Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/518/81/
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 00:23:44+00:00

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Mter petitioners, Los Angeles police officers, were acquitted on state charges of assault and excessive use of force in the beating of a suspect during an arrest, they were convicted under 18 U. S. C. § 242 of violating the victim's constitutional rights under color of law. Although the applicable United States Sentencing Guideline, 1992 USSG § 2H1.4, indicated that they should be imprisoned for 70 to 87 months, the District Court granted them two downward departures from that range. The first was based on the victim's misconduct, which contributed significantly to provoking the offense. The second was based on a combination of four factors: (1) that petitioners were unusually susceptible to abuse in prison; (2) that petitioners would lose their jobs and be precluded from employment in law enforcement; (3) that petitioners had been subject to successive state and federal prosecutions; and (4) that petitioners posed a low risk of recidivism. The sentencing range after the departures was 30 to 37 months, and the court sentenced each petitioner to 30 months. The Ninth Circuit reviewed the departure decisions de novo and rejected all of them.
1. An appellate court should not review de novo a decision to depart from the Guideline sentencing range, but instead should ask whether the sentencing court abused its discretion. Pp. 92-100.
*Together with No. 94-8842, Powell v. United States, also on certiorari to the same court.
intro. comment. 4(b). The Commission prohibits consideration of a few factors, and it provides guidance as to the factors that are likely to make a case atypical by delineating certain of them as "encouraged" bases for departure and others as "discouraged" bases for departure. Courts may depart on the basis of an encouraged factor if the applicable Guideline does not already take the factor into account. A court may depart on the basis of a discouraged factor, or an encouraged factor already taken into account, however, only if the factor is present to an exceptional degree or in some other way makes the case different from the ordinary case. If the Guidelines do not mention a factor, the court must, after considering the structure and theory of relevant individual Guidelines and the Guidelines as a whole, decide whether the factor is sufficiently unusual to take the case out of the Guideline's heartland, bearing in mind the Commission's expectation that departures based on factors not mentioned in the Guidelines will be "highly infrequent." Pp.92-96.
(b) Although 18 U. S. C. §3742 established a limited appellate review of sentencing decisions, § 37 42(e)( 4)'s direction to "give due deference to the district court's application of the guidelines to the facts" demonstrates that the Act was not intended to vest in appellate courts wide-ranging authority over district court sentencing decisions. See, e. g., Williams v. United States, 503 U. S. 193,205. The deference that is due depends on the nature of the question presented. A departure decision will in most cases be due substantial deference, for it embodies the sentencing court's traditional exercise of discretion. See Mistretta v. United States, 488 U. S. 361, 367. To determine if a departure is appropriate, the district court must make a refined assessment of the many facts that bear on the outcome, informed by its vantage point and dayto-day sentencing experience. Whether a given factor is present to a degree not adequately considered by the Commission, or whether a discouraged factor nonetheless justifies departure because it is present in some unusual or exceptional way, are matters determined in large part by comparison with the facts of other Guidelines cases. District courts have an institutional advantage over appellate courts in making these sorts of determinations, especially given that they see so many more Guidelines cases. Such considerations require adoption of the abuseof-discretion standard of review, not de novo review. See, e. g., Cooter & Gell v. Hartmarx Corp., 496 U. S. 384,403. Pp. 96-100.
2. Because the Court of Appeals erred in rejecting certain of the downward departure factors relied upon by the District Judge, the foregoing principles require reversal of the appellate court's rulings in significant part. Pp. 100-114.
(a) Victim misconduct is an encouraged basis for departure under USSG § 5K2.1O, and the District Court did not abuse its discretion in basing a departure on it. The court's analysis of this departure factor showed a correct understanding in applying § 2H1.4, the Guideline applicable to 18 U. S. C. § 242, both as a mechanical matter and in interpreting its heartland. As the court recognized, § 2H1.4 incorporates the Guideline for the offense underlying the § 242 violation, here § 2A2.2 for aggravated assault, and thus creates a Guideline range and a heartland for aggravated assault committed under color of law. A downward departure under § 5K2.1O was justified because the punishment prescribed by § 2A2.2 contemplates unprovoked assaults, not cases like this where what begins as legitimate force in response to provocation becomes excessive. The Court of Appeals misinterpreted the District Court to have found that the victim had been the but-for cause of the crime, but not that he had provoked it; it also misinterpreted the heartland of the applicable Guideline range by concentrating on whether the victim's misconduct made this an unusual case of excessive force. pp. 101-105.
