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Comment by aaplok | Hacker News Reader

> Paul Roberts is due to serve one year and one day in prison.

What's the point of the extra day? Is there some kind of special procedure for people who get strictly more than a year?

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Crimes can be either misdemeanors or felonies in the USA, and they are automatically considered to be the latter if the prison sentence is over a year in length. Therefore he might have been sentenced to the extra day to ensure that his criminal record includes a felony. This would prevent him from getting a job in finance, for instance, even after having served his sentence.

PS. I am not American, let alone an American lawyer, so don't take my word for it!

This is incorrect. In the federal system, while felonies are punishable by imprisonment over a year and misdemeanors by imprisonment up to a year, the important word is punishable - whether the crime is a felony or a misdemeanor is simply inherent to the charge, and if you are convicted, the nature of the crime doesn't change based on the imposed sentence. E.g. if you are convicted of a felony but receive a prison sentence of a year or less, you're still a felon - the charge doesn't just turn into a misdemeanor because you received a shorter sentence.

I wondered if that might be the case - thank you for the correction!

According to sixty seconds of googling[0], the extra day makes them eligible for sentence reduction for good behavior.

[0]: https://kmlawfirm.com/2022/06/23/whats-the-deal-with-a-year-...

Perhaps he committed fraud on a leap year

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