Sentencings

Defendants indicted after enactment of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines in 1987 began appearing for sentencings in the late 1980s, early 1990s, coincident with Ms. Cahill's two-year U.S. District Court clerkship from 1990 to 1992.  As a result, she was steeped in the guidelines from the beginning of her career.   In private practice, Ms. Cahill has represented clients at sentencings in the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York and the District of Kansas — including cooperating defendants but also defendants who entered guilty pleas or were convicted after trial.   These included a former senior corporate executive who was facing life exposure under the Probation Department’s Guidelines calculation, and who was sentenced to 15 years based on her written and oral arguments. 

Ms. Cahill has successfully argued for variances and downward departures under the Guidelines.  She successfully opposed a major international financial institution’s effort to double a restitution order.   She succeeded in obtaining a change in a BOP designation order.   She has written numerous sentencing memoranda and generated countless guidelines calculation estimates, both pre- and post-Booker.