(b) This Court rejects the Government's contention that some of the four considerations underlying the District Court's second downward departure are impermissible departure factors under all circumstances. For a court to conclude that a factor must never be considered would be to usurp the policymaking authority that Congress vested in the Commission, and 18 U. S. C. § 3553(a)(2) does not compel such a result. A court's examination of whether a factor can ever be an appropriate basis for departure is limited to determining whether the Commission has proscribed, as a categorical matter, that factor's consideration. If the answer is no-as it will be most of the time-the sentencing court must determine whether the factor, as occurring in the particular circumstances, takes the case outside the applicable Guideline's heartland. Pp. 106-109.
(c) The District Court abused its discretion in relying on petitioners' collateral employment consequences as support for its second departure. Because it is to be expected that a public official convicted of using his governmental authority to violate a person's rights will lose his or her job and be barred from similar employment in the future, it must be concluded that the Commission adequately considered these consequences in formulating 1992 USSG § 2H1.4. Thus, the career loss factor, as it exists in this suit, cannot take the suit out of § 2H1.4's heartland. Pp. 109-111.
dressed this factor in formulating the sentencing range for petitioners' criminal history category. See §4A1.3. P.111.
(e) However, the District Court did not abuse its discretion in relying upon susceptibility to abuse in prison and the burdens of successive prosecutions. The District Court's finding that the case is unusual due to petitioners' exceptional susceptibility to abuse in prison is just the sort of determination that must be accorded deference on appeal. Moreover, although consideration of petitioners' successive prosecutions could be incongruous with the dual responsibilities of citizenship in our federal system, this Court cannot conclude the District Court abused its discretion by considering that factor. Pp. 111-112.
(f) Where a reviewing court concludes that a district court based a departure on both valid and invalid factors, a remand is required unless the reviewing court determines that the district court would have imposed the same sentence absent reliance on the invalid factors. Williams, supra, at 203. Because the District Court here stated that none of four factors standing alone would justify its second departure, it is not evident that the court would have imposed the same sentence had it relied only on susceptibility to abuse and the hardship of successive prosecutions. The Court of Appeals should therefore remand the action to the District Court. Pp. 113-114.
34 F.3d 1416, affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded.
KENNEDY, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, which was unanimous except insofar as STEVENS, J., did not join Part IV-B-1, and SOUTER, GINSBURG, and BREYER, JJ., did not join Part IV-B-3. STEVENS, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, post, p. 114. SOUTER, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which GINSBURG, J., joined, post, p. 114. BREYER, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which GINSBURG, J., joined, post, p. 118.
Theodore B. Olson argued the cause for petitioner in No. 94-1664. With him on the briefs were Theodore J. Boutrous, Jr., John K. Bush, Richard J. Leighton, Joel Levine, and Ira M. Salzman. William J. Kopeny argued the cause and filed briefs for petitioner in No. 94-8842.
JUSTICE KENNEDY delivered the opinion of the Court. The United States Sentencing Commission Guidelines establish ranges of criminal sentences for federal offenses and offenders. A district court must impose a sentence within the applicable Guideline range, if it finds the case to be a typical one. See 18 U. S. C. § 3553(a). District courts may depart from the Guideline range in certain circumstances, however, see ibid., and here the District Court departed downward eight levels. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rejected the District Court's departure rulings, and, over the published objection of nine of its judges, declined to rehear the case en banco In this suit we explore the appropriate standards of appellate review of a district court's decision to depart from the Guidelines.
tBriefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund by Richard K. Willard and David Henderson Martin in No. 94-1664; for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers by Lawrence S. Goldman in No. 94-1664; and for the National Association of Police Organizations, Inc., by William J. Johnson and Byron L. Warnken in both cases.
ber of hours. Then, with King driving, they left Altadena via a major freeway. King was intoxicated.
Powell radioed for an ambulance. He sent two messages over a communications network to the other officers that said " 'ooops'" and "'I havent [sic] beaten anyone this bad in a long time.'" 34 F.3d 1416, 1425 (CA9 1994). Koon sent a message to the police station that said: "'V[nit] just had a big time use of force .... Tased and beat the suspect of CHP pursuit big time.'" Ibid.
