I'm not sure I'd want to fly in a plane with flapping wings, but morphing surfaces might be a boost to these guys, who are working on ornithopters (and must be avid Frank Herbert fans). The video of their 1/4 proof of concept in flight is pretty interesting.
The 5 year and 3 year sentences are maximums set by Congress. A while back, Congress created the U.S. Sentencing Commission and laws that bound what a judge may do in a given case, based on the Commission's Guidelines. So, although a crime may be a 5 year felony, a judge can only sentence someone to 5 years if he meets the criteria set in the guidelines.
Congress was actually interested in pushing sentences up, because it wanted to appear tough on crime. Therefore, at the same time, it abolished parole for federal crimes. There is no parole for federal offenses, only a small amount of time off for good behavior, calculated through a formula.
The Guidelines end up working like Dungeon & Dragons. The crime has a base offense level, say 6. Then there are "enhancements" for various kinds of conduct. So, if you're caught (somehow) and used an innocent person's computer, you could get +4. If you use the word viagra, +1; if you misspell viagra, +2, etc. [Like, I'm wearing my leather armor, but my armor class is improved by 2 for my dexterity and 4 for my magic ring] See The Fraud Guidlines
A defendant also has a criminal history score, based on how many times he's been convicted before.
There's a table in the guidelines that cross-references offense level and criminal history to give a sentencing range in months. With a criminal history of I (they use roman numerals for the criminal history), you need an offense level of at least 11 to be certain of any actual jail time (because zone B sentences allow a convict to do "home detention"). See The Sentencing Table.
The thing is, I can't find what exactly the Commission has sent to Congress, i.e., the proposed offense levels and enhancements, so its hard to tell what the Commission has actually come up with. From what I can tell, they have decided to incorporate this offense into the the fraud guidelines. (according to this ZDnet story). The fraud guidelines are based on the amount lost and are notoriously squishy--because it is difficult to estimate exactly how much a given scheme cost.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not sure I'd want to fly in a plane with flapping wings, but morphing surfaces might be a boost to these guys, who are working on ornithopters (and must be avid Frank Herbert fans). The video of their 1/4 proof of concept in flight is pretty interesting.
The 5 year and 3 year sentences are maximums set by Congress. A while back, Congress created the U.S. Sentencing Commission and laws that bound what a judge may do in a given case, based on the Commission's Guidelines. So, although a crime may be a 5 year felony, a judge can only sentence someone to 5 years if he meets the criteria set in the guidelines.
Congress was actually interested in pushing sentences up, because it wanted to appear tough on crime. Therefore, at the same time, it abolished parole for federal crimes. There is no parole for federal offenses, only a small amount of time off for good behavior, calculated through a formula.
The Guidelines end up working like Dungeon & Dragons. The crime has a base offense level, say 6. Then there are "enhancements" for various kinds of conduct. So, if you're caught (somehow) and used an innocent person's computer, you could get +4. If you use the word viagra, +1; if you misspell viagra, +2, etc. [Like, I'm wearing my leather armor, but my armor class is improved by 2 for my dexterity and 4 for my magic ring] See The Fraud Guidlines
A defendant also has a criminal history score, based on how many times he's been convicted before.
There's a table in the guidelines that cross-references offense level and criminal history to give a sentencing range in months. With a criminal history of I (they use roman numerals for the criminal history), you need an offense level of at least 11 to be certain of any actual jail time (because zone B sentences allow a convict to do "home detention"). See The Sentencing Table.
The thing is, I can't find what exactly the Commission has sent to Congress, i.e., the proposed offense levels and enhancements, so its hard to tell what the Commission has actually come up with. From what I can tell, they have decided to incorporate this offense into the the fraud guidelines. (according to this ZDnet story). The fraud guidelines are based on the amount lost and are notoriously squishy--because it is difficult to estimate exactly how much a given scheme cost.