 | This is a documentation subpage for Template:United States Sentencing Guidelines. It may contain usage information, categories and other content that is not part of the original template page. |
This template is used to cite the U.S. Federal Sentencing Guidelines inline. It provides an external web link directly to a specified page within the Guidelines Manual, located on the website of the United States Sentencing Commission (http://www.ussc.gov). The latest edition supported by this template is the 2012 Guidelines Manual, effective as of November 1, 2012.
Optionally, the year of a previous edition may be specified instead, when one wants to cite the Sentencing Guidelines that were in effect on a given date. Each year's edition becomes effective on November 1st of the specified year. Generally, a court "shall use the Guidelines Manual in effect on the date that the defendant is sentenced" (see U.S.S.G. § 1B1.11(a) (2012)). The exception to this rule occurs when the court determines that such use would violate the ex post facto clause of the Constitution – in other words, if the sentencing guidelines have changed so as to increase the penalty "after the fact", so that the sentence is more severe on the sentencing date than was established on the date that the offense was committed. In that event, "the court shall use the Guidelines Manual in effect on the date that the offense of conviction was committed" (see U.S.S.G. § 1B1.11(b) (2012)).
This template links to external sites. External links should not normally be used in the body of an article; see Wikipedia:External links for discussion of acceptable and unacceptable uses.