Sentencing guidelines called for 1 day to 6 months, Shebri Dillon was sentenced to 30 years
September 24, 2025
Contact: Rob Poggenklass
info@justiceforwardva.com
For Immediate Release:
Sentencing guidelines called for 1 day to 6 months of incarceration, yet Shebri Dillon was sentenced to 30 years in a Virginia prison
Amicus brief highlights old mandatory jury sentencing laws, supports ineffective counsel claims.
September 24, 2025 – In 2016, Shebri Dillon was convicted of 10 nonviolent offenses by a jury in a Roanoke County, Virginia Circuit Court. Although the sentencing guidelines called for 1 day to 6 months of incarceration, the court ultimately imposed a sentence of 30 years and ordered her to pay $98,000 in restitution. But why?
Virginia’s now reformed mandatory jury-sentencing laws once chilled the exercise of trial rights and produced erratic, often excessive sentences untethered to Virginia’s sentencing guidelines. That system was uniquely prone to arbitrariness because juries lacked comparative sentencing information and were not guided by the same framework judges apply. Juries, unlike judges, sentence without the benefit of experience, benchmarks, or a continuing responsibility to ensure parity—producing greater variance and outlier results. According to an amicus brief filed by Arnold & Porter on behalf of Justice Forward Virginia in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Shebri Dillon, Petitioner, v. Chadwick Dotson, Respondent, ”Those harsh and unpredictable outcomes are a structural artifact of mandatory jury sentencing, and they imposed a ‘trial penalty’ on defendants who exercised their right to a trial.”
Justice Forward Virginia advocated for the Virginia Senate Bill 5007 that ended mandatory jury sentencing in Virginia on July 1, 2021. Current Virginia law provides that the accused be given the option of whether to be sentenced by the judge or the jury in cases in which the jury decides guilt. The amicus brief supports the assertion that Dillon’s trial counsel provided inaccurate advice regarding her sentencing exposure, and provides a broader context for the appellant’s claims. Dillon’s counsel in the 2016 case has since been disbarred (as has the lawyer who handled her direct appeal). The brief argues that proper advice on the disparity between jury and judge sentences would have been highly relevant to Dillon's decision to plead guilty or go to trial and that the court’s decision should be reversed.
The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) also filed a brief in support of Ms. Dillon. The brief of the director of the Virginia Department of Corrections, Chadwick Dotson, was due to the court on September 11. Oral arguments are expected to be scheduled soon.
Justice Forward Virginia is a non-partisan advocacy organization founded by public defenders and created to bring attention to the urgent need for criminal justice reform in the Commonwealth — at the most fundamental level — and to advance legislation for comprehensive reforms to Virginia’s criminal legal system.