King was taken to a hospital where he was treated for a fractured leg, multiple facial fractures, and numerous bruises and contusions. Learning that King worked at Dodger Stadium, Powell said to King: "'We played a little ball tonight, didn't we Rodney? ... You know, we played a little ball, we played a little hardball tonight, we hit quite a few home runs .... Yes, we played a little ball and you lost and we won.'" Ibid.
against Powell that resulted in a hung jury. The verdicts touched off widespread rioting in Los Angeles. More than 40 people were killed in the riots, more than 2,000 were injured, and nearly $1 billion in property was destroyed. New Initiatives for a New Los Angeles: Final Report and Recommendations, Senate Special Task Force on a New Los Angeles, Dec. 9, 1992, pp. 10-11.
On August 4, 1992, a federal grand jury indicted the four officers under 18 U. S. C. § 242, charging them with violating King's constitutional rights under color of law. Powell, Briseno, and Wind were charged with willful use of unreasonable force in arresting King. Koon was charged with willfully permitting the other officers to use unreasonable force during the arrest. After a trial in United States District Court for the Central District of California, the jury convicted Koon and Powell but acquitted Wind and Briseno.
We now consider the District Court's sentencing determinations. Under the Sentencing Guidelines, a district court identifies the base offense level assigned to the crime in question, adjusts the level as the Guidelines instruct, and determines the defendant's criminal history category. United States Sentencing Commission, Guidelines Manual § lB1.1 (Nov. 1992) (1992 USSG). Coordinating the adjusted offense level and criminal history category yields the appropriate sentencing range. Ibid.
The District Court sentenced petitioners pursuant to 1992 USSG § 2H1.4, which applies to violations of 18 U. S. C. § 242. Section 2H1.4 prescribes a base offense level which is the greater of the following: 10, or 6 plus the offense level applicable to any underlying offense. The District Court found the underlying offense was aggravated assault, which carries a base offense level of 15, 1992 USSG § 2A2.2(a), to which 6 was added for a total of 21.
King's serious bodily injury pursuant to § 2A2.2(b)(3)(B). The court found, however, that King's serious injuries were sustained when the officers were using lawful force. (At trial, the Government contended that all the blows administered after King fell to the ground 30 seconds into the videotape violated § 242. The District Court found that many of those blows "may have been tortious," but that the criminal violations did not commence until 1:07 on the videotape, after Briseno stomped King. 833 F. Supp. 769, 778 (CD Cal. 1993).) The court did add two levels for bodily injury pursuant to § 2A2.2(b)(3)(A). The adjusted offense level totaled 27, and because neither petitioner had a criminal record, each fell within criminal history category 1. The sentencing range for an offense level of 27 and a criminal history category I was, under the 1992 Guidelines, 70-to-87 months' imprisonment. Rather than sentencing petitioners to a term within the Guideline range, however, the District Court departed downward eight levels. The departure determinations are the subject of this controversy.
impose a sentence that reflects a need to protect the public from [them]." Ibid. The court concluded these factors justified a departure when taken together, although none would have been sufficient standing alone. Id., at 786.
The Court of Appeals reviewed "de novo whether the district court had authority to depart." 34 F. 3d, at 1451. The court reversed the five-level departure for victim misconduct, reasoning that misbehavior by suspects is typical in cases involving excessive use of force by police and is thus comprehended by the applicable Guideline. Id., at 1460.
court inconsistent with the sentencing goals of 18 U. S. C. § 3553(a) because the factor did not "speak to the offender's character, the nature or seriousness of the offense, or some other legitimate sentencing concern." 34 F. 3d, at 1453. The court noted further that because the societal consequences of a criminal conviction are almost unlimited, reliance on them "would create a system of sentencing that would be boundless in the moral, social, and psychological examinations it required courts to make." Id., at 1454. Third, the court noted the ease of using the factor to justify departures based on a defendant's socioeconomic status, a consideration that, under 1992 USSG § 5H1.10, is never a permitted basis for departure. As a final point, the Court of Appeals said the factor was "troubling" because petitioners, as police officers, held positions of trust they had abused. Section 3B1.3 of the Guidelines increases, rather than decreases, punishment for those who abuse positions of trust. 34 F. 3d, at 1454.
