Federal-State Sentence Interaction: Concurrent and Consecutive Sentences

When a defendant is sentenced for both state and federal crimes, things can get complicated. There are a few traps for the unwary, even when everyone (prosecutor, defendant, and judge) agrees on how the sentences will be served relative to one another.When a person faces two or more state sentences imposed at different times, the judge imposing the later sentence decides whether it runs concurrently with or consecutively to the previously imposed sentence. G.S. 15A-1354(a). A few statutes require new sentences to run consecutively to time already being served (for example habitual felon, habitual breaking and entering, and drug trafficking), but aside from those, the decision rests in the discretion of the judge conducting the later sentencing. If a judgment does not specify consecutive sentences, DACJJ will run them concurrently. Id. Federal law is similar, but not identical. Under 18 U.S.C. § 3584, when a defendant is facing multiple terms of imprisonment—either for multiple crimes being sentenced at the same time or for a defendant already subject to an undischarged term of imprisonment—the terms may run consecutively or concurrently. Multiple terms imposed at the same time run concurrently unless the judge or a statute requires otherwise, while terms imposed at different times run consecutively unless the court orders them to run concurrently. That’s all well and good when a person is being sentenced for multiple convictions in the same jurisdiction. But when you have a mix of state and federal sentences, additional considerations come into play. Here’s a typical fact pattern. [...]