New Delhi, Oct. 3 -- The court will set Combs's term, and decide whether "Mia" can be heard under the CVRA.

NEW YORK - When Sean "Diddy" Combs enters a Manhattan federal courtroom for sentencing on Friday, the proceeding will revolve around two dry-sounding convictions under a century-old statute. Yet the stakes are anything but narrow. The judge must decide how to weigh a record that jurors partly rejected, how far to open the lectern to people who say they were harmed, and whether a once-dominant mogul should serve years in prison for conduct that the law classifies as transportation for illegal sex but that supporters and critics describe in far more charged terms.

Both sides have staked out sharply divergent visions of what justice ...