Many district judges do not accept the goal of unifor- mity that lies behind the Sentencing Guidelines. This is understandable. A project of reducing disparity requires some judges to give higher sentences than they used to do, while other judges must reduce the penalties they im- pose. So the Guidelines are bound to leave many judges believing that they have been instructed to impose unjust sentences. Still, disagree- ment with the law does not justify undermining it.
Judges spend their lives penalizing others who depart from legal norms.
Judges are no less bound by the law than those who come before them as litigants. The district court's rationale for attaching a skyrocket to Ruffin's penalty is that Ruffin is more dangerous than the Guidelines recognize. The Sentencing Commission used convictions as a measure of criminal history and propen- sity. The district court thought that this understates Ruffin's record because he was charged with six other offenses that did not end in conviction. These charges were dismissed as part of plea bargains.