Abstract Sentencing is a very difficult task for every judge at any level since fixing the final sentence against the criminal needs to consider different facts and circumstances as well as different principles and goals of sentencing. The Ethiopian criminal code provides about sentencing of attempted crimes under article 27-31, as criminal attempt is punishable the same as completed crime unless the court reduces punishment with justifiable circumstance or imposing no punishment where an attempt was abandoned or failed; by taking into consideration the stage reached in the carrying out of the attempt and the danger it represented, the reasons for which it failed, the motives which prompted the renunciation or the active repentance of the criminal. Practically during the sentencing of attempted crimes, there are limitations in differentiating the types of attempted crimes as completed, incomplete, impossible and failed in active repentance or renunciation. Most of the time courts fail to briefly explain the relevant circumstances which justified the reduction of punishment; rather courts reduce the punishment arbitrarily simply because it is an attempt. Because of these, in Amhara National Regional State Courts, sentencing of attempted crimes according to sentencing principles in order to achieve sentencing goals is very poor as the analysis of real dead cases and interview conducted with judges, public prosecutors and private lawyers implied. As a result, structured sentencing of attempted crimes in the sentencing guideline, increasing the competence and diligence of judges, workload reduction, victims’ participation in sentencing and improvement of the evaluation system is recommended to ensure the correctness and uniformity in the sentencing of attempted crimes.