The Court of Appeals next found the successive state and federal prosecutions could not be a downward departure factor. It deemed the factor irrelevant to the sentencing goals of § 3553(a)(2) and contradictory to the Attorney General's determination that compelling federal interests warranted a second prosecution. Id., at 1457. The court rejected the last departure factor as well, ruling that low risk of recidivism was comprehended in the criminal history category and so should not be double counted. Id., at 1456-1457.
We granted certiorari to determine the standard of review governing appeals from a district court's decision to depart from the sentencing ranges in the Guidelines. 515 U. S. 1190 (1995). The appellate court should not review the departure decision de novo, but instead should ask whether the sentencing court abused its discretion. Having invoked the wrong standard, the Court of Appeals erred further in rejecting certain of the downward departure factors relied upon by the District Judge.
The Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, as amended, 18 U. S. C. § 3551 et seq., 28 U. S. C. §§ 991-998, made farreaching changes in federal sentencing. Before the Act, sentencing judges enjoyed broad discretion in determining whether and how long an offender should be incarcerated. Mistretta v. United States, 488 U. S. 361, 363 (1989). The discretion led to perceptions that "federal judges mete out an unjustifiably wide range of sentences to offenders with similar histories, convicted of similar crimes, committed under similar circumstances." S. Rep. No. 98-225, p. 38 (1983). In response, Congress created the United States Sentencing Commission and charged it with developing a comprehensive set of sentencing guidelines, 28 U. S. C. § 994. The Commission promulgated the United States Sentencing Guidelines, which "specify an appropriate [sentencing range] for each class of convicted persons" based on various factors related to the offense and the offender. United States Sentencing Commission, Guidelines Manual ch. 1, pt. A, p. 1 (Nov. 1995) (1995 USSG). A district judge now must impose on a defendant a sentence falling within the range of the applicable Guideline, if the case is an ordinary one.
statements, and official commentary of the Sentencing Commission." Ibid.
"The Commission intends the sentencing courts to treat each guideline as carving out a 'heartland,' a set of typical cases embodying the conduct that each guideline describes. When a court finds an atypical case, one to which a particular guideline linguistically applies but where conduct significantly differs from the norm, the court may consider whether a departure is warranted." Ibid.
be able to refine the guidelines to specify more precisely when departures should and should not be permitted.
So the Act authorizes district courts to depart in cases that feature aggravating or mitigating circumstances of a kind or degree not adequately taken into consideration by the Commission. The Commission, in turn, says it has formulated each Guideline to apply to a heartland of typical cases. Atypical cases were not "adequately taken into consideration," and factors that may make a case atypical provide potential bases for departure. Potential departure factors "cannot, by their very nature, be comprehensively listed and analyzed in advance," 1995 USSG § 5K2.0, of course. Faced with this reality, the Commission chose to prohibit consideration of only a few factors, and not otherwise to limit, as a categorical matter, the considerations that might bear upon the decision to depart.
taken the encouraged factor into account. For instance, a departure for disruption of a governmental function "ordinarily would not be justified when the offense of conviction is an offense such as bribery or obstruction of justice; in such cases interference with a governmental function is inherent in the offense." Ibid. A court still may depart on the basis of such a factor but only if it "is present to a degree substantially in excess of that which ordinarily is involved in the offense." § 5K2.0.
Discouraged factors, by contrast, are those "not ordinarily relevant to the determination of whether a sentence should be outside the applicable guideline range." 1995 USSG ch. 5, pt. H, intro. comment. Examples include the defendant's family ties and responsibilities, 1995 USSG § 5H1.6, his or her education and vocational skills, § 5H1.2, and his or her military, civic, charitable, or public service record, § 5H1.11. The Commission does not view discouraged factors "as necessarily inappropriate" bases for departure but says they should be relied upon only "in exceptional cases." 1995 USSG ch. 5, pt. H, intro. comment.
"1) What features of this case, potentially, take it outside the Guidelines' 'heartland' and make of it a special, or unusual, case?
