NEW FACTORS TO HELP JUDGES DETERMINE LENIENCY

New rules will make it easier for federal judges to consider criminal
defendants' military service, age, and mental and emotional
conditions in determining more lenient prison sentences, a federal
agency announced on Friday. Defense lawyers and some judges cheered
the move by the U.S. Sentencing Commission, which develops advisory
guidelines that most federal judges use to calculate sentences.

The commission had been considering updating the rules. As a result
of the changes, which takes effect on Nov. 1, some defendants could
receive a reduction of several months or several years, said Mauro
Wolfe, a former federal prosecutor who is now a defense attorney in
New York. "Judges will start paying more attention to this around the
country," said John Kane, a federal judge in Denver. Mr. Kane
recently gave a sentence of probation, rather than prison, to an Iraq
war veteran. Previously the sentencing commission said factors such
as age and military service "are not ordinarily relevant in
determining" whether a lower sentence is warranted.

Congress, which oversees the sentencing commission, is unlikely to
block the changes before they take effect, said Doug Berman, a law
professor at Ohio State University.

Mr. Berman said the changes announced Friday were significant because
historically the vast majority of guidelines amendments by the
commission have called for increases, not decreases, in sentence
length. The new rules potentially reduce the prison sentence for some
defendants with recent criminal history.

Separately, they allow judges to send certain nonviolent drug
offenders to treatment programs rather than prison. There has been a
judicial movement toward more-lenient sentencing for certain types of
defendants in recent years.

For example, a growing number of federal judges have given breaks to
individuals convicted of viewing child pornography but who aren't
themselves molesters, according to recent data. As more military
veterans return from Iraq and Afghanistan and have developed
behavioral problems, some judges started taking their military
service into account when deciding on prison time.

Some federal judges also give credit for charitable giving and other
good deeds. However, the commission on Friday didn't budge on its
stance that judges generally shouldn't take into consideration such
acts. In the 1980s, Congress called for uniform sentencing guidelines
so that defendants' fates wouldn't be subject largely to the whims of
individual judges. The guidelines were mandatory until Supreme Court
rulings in 2005 and 2007 effectively made them advisory.

In 2009, about 57% of the sentences handed down in more than 81,000
federal criminal cases were within the range recommended by the
guidelines, according to commission data.