Loudoun County Judges Are Sentencing Above Virginia Guidelines – And Attorney Sheldon Has Warned About This for Years

The data comes directly from the Virginia Criminal Sentencing Commission, and the pattern it reveals is striking, and deeply consequential for anyone who has been sentenced in Loudoun County.

What the New Data Shows

According to the Loudoun Times-Mirror‘s May 2026 report, Loudoun Circuit Court judges handled 247 cases in the 2024–25 fiscal year. Across those cases, they sentenced above Virginia’s recommended guidelines at a higher rate, and below guidelines at a noticeably lower rate, than both the statewide average and their counterparts in neighboring jurisdictions.

The report names the judges of Loudoun’s 20th Judicial Circuit directly: Chief Judge Douglas L. Fleming Jr., Judge James P. Fisher, Judge James E. Plowman Jr., Judge Stephen E. Sincavage, and Judge Matthew Parke Snow.

The disparity is not subtle, and it is not random. It is a documented, statistically observable pattern backed by official Commission data.

How Loudoun Compares to Neighboring Jurisdictions

The Virginia Criminal Sentencing Commission’s annual compliance report tracks guideline compliance across all Virginia circuits. Here is how Loudoun’s sentencing practices compare to its Northern Virginia neighbors:

Source: Virginia Criminal Sentencing Commission, as reported by Loudoun Times-Mirror (May 2026)

What stands out immediately: Fairfax County judges sentence below guidelines nearly a third of the time, exercising meaningful downward discretion. Loudoun judges do so far less frequently, while going above guidelines far more often. For a defendant in Loudoun County facing the same charge, with the same criminal history, the sentencing outcome can look dramatically different than it would in a courthouse 20 miles away.

What Are Virginia Sentencing Guidelines?

Virginia’s sentencing guidelines are evidence-based recommendations developed by the Virginia Criminal Sentencing Commission. They are calculated for each individual defendant based on the nature of the offense, criminal history, and other relevant factors, and they are designed to promote consistency, fairness, and proportionality in sentencing across the Commonwealth.

Judges are not legally required to follow the guidelines. Virginia law permits judges to sentence above or below the recommended range, provided they explain the reason in writing when they do so. The guidelines exist precisely because the alternative, unchecked individual judicial discretion, historically produced wildly inconsistent outcomes depending on which courthouse a defendant happened to appear in.

When judges consistently go above guidelines without adequate explanation, it raises a serious question: what is actually driving the sentence?

Attorney Sheldon Has Documented This Pattern for Years

This data is not news to Jonathan Sheldon of Sheldon & Flood, PLC. For years, Attorney Sheldon has been collecting evidence, analyzing sentencing data, and raising alarms about unwarranted sentencing disparities from certain Northern Virginia judges and jurisdictions.

His conclusion, drawn from years of case experience and careful observation: the judges’ explanations, and more often their lack of any explanation, simply do not add up. When the patterns are this consistent and this persistent across a circuit, the only reasonable explanation is not the nature of the crimes or the defendants themselves. It is the individual characteristics and tendencies of the judges who are imposing the sentences.

The Loudoun Times-Mirror report validates what Attorney Sheldon’s clients have experienced firsthand. It names the judges. It cites the official data. It places Loudoun’s sentencing culture under a public spotlight that has long been overdue.

The Human Cost of Above-Guidelines Sentencing

Behind every data point is a person. The Loudoun Times-Mirror report opens with Amara Janae Stewart, a woman dealing with bipolar disorder, fentanyl addiction, and the fear of homelessness who became involved in a fentanyl ring. She was sentenced above Virginia’s recommended guidelines by a Loudoun judge.

Her case is not an isolated exception. It is a reflection of a broader pattern in which defendants, many of them dealing with mental health issues, addiction, trauma, or poverty, appear before Loudoun judges and receive sentences that exceed what Virginia’s own guidelines say is proportionate.

The question of whether those sentences are explained, justified, and proportionate is not academic. For the person serving an extra five or ten years above the guideline recommendation, it is the difference between being home with their family or not.

What This Means If You Were Sentenced in Loudoun County

If you or a loved one was sentenced in Loudoun County Circuit Court and the sentence appeared excessive, particularly if it was above Virginia’s sentencing guidelines, there are concrete legal options worth exploring:

• Motion to Modify Sentence: Virginia law allows a circuit court to modify a sentence under certain circumstances, particularly within the first 21 days after sentencing. In some cases, longer post-conviction remedies may apply.
• Criminal Appeal: If there were errors in how the sentencing hearing was conducted, in the evidence considered, or in the legal standards applied, an appeal may be available. Under Virginia Code § 19.2-317, a defendant may appeal a final judgment of conviction.
• Habeas Corpus: If your sentencing counsel failed to adequately investigate and present mitigating evidence, including mental health history, substance abuse treatment needs, trauma, family history, or medical conditions, a habeas petition based on ineffective assistance of counsel under Strickland v. Washington may provide a path to resentencing.
• Other Post-Conviction Remedies: In limited circumstances, Virginia post-conviction law provides additional mechanisms – including writs of coram nobis – to challenge the fundamental fairness of a sentence.

The starting point is always the same: a careful, experienced review of the sentencing record, the guidelines calculation, the judge’s written (or absent) explanation for departing upward, and the quality of representation at sentencing.