Felder pleaded guilty to an armed robbery, which carries a maximum 25-year prison term. But in federal court, judges consider far more than the crime at hand when deciding a sentence.

A U.S. Supreme Court decision last month has raised questions because it indirectly suggests that federal sentencing guidelines deny defendants their rights to a jury trial.

Meanwhile, while an appellate court in Richmond, Va., considers next month how courts in the South should apply sentencing rules, a federal judge in Charleston has delayed sentencing hearings in two criminal cases.

Court officials across the United States are unsure how to apply the guidelines since the high court said that Washington state's sentencing law unconstitutionally allows judges to lengthen defendants' sentences based on information the defendants had neither admitted nor been found guilty of in the jury's verdict.

The court said a judge can't enhance a sentence beyond the guideline for the primary offense unless the defendant admits to aggravating factors or a jury finds it to be true. Judges can take into consideration prior convictions, the court ruled.

Ralph Blakely challenged the Washington state law. He had pleaded guilty to kidnapping his estranged wife, a crime that carried a sentence of 53 months. But a judge raised the penalty to 90 months after determining that Blakely had acted with "deliberate cruelty," a finding not accepted by Blakely or a jury.

The Supreme Court ruled that the added prison time violated Blakely's right to a jury trial.

Since then, at least five appellate courts have each given different interpretations of the high court's ruling and its implications on federal sentencing guidelines. One court asked the Supreme Court to clarify its decision.

U.S. District Judge David Norton in Charleston postponed two cases until the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond makes a decision in a Charlotte case involving a man sentenced to 155 years in prison for smuggling cigarettes. Attorneys for Mohamad Hammoud Contar contend that a federal judge imposed an excessive sentence.

One of the delayed local cases involves a fraud, and the other is over drugs and a gun.

The sentences the defendants face in Norton's court under the guidelines were not immediately known.

Parks Smalls, South Carolina's chief federal public defender, said a 30-day delay on sentencing should not be long enough to cause a problem.

Meanwhile, other federal judges are deciding for themselves how to proceed. Senior U.S. District Judge Sol Blatt in Charleston said he will decide how to sentence defendants when he presides over a criminal case. U.S. District Judge Michael Patrick Duffy is on vacation.

Felder's attorney, Coit Yarborough of Florence, said Thursday that he will argue before U.S. District Judge Terry Wooten that the 20-year-old sentencing rules are unconstitutional. Felder is facing a mandatory life sentence because he was implicated in the April 2003 homicide of Harry Patel although Felder was not charged with murder. Felder pleaded guilty to the armed robbery of a Lake City motel, a crime that carries a maximum of 25 years in prison.

Yarborough said that before Wooten sentences Felder, the judge will decide whether the sentencing guidelines should apply.

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott Schools said federal prosecutors are asking defendants if they would agree to be sentenced under the current guidelines and have a judge determine what facts to take into consideration.

Prosecutors also have begun to list in indictments more specific information that may have a bearing on a defendant's sentence, he said. For example, in conspiracy, the government will be more specific when it alleges the extent of a defendant's role so that information is known early in the case, he said.

The debate over the guidelines does not apply to every case, and only affects federal cases, officials said.

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