"4) If not, has the Commission discouraged departures based on those features?" United States v. Rivera, 994 F.2d 942, 949 (CA1 1993).
for departure. If the special factor is an encouraged factor, the court is authorized to depart if the applicable Guideline does not already take it into account. If the special factor is a discouraged factor, or an encouraged factor already taken into account by the applicable Guideline, the court should depart only if the factor is present to an exceptional degree or in some other way makes the case different from the ordinary case where the factor is present. Cf. ibid. If a factor is unmentioned in the Guidelines, the court must, after considering the "structure and theory of both relevant individual guidelines and the Guidelines taken as a whole," ibid., decide whether it is sufficient to take the case out of the Guideline's heartland. The court must bear in mind the Commission's expectation that departures based on grounds not mentioned in the Guidelines will be "highly infrequent." 1995 USSG ch. 1, pt. A, p. 6.
Before the Guidelines system, a federal criminal sentence within statutory limits was, for all practical purposes, not reviewable on appeal. Dorszynski v. United States, 418 U. S. 424, 431 (1974) (reiterating "the general proposition that once it is determined that a sentence is within the limitations set forth in the statute under which it is imposed, appellate review is at an end"); United States v. Tucker, 404 U. S. 443, 447 (1972) (same). The Act altered this scheme in favor of a limited appellate jurisdiction to review federal sentences. 18 U. S. C. § 3742. Among other things, it allows a defendant to appeal an upward departure and the Government to appeal a downward one. §§ 3742(a), (b).
view, de novo review of departure decisions is necessary "to protect against unwarranted disparities arising from the differing sentencing approaches of individual district judges." Brief for United States 12.
"Although the Act established a limited appellate review of sentencing decisions, it did not alter a court of appeals' traditional deference to a district court's exercise of its sentencing discretion .... The development of the guideline sentencing regime has not changed our view that, except to the extent specifically directed by statute, 'it is not the role of an appellate court to substitute its judgment for that of the sentencing court as to the appropriateness of a particular sentence.'" Id., at 205 (quoting Solem v. Helm, 463 U. S. 277, 290, n. 16 (1983)).
That the district court retains much of its traditional discretion does not mean appellate review is an empty exercise. Congress directed courts of appeals to "give due deference to the district court's application of the guidelines to the facts." 18 U. S. C. § 3742(e)(4). The deference that is due depends on the nature of the question presented. The district court may be owed no deference, for instance, when the claim on appeal is that it made some sort of mathematical error in applying the Guidelines; under these circumstances, the appellate court will be in as good a position to consider the question as the district court was in the first instance.
tencing Commission (Mar. 29, 1996). "To ignore the district court's special competence-about the 'ordinariness' or 'unusualness' of a particular case-would risk depriving the Sentencing Commission of an important source of information, namely, the reactions of the trial judge to the factspecific circumstances of the case .... " Rivera, 994 F. 2d, at 951.
Considerations like these persuaded us to adopt the abuse-of-discretion standard in Cooter & Gell v. Hartmarx Corp., 496 U. S. 384 (1990), which involved review of a District Court's imposition of Rule 11 sanctions, and in Pierce v. Underwood, 487 U. S. 552 (1988), which involved review of a District Court's determination under the Equal Access to Justice Act, 28 U. S. C. § 2412(d), that the position of the United States was "substantially justified," thereby precluding an award of attorney's fees against the Government. There, as here, we noted that deference was owed to the "'judicial actor ... better positioned than another to decide the issue in question.'" Pierce, supra, at 559-560 (quoting Miller v. Fenton, 474 U. S. 104, 114 (1985)); Cooter & Gell, supra, at 403. Furthermore, we adopted deferential review to afford "the district court the necessary flexibility to resolve questions involving 'multifarious, fleeting, special, narrow facts that utterly resist generalization.'" 496 U. S., at 404 (quoting Pierce, supra, at 561-562). Like the questions involved in those cases, a district court's departure decision involves "the consideration of unique factors that are 'little susceptible ... of useful generalization,'" 496 U. S., at 404, and as a consequence, de novo review is "unlikely to establish clear guidelines for lower courts," id., at 405.
lar factor is within the heartland given all the facts of the case. For example, it does not advance the analysis much to determine that a victim's misconduct might justify a departure in some aggravated assault cases. What the district court must determine is whether the misconduct that occurred in the particular instance suffices to make the case atypical. The answer is apt to vary depending on, for instance, the severity of the misconduct, its timing, and the disruption it causes. These considerations are factual matters.
