Sentence (law)

In criminal law, a sentence is the punishment a trial court orders after someone is found guilty, typically at the end of a trial. This punishment can include prison time, a fine, or other penalties. When someone is convicted of multiple crimes, the sentences can be structured in different ways: concurrent sentences are served all at once, while consecutive sentences are stacked, meaning the total prison time equals the sum of each individual sentence. Other sentence types include intermediate sentences, which allow an inmate to be free for about eight hours a day for work; determinate sentences, which are fixed to a specific number of days, months, or years; and indeterminate or bifurcated sentences, which require a minimum period served in an institution like prison, followed by a period of parole, supervised release, or probation until the full sentence is complete.

If a sentence is made less severe, it is said to be mitigated or commuted. In rare cases, murder charges can be mitigated and reduced to manslaughter. However, in some legal systems, a defendant may face punishment beyond the official sentence, such as social stigma, loss of government benefits, or other collateral consequences of a criminal record.

Statutes usually set the maximum penalties for specific offenses, and sentencing guidelines often establish the minimum and maximum prison terms a court can impose, leaving the exact sentence to the judge’s discretion. But in some jurisdictions, prosecutors have significant influence over the actual punishment because they decide what charges to file and what facts to prove or ask the defendant to agree to in a plea deal. It has been argued that legislators have an incentive to create tougher sentences than they might personally want for typical defendants, since they know they would be blamed for a weak sentencing range in a particularly bad case, while prosecutors would be blamed for overly harsh punishments.

Sentencing law sometimes includes cliffs that trigger much stiffer penalties when certain facts apply. For example, an armed career criminal or habitual offender law can greatly increase a sentence if a defendant commits a third offense of a specific type. This makes it hard to achieve fine gradations in punishment.

The earliest use of the term "sentence" in this sense comes from Roman law, where it referred to a jurist’s opinion on a legal question, expressed in written or oral responses. It could also mean the opinion of senators that became a senatus consultus, or the decision of a judge in civil or criminal trials, as well as the decision of arbitrators. In modern Latin legal systems, a sentence is mainly the final act of any procedure where a judge or panel of judges is asked to give an evaluation. It can therefore appear in nearly any area of law that requires a judge or judging body to assess something.

Sentences are classified in various ways: by the legal field (civil, penal, administrative, canon); by type (mere clearance, condemnation, constitution); by the issuing body (a single judge, a court, or other figures authorized by the system); by jurisdiction and legal competence (single judges, courts, tribunals, appeals, supreme courts, constitutional courts, representing different levels of judgment and appeal); and by content (partial, cautelar, interlocutory, preliminary, definitive). They are also classified by the penalty: sentences of reclusion, sentences of a fee, and sententia agendi, which imposes a specific action or series of actions as a penalty. This last type became more developed and remained more common in common law systems.

The sentence given depends on the philosophical principle the court follows and what the legal system sees as the purpose of punishment. The most common purposes are retribution, deterrence (of the individual or others), denunciation, incapacitation, rehabilitation, and reparation. In England and Wales, section 142 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 states that for offenders over 18, courts must consider punishment, retribution, deterrence, reform and rehabilitation, protection of the public, and reparation to those affected by the crime.

Usually, the sentence comes at the end of a process where the judge or judges have been able to evaluate whether the conduct in question complies with the law and which specific laws were broken. Depending on the jurisdiction, the steps leading to the sentence can vary, and both parties may challenge the sentence up to a certain level of appeal. If appealed, the sentence from the highest appellate court that hears the case becomes the definitive sentence. The sentence generally must be announced publicly, and in most jurisdictions, it must be justified with an explanation of the legal reasoning behind it. Even a definitive sentence can be overturned in exceptional circumstances, usually predetermined within that jurisdiction, most often due to irregularities found in the judicial process afterward.