. Rosen.  In a filing Monday, the lawyer for one parent who has pleaded guilty called the losses alleged by the government either nonexistent or speculative.

I suggest in the title of this post that a ruling on this "loss" matter might not be too consequential for a couple of reasons: (1) for certain defendants, the loss determination may not considerably alter the applicable guideline sentencing range, and (2) Judge Talwani can surely justify above- or below-guidelines sentences in these cases on any number of reasonable 3553(a) sentencing grounds no matter what the final calculated range.  That said, all federal sentencing practitioners know that calculated guidelines ranges still have an important anchoring effect on the work of judges, and so it is not at all surprising that a whole lot of defense lawyers are interested in not losing this "loss" matter.

Prior related posts:

• Mapping out next possible celebrity sentencings in wake of indictment in college admissions scandal 
• Big batch of federal plea deals (with relatively low sentencing ranges) in college admissions scandal
• Summer sentencing (with notable particulars) for first college admission scandal parents to enter pleas in court
• Federal district judge rejects feds request for significant prison term in first sentencing of college bribery scandal
• Gearing up for the federal sentencing of Felicity Huffman and others involved in college bribery scandal 
• Feds recommending incarceration terms from 1 to 15 months for parents involved college bribery scandal