This does not mean that district courts do not confront questions of law in deciding whether to depart. In the present suit, for example, the Government argues that the District Court relied on factors that may not be considered in any case. The Government is quite correct that whether a factor is a permissible basis for departure under any circumstances is a question of law, and the court of appeals need not defer to the district court's resolution of the point. Little turns, however, on whether we label review of this particular question abuse of discretion or de novo, for an abuse-of-discretion standard does not mean a mistake of law is beyond appellate correction. Cooter & Gell, supra, at 402. A district court by definition abuses its discretion when it makes an error of law. 496 U. S., at 405. That a departure decision, in an occasional case, may call for a legal determination does not mean, as a consequence, that parts of the review must be labeled de novo while other parts are labeled an abuse of discretion. See id., at 403 (court of appeals should "appl[y] a unitary abuse-of-discretion standard"). The abuse-of-discretion standard includes review to determine that the discretion was not guided by erroneous legal conclusions.
The District Court departed downward five levels because King's "wrongful conduct contributed significantly to provoking the offense behavior." 833 F. Supp., at 786. Victim misconduct was an encouraged basis for departure under the 1992 Guidelines and is so now. 1992 USSG § 5K2.10; 1995 USSG § 5K2.10.
Most Guidelines prescribe punishment for a single discrete statutory offense or a few similar statutory offenses with rather predictable fact patterns. Petitioners were convicted of violating 18 U. S. C. § 242, however, a statute unusual for its application in so many varied circumstances. It prohibits, among other things, subjecting any person under color of law "to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States." A violation of § 242 can arise in a myriad of forms, and the Guideline applicable to the statute applies to any violation of § 242 regardless of the form it takes. 1992 USSG § 2H1.4. Section 2H1.4 takes account of the different kinds of conduct that might constitute a § 242 violation by instructing courts to use as a base offense level the greater of 10, or 6 plus the offense level applicable to any underlying offense. In this way, § 2H1.4 incorporates the base offense level of the underlying offense; as a consequence, the heartland of § 2H1.4 will vary depending on the defendant's conduct.
Here, the underlying offense was aggravated assault.
to deprive a person of his civil rights," ibid. (incorporating introductory commentary to § 2H1.1).
is provoked and lawful, the line between a legal arrest and an unlawful deprivation of civil rights within the aggravated assault Guideline is relatively thin. The stringent aggravated assault Guideline, along with its upward adjustments for use of a deadly weapon and bodily injury, contemplates a range of offenses involving deliberate and unprovoked assaultive conduct. The Guidelines do not adequately account for the differences between such 'heartland' offenses and the case at hand." Ibid.
"'The calculus of reasonableness must embody allowance for the fact that police officers are often forced to make split-second judgments-in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving-about the amount of force that is necessary in a particular situation.'" Ibid. (quoting Graham v. Connor, 490 U. S. 386, 396-397 (1989)).
jury not only had to take the Graham factors into account, but also, to establish criminal liability, had to conclude that the petitioners "willfully came down on the wrong side of the Graham standard." 34 F. 3d, at 1459 (emphasis in original). The Court of Appeals concluded that "the feature which the district court found unusual, and exculpatory, is built into the most fundamental structure of excessive force jurisprudence, and in criminal cases is built in twice." Ibid.
The court misinterpreted both the District Court's opinion and the heartland of the applicable Guideline range. The District Court's observation that the incident would not have occurred at all "but for" King's misconduct does not alter the further ruling that King provoked petitioners' illegal use of force. At the outset of its analysis, the District Court stated: "[T]he Court finds, and considers as a mitigating circumstance, that Mr. King's wrongful conduct contributed significantly to provoking the offense behavior." 833 F. Supp., at 786. It later discussed "Mr. King's wrongdoing and the substantial role it played in bringing about the defendants' unlawful conduct." Id., at 787. Indeed, a finding that King's misconduct provoked lawful force but not the unlawful force that followed without interruption would be a startling interpretation and contrary to ordinary understandings of provocation. A response need not immediately follow an action in order to be provoked by it. The Commission recognized this when it noted that although victim misconduct would rarely be a basis for departure in a nonviolent offense, "an extended course of provocation and harassment might lead a defendant to steal or destroy property in retaliation." 1992 USSG § 5K2.10. Furthermore, even if an immediate response were required by § 5K2.10, it occurred here: The excessive force followed within seconds of King's misconduct.
