A Meaningless Relationship: The Fifth Circuit\u27s Use of Dismissed and Uncharged Conduct under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines Recent Development.

The Fifth Circuit’s failure to require the uncharged conduct to have a meaningful relationship with the conduct of conviction is flawed. An amendment of section 5K2.21 specifically approved the consideration of uncharged or dismissed offenses to serve as a basis for an upward departure to reflect the actual seriousness of the offense. Confusion amongst federal circuit courts of appeal arose as to whether such conduct included uncharged or dismissed criminal offenses. Interpreting the amendment’s language has caused a circuit split. The Fifth Circuit erroneously interpreted section 5K2.21 as to require nothing more than a “remote connection” between the uncharged crime and the underlying conviction. Nevertheless, case law, textual support and policy commentary from the Guidelines, as well as persuasive authority from sister circuits, imply that a more stringent “meaningful connection” standard is required. The United States Sentencing Commission Guidelines Manual (the “Guidelines”) was established to implement structure and predictability into the punishment phase of a criminal trial. Its ultimate goal is to provide a sentencing court a range to punish convicted defendants consistently, while ensuring the court retains enough discretion to craft a sentence that reflects the actual seriousness of the offense. Recently, the United States Supreme Court held that although the Guidelines are no longer mandatory, they should be given serious consideration and departures from the Guidelines range of sentencing must be clearly explained and accompanied with serious justifications. The Guidelines allow a sentencing court to consider evidence and conduct other than that used at trial in order to determine whether a departure from the applicable Guidelines range is appropriate. Nevertheless, sentences that depart from the Guidelines based on conduct that is remotely related to the conviction offense is an erroneous interpretation that should be rejected by courts

A Meaningless Relationship: The Fifth Circuit\u27s Use of Dismissed and Uncharged Conduct under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines Recent Development.

The Fifth Circuit’s failure to require the uncharged conduct to have a meaningful relationship with the conduct of conviction is flawed. An amendment of section 5K2.21 specifically approved the consideration of uncharged or dismissed offenses to serve as a basis for an upward departure to reflect the actual seriousness of the offense. Confusion amongst federal circuit courts of appeal arose as to whether such conduct included uncharged or dismissed criminal offenses. Interpreting the amendment’s language has caused a circuit split. The Fifth Circuit erroneously interpreted section 5K2.21 as to require nothing more than a “remote connection” between the uncharged crime and the underlying conviction. Nevertheless, case law, textual support and policy commentary from the Guidelines, as well as persuasive authority from sister circuits, imply that a more stringent “meaningful connection” standard is required. The United States Sentencing Commission Guidelines Manual (the “Guidelines”) was established to implement structure and predictability into the punishment phase of a criminal trial. Its ultimate goal is to provide a sentencing court a range to punish convicted defendants consistently, while ensuring the court retains enough discretion to craft a sentence that reflects the actual seriousness of the offense. Recently, the United States Supreme Court held that although the Guidelines are no longer mandatory, they should be given serious consideration and departures from the Guidelines range of sentencing must be clearly explained and accompanied with serious justifications. The Guidelines allow a sentencing court to consider evidence and conduct other than that used at trial in order to determine whether a departure from the applicable Guidelines range is appropriate. Nevertheless, sentences that depart from the Guidelines based on conduct that is remotely related to the conviction offense is an erroneous interpretation that should be rejected by courts

Search for eccentric black hole coalescences during the third observing run of LIGO and Virgo

Despite the growing number of confident binary black hole coalescences observed through gravitational waves so far, the astrophysical origin of these binaries remains uncertain. Orbital eccentricity is one of the clearest tracers of binary formation channels. Identifying binary eccentricity, however, remains challenging due to the limited availability of gravitational waveforms that include effects of eccentricity. Here, we present observational results for a waveform-independent search sensitive to eccentric black hole coalescences, covering the third observing run (O3) of the LIGO and Virgo detectors. We identified no new high-significance candidates beyond those that were already identified with searches focusing on quasi-circular binaries. We determine the sensitivity of our search to high-mass (total mass M>70 M⊙) binaries covering eccentricities up to 0.3 at 15 Hz orbital frequency, and use this to compare model predictions to search results. Assuming all detections are indeed quasi-circular, for our fiducial population model, we place an upper limit for the merger rate density of high-mass binaries with eccentricities 0<e≤0.3 at 0.33 Gpc−3 yr−1 at 90\% confidence level

Ultralight vector dark matter search using data from the KAGRA O3GK run

Among the various candidates for dark matter (DM), ultralight vector DM can be probed by laser interferometric gravitational wave detectors through the measurement of oscillating length changes in the arm cavities. In this context, KAGRA has a unique feature due to differing compositions of its mirrors, enhancing the signal of vector DM in the length change in the auxiliary channels. Here we present the result of a search for U(1)B−L gauge boson DM using the KAGRA data from auxiliary length channels during the first joint observation run together with GEO600. By applying our search pipeline, which takes into account the stochastic nature of ultralight DM, upper bounds on the coupling strength between the U(1)B−L gauge boson and ordinary matter are obtained for a range of DM masses. While our constraints are less stringent than those derived from previous experiments, this study demonstrates the applicability of our method to the lower-mass vector DM search, which is made difficult in this measurement by the short observation time compared to the auto-correlation time scale of DM

Development of the CMS detector for the CERN LHC Run 3

Since the initial data taking of the CERN LHC, the CMS experiment has undergone substantial upgrades and improvements. This paper discusses the CMS detector as it is configured for the third data-taking period of the CERN LHC, Run 3, which started in 2022. The entire silicon pixel tracking detector was replaced. A new powering system for the superconducting solenoid was installed. The electronics of the hadron calorimeter was upgraded. All the muon electronic systems were upgraded, and new muon detector stations were added, including a gas electron multiplier detector. The precision proton spectrometer was upgraded. The dedicated luminosity detectors and the beam loss monitor were refurbished. Substantial improvements to the trigger, data acquisition, software, and computing systems were also implemented, including a new hybrid CPU/GPU farm for the high-level trigger.LPHE-L