A few weeks after I got out of federal prison, I started showing up at sentencing hearings in downtown Los Angeles—not because I had to, but because I needed to learn what actually influenced judges.

I’d take my halfway house pass, toss a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, an apple, and a Coke in a brown paper bag, and go sit in the back row of a federal courtroom. No phone. No distractions. Just a legal pad and a pen.

I wasn’t there to watch lawyers. I was there to study defendants.

And one thing kept showing up, again and again.

🎯 When You Talk Like a Resume, Judges Tune Out

At one sentencing, a defendant stood in front of the judge and spent several minutes talking about his education, his career achievements, the nonprofit work he’d done, and the people he had helped. His message was basically:
“Don’t send me to prison—I’m doing too much good out here.”

Here’s the problem:
He never once talked about the victims.
Not once.

And you could see the judge’s posture shift—shoulders back, chin up, zero patience. Then he delivered the line I’ll never forget:

“I’m not sentencing your resume. I’m sentencing you. You broke the law. You hurt people. I’m going to hold you accountable. You’re going to prison.”

It didn’t matter how many degrees he had. It didn’t matter how many lives he claimed to have changed.
He skipped the one thing that mattered most: the harm he caused.

🚨 It’s a Red Flag to Ignore the Victims

I get it. No one wants to relive what they did wrong. You want to focus on the person you’ve become since the crime—especially if you’ve paid restitution or cooperated with the government. But skipping over the victims is a red flag to a federal judge.

And I’m not guessing—I’ve watched it happen, and I’ve seen the results.

Here’s how a judge sees it:

• If you don’t talk about the victims, you’re not accepting responsibility.
  
• If you center yourself in the story, you’re still minimizing.
  
• If you act like your resume should excuse your crime, you haven’t learned a thing.
  

That’s not leniency material. That’s someone who still doesn’t get it.

🧠 The Right Role: Lawyer Sells, Defendant Reflects

Here’s what that defendant should have done:
Let the lawyer talk about the resume. Let the lawyer pitch the cooperation, the repayment, the degrees, the community work.

That’s their job.

Your job is to reflect.
That means humility. It means deference. And it means naming the people who were harmed and showing the judge that you understand how your actions affected them.

I’ve helped people do this well. I’ve also seen people blow it—and the difference in sentencing outcomes is real.

📉 Real-World Example: Resume vs. Remorse

There was a healthcare fraud case I followed closely. Two defendants—similar charges, similar loss amounts. Both paid restitution. Both had support letters. One gave a statement focused on “how far he’d come.” The other talked about the trust he’d broken with patients, the emotional toll on his family, and how he would carry the shame for the rest of his life.

Same courtroom. Same judge.

One got 41 months.
The other got 24.

Guess which one skipped the victims?

💬 What Judges Actually Want to Hear

Judges aren’t expecting perfect words. But they are expecting real ones. They want to see that you’ve done the hard work—emotionally, not just legally.

Here’s what matters in a personal statement:

• Acknowledge the victims by name or category
  
• Be specific about the harm you caused
  
• Show what you’ve learned from the experience
  
• Explain how you’ll avoid ever going back there again
  
• Don’t try to convince them you’re a good person—show them you understand what happened
  

Skip all that, and the sentencing becomes much simpler for the judge:
You’re still justifying.
You’re still in denial.
You’re still a risk.

🛑 The Resume Pitch Is a Losing Strategy

If you’re preparing for sentencing, take a step back. Look at your statement. If it reads like a LinkedIn profile or a press release, you’re in trouble.

The judge doesn’t care how impressive you were.
They care what you did—and what you’ve learned from it.

You don’t have to be perfect. But you have to be honest. And that starts with putting the victims front and center.

Justin Paperny

P.S. If this resonates, join our team this Monday at 1 p.m. Pacific, 4 p.m. Eastern. We host a free webinar to answer questions, share lessons from real cases, and help you avoid the most costly mistakes people make during a government investigation. Bring questions. Come ready to learn.