made this an unusual case of excessive force. If § 2H1.4 covered punishment only for excessive force cases, it might well be a close question whether victim misconduct of this kind would be sufficient to take the case out of the heartland. Section 2H1.4 is not so designed, however. It incorporates the Guideline for the underlying offense, here § 2A2.2 for aggravated assault, and thus creates a Guideline range and a heartland for aggravated assault committed under color of law. As the District Court was correct to point out, the same Guideline range applies both to a government official who assaults a citizen without provocation as well as instances like this where what begins as legitimate force becomes excessive. The District Court did not abuse its discretion in differentiating between the classes of cases, nor did it do so in concluding that unprovoked assaults constitute the relevant heartland. Victim misconduct is an encouraged ground for departure. A district court, without question, would have had discretion to conclude that victim misconduct could take an aggravated assault case outside the heartland of § 2A2.2. That petitioners' aggravated assaults were committed under color of law does not change the analysis. The Court of Appeals thought that it did because § 2H1.4 "explicitly enhances sentences for official misconduct beyond those for civilian misconduct." 34 F. 3d, at 1460. The statement is a non sequitur. Section 2H1.4 imposes a sixlevel increase regardless of whether the government official's aggravated assault is provoked or unprovoked. Aggravated assault committed under color of law always will be punished more severely than ordinary aggravated assault. The District Court did not compare civilian offenders with official offenders; it compared official offenders who are provoked with official offenders who are not. That was the correct inquiry. The punishment prescribed by § 2A2.2 contemplates unprovoked assaults, and as a consequence, the District Court did not abuse its discretion in departing downward for King's misconduct in provoking the wrong.
We turn now to the three-level departure. As an initial matter, the Government urges us to hold each of the factors relied upon by the District Court to be impermissible departure factors under all circumstances. A defendant's loss of career opportunities must always be an improper consideration, the Government argues, because "persons convicted of crimes suffer a wide range of consequences in addition to the sentence." Brief for United States 38. Susceptibility to prison abuse, continues the Government, likewise never should be considered because the "degree of vulnerability to assault is an entirely 'subjective' judgment, and the number of defendants who may qualify for that departure is 'virtually unlimited.'" Id., at 39 (quoting 34 F. 3d, at 1455). And so on.
under any circumstances would be to transgress the policymaking authority vested in the Commission.
An example is helpful. In United States v. Lara, 905 F.2d 599 (1990), the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld a District Court's downward departure based on the defendant's "potential for victimization" in prison due to his diminutive size, immature appearance, and bisexual orientation. Id., at 601. In what appeared to be a response to Lara, the Commission amended 1989 USSG § 5H1.4, to make [p]hysicial ... appearance, including physique," a discouraged factor. 1995 USSG App. C, Arndt. 386 (effective Nov. 1, 1991). The Commission did not see fit, however, to prohibit consideration of physical appearance in all cases, nor did it address the broader category of susceptibility to abuse in prison. By urging us to hold susceptibility to abuse in prison to be an impermissible factor in all cases, the Government would have us reject the Commission's considered judgment in favor of our own.
Echoing the Court of Appeals, the Government interprets § 3553(a)(2) to direct courts to test potential departure factors against its broad sentencing goals and to reject, as a categorical matter, factors that are inconsistent with them. The Government and the Court of Appeals read too much into § 3553(a)(2). The statute requires a court to consider the listed goals in determining "the particular sentence to be imposed." The wording suggests that the goals should be considered in determining which sentence to choose from a given Guideline range or from outside the range, if a departure is appropriate. The statute says nothing about requiring each potential departure factor to advance one of the specified goals. So long as the overall sentence is "sufficient, but not greater than necessary, to comply" with the above-listed goals, the statute is satisfied. § 3553(a).
pect it would have said so in a clear way. It did not, and we will not assume this role.
