Template:United States Sentencing Guidelines/doc

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 1^st 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.

Usage

General usage

{{ussg|2G2.2}}   →   U.S.S.G. § 2G2.2 (2012)

{{ussg|2a1.4|a|2|b|year=2009}}   →   U.S.S.G. § 2A1.4(a)(2)(B) (2009)

where |year= any year from 2005 through 2012 (inclusive).

2012 is the default edition used by this template. Note that the Sentencing Commission's website has yet to standardize the directory structures of its archives. Therefore, specifying a year that lies outside of the above range is not likely to produce a valid link – any such use is at your own risk, and you are responsible to test the validity of the generated links!

Linking to a sentencing table

When a link to the Sentencing Table itself is desired, special syntax must be used, depending on the desired year (an intended future enhancement is to "hide" this complexity in the template's logic, but we're not there yet). Capitalization doesn't matter, but otherwise the entry must look as follows:

For the current year's Sentencing Table:

{{ussg|5a.SenTab}}   →   U.S.S.G. § 5A.SenTab (2012)

For 2008–2011 Sentencing Tables:

{{ussg|5a.SenTab|year=2011}}   →   U.S.S.G. § 5A.SenTab (2011)

For 2005–2007 Sentencing Tables:

{{ussg|5a|year=2007}}   →   U.S.S.G. § 5A (2007)

More examples

You enter	Template returns	Notes
{{USSG|2a1.4}}	U.S.S.G. § 2A1.4 (2012)
{{USSG|2a1.4|year=2010}}	U.S.S.G. § 2A1.4 (2010)	2010 version of the above.
{{USSG|2a1.4|a|2|b}}	U.S.S.G. § 2A1.4(a)(2)(B) (2012)	Up to 7 levels of "sub".
{{USSG|2a1.4|a|2|b|year=2008}}	U.S.S.G. § 2A1.4(a)(2)(B) (2008)	2008 version of the above.
{{USSG|5a.SenTab}}	U.S.S.G. § 5A.SenTab (2012)	2012 Sentencing Table.
{{USSG|5a.SenTab|year=2011}}	U.S.S.G. § 5A.SenTab (2011)	2011 Sentencing Table.
{{USSG|5a.SenTab|year=2008}}	U.S.S.G. § 5A.SenTab (2008)	2008 Sentencing Table.
{{USSG|5a|year=2007}}	U.S.S.G. § 5A (2007)	2007 Sentencing Table.
{{USSG|5a|year=2005}}	U.S.S.G. § 5A (2005)	2005 Sentencing Table.
{{USSG|2a1.4 |a |2 |b }}	U.S.S.G. § 2A1.4(a)(2)(B) (2012)	Spaces don't matter.

Planned enhancements

1. Create a |sentab=y option, to make it easy to cite any given year's Sentencing Table
2. Create a |full=y option, to generate a "full citation" more suitable for reference lists. Such a reference might look like:
   

United States Sentencing Commission (November 2012). Guidelines Manual. "§3E1.1".

See also

• Template:USSGSub — Another way to access the U.S.S.G. (not as up-to-date as this template, at present)

List of all United States legal citation templates

These templates are for citing U.S. codes and laws. To cite court cases, use {{Cite court}}, or, for the U.S. Supreme Court, use {{Ussc}}.

Parameters in (parentheses) are optional.

Template(s)	Parameter(s)					Description
	1	2	3	4	pipe
{{United States Code}}, {{USC}}	Title	Section	(end of section range)		(pipe)	United States Code (USC) via Cornell University's Legal Information Institute
{{United States Code with description}}, {{USC2}}	Title	Section	Description			USC via Cornell: description of the section
{{United States Code section}}, {{USCSec}}	Title	Section			(pipe)	USC via Cornell: when citing one of a series of USC sections, where it would be redundant to display the full citation for each section, this template can be used to display only the section number.
{{United States Code subsection}}, {{USCSub}}	Title	Section	Up to 6 levels of "sub"			Access to subsection/paragraph/subparagraph/clause/... to allow correct hyperlinking to the anchors embedded in the Cornell pages.
{{USCSub2}}	Title	Section	Up to 6 levels of "sub"			Combines {{USCSec}} and {{USCSub}}, eliminating redundancy when citing subsections / subparagraphs / &c.
{{United States Code clause}}, {{USCClause}}	Title	Section	Clause			USC via Cornell: allows clauses
{{Usc-title-chap}}, {{usctc}}	Title	Chapter	(Subchapter)		(pipe)	USC via Cornell: title/chapter links.
{{USIRC}}	Section					Internal Revenue Code {{UnitedStatesCode}}
{{USStat}}	Volume	Page				Statutes at Large via the Library of Congress, the Government Publishing Office, or Google Books
{{USPL}}	Congress	Ordinal law	(Description)			Public Law via GPO govinfo and https://uslaw.link/
{{USStatute}}	Congress	Ordinal law	(Volume)	(Page)		Combines {{USPL}} and {{USStat}}, optional Year ({{{5}}}), Month ({{{6}}}), Day ({{{7}}}), optional {{USBill}}: (Bill type ({{{8}}}) and number ({{{9}}}))
{{USBill}}	Congress	Bill type (S, SJ, HR, HJ)	Bill number (1-?)		(pipe)	Congressional bills via Congress.gov
{{US House Vote}}, {{USHVote}}	Year	Vote				House roll-call vote via Clerk.House.gov
{{US Senate Vote}}, {{USSVote}}	Congress	Session	Vote			Senate roll-call vote via Senate.gov
{{USCongRec}}	Year	Page	(date)			Congressional Record via GPO FDsys
{{Federal Register}}, {{USFR}}	Volume	Page				Federal Register via GPO FDsys
{{Code of Federal Regulations}}, {{CodeFedReg}}, {{USCFR}}	Volume	Part	Section	(Clause)		Code of Federal Regulations via GPO FDsys
{{Executive Order}}	Number					Executive orders via Wikisource
{{USTreaty}}	Congress	Treaty number				Treaties
{{United States Sentencing Guidelines}}, {{USSG}}	ChapterSection	Up to 7 levels of "sub"		(year)		Latest U.S. Federal Sentencing Guidelines (effective Nov. 1, 2012) via the U.S. Sentencing Commission website. Optional |year= references specific Guidelines applicable to a sentence imposed on or after Nov. 1st of that given year.
{{Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure}}, {{frcrp}}	Chapter					Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure (current) via Cornell University's Legal Information Institute
{{Federal Rules of Civil Procedure}}, {{frcp}}	Rule					Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (current) via courtrules.net
{{Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure}}, {{frbp}}	Rule					Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure (current) via courtrules.net
{{frap}}	Rule					Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure (current) via Cornell University's Legal Information Institute
{{Federal Rules of Evidence}}, {{fre}}	Rule					Federal Rules of Evidence (current) via courtrules.net
Template(s)	1	2	3	4	pipe	Description
	Parameter(s)