D.C. case’s disparity in sentences sheds light on federal judges’ discretion

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Washington Times:

After he admitted shooting and killing a 24-year-old D.C. man, Dominic Samuels received a sentence of seven years in prison.

After his conviction for a $600, half-ounce cocaine deal, Antwaun Ball got a sentence of 18 years in prison.

Samuels and Ball were sentenced in the same federal courthouse in Washington. They stood before the same judge. They were co-defendants in the same trial.

But their vastly different punishments provide a stark reminder of just how much discretion federal judges have at sentencing. The outcomes also shed light on a controversial but perfectly legal practice that lets judges mete out tougher sentences based on conduct that jurors rejected at trial.

“There is absolutely no doubt that defendants who plead guilty get a benefit from prosecutors and the judge, but it does seem pretty dramatic here,” said Doug Berman, a sentencing analyst and law professor at Ohio State University.

**FILE** Violet Ball-Lee holds a portrait of her son, Antwaun Ball, at her D.C. home in 2008. (Rod Lamkey Jr./The Washington Times)
Prosecutors charged Ball and Samuels in what they termed a violent conspiracy to deal crack cocaine in the Congress Park neighborhood of Southeast Washington. Ball and Samuels were among six defendants tried in 2007 before U.S. District Judge Richard W. Roberts.