"Defendants Koon and Powell will be subjected to a multiplicity of adversarial proceedings. The LAPD Board of Rights will charge Koon and Powell with a felony conviction and, in a quasi-judicial proceeding, will strip them of their positions and tenure. Koon and Powell will be disqualified from other law enforcement careers. In combination, the additional proceedings, the loss of employment and tenure, prospective disqualification from the field of law enforcement, and the anguish and disgrace these deprivations entail, will constitute substantial punishment in addition to any courtimposed sentence. In short, because Koon and Powell are police officers, certain unique burdens flow from their convictions." 833 F. Supp., at 789 (footnotes omitted).
tor can be used to justify departures that are based, either consciously or unconsciously, on the defendant's socioeconomic status, a factor that is never a permissible basis for review." 34 F. 3d, at 1454. We agree with the Court of Appeals that a defendant's career may relate to his or her socioeconomic status, but the link is not so close as to justify categorical exclusion of the effect of conviction on a career. Although an impermissible factor need not be invoked by name to be rejected, socioeconomic status and job loss are not the semantic or practical equivalents of each other.
to the career-related consequences petitioners faced after violating § 242, so we conclude these consequences were adequately considered by the Commission in formulating §2H1.4.
"However, this provision is not symmetrical. The lower limit of the range for Criminal History Category I is set for a first offender with the lowest risk of recidivism. Therefore, a departure below the lower limit of the guideline range for Criminal History Category I on the basis of the adequacy of criminal history cannot be appropriate." 1992 USSG § 4A1.3.
Court of Appeals did not dispute, and neither do we, the District Court's finding that "[t]he extraordinary notoriety and national media coverage of this case, coupled with the defendants' status as police officers, make Koon and Powell unusually susceptible to prison abuse," 833 F. Supp., at 785-786. Petitioners' crimes, however brutal, were by definition the same for purposes of sentencing law as those of any other police officers convicted under 18 U. S. C. § 242 of using unreasonable force in arresting a suspect, sentenced under § 2H1.4, and receiving the upward adjustments petitioners received. Had the crimes been still more severe, petitioners would have been assigned a different base offense level or received additional upward adjustments. Yet, due in large part to the existence of the videotape and all the events that ensued, "widespread publicity and emotional outrage ... have surrounded this case from the outset," 833 F. Supp., at 788, which led the District Court to find petitioners "particularly likely to be targets of abuse during their incarceration," ibid. The District Court's conclusion that this factor made the case unusual is just the sort of determination that must be accorded deference by the appellate courts.
As for petitioners' successive prosecutions, it is true that consideration of this factor could be incongruous with the dual responsibilities of citizenship in our federal system in some instances. Successive state and federal prosecutions do not violate the Double Jeopardy Clause. Heath v. Alabama, 474 U. S. 82 (1985). Nonetheless, the District Court did not abuse its discretion in determining that a "federal conviction following a state acquittal based on the same underlying conduct ... significantly burden[ed] the defendants." 833 F. Supp., at 790. The state trial was lengthy, and the toll it took is not beyond the cognizance of the District Court.
The goal of the Sentencing Guidelines is, of course, to reduce unjustified disparities and so reach toward the evenhandedness and neutrality that are the distinguishing marks of any principled system of justice. In this respect, the Guidelines provide uniformity, predictability, and a degree of detachment lacking in our earlier system. This, too, must be remembered, however. It has been uniform and constant in the federal judicial tradition for the sentencing judge to consider every convicted person as an individual and every case as a unique study in the human failings that sometimes mitigate, sometimes magnify, the crime and the punishment to ensue. We do not understand it to have been the congressional purpose to withdraw all sentencing discretion from the United States district judge. Discretion is reserved within the Sentencing Guidelines, and reflected by the standard of appellate review we adopt.
the court would have imposed the same sentence if it had relied only on susceptibility to abuse in prison and the hardship of successive prosecutions. The Court of Appeals should therefore remand the case to the District Court.
fact, Congress allowed district courts to depart from the Guidelines only if "the court finds that there exists an aggravating or mitigating circumstance of a kind, or to a degree, not adequately taken into consideration by the Sentencing Commission in formulating the guidelines that should result in a sentence different from that described." 18 U. S. C. § 3553(b); see also ante, at 92-93. While discussing departures, the Commission quotes this language from § 3553(b), before stating that "[w]hen a court finds an atypical case, ... the court may consider whether a departure is warranted." United States Sentencing Commission, Guidelines Manual ch. 1, pt. A, intro. comment. 4(b) (Nov. 1995) (1995 USSG). Thus, both Congress and the Commission envisioned that departures would require some unusual factual circumstance, but would be justified only if the factual difference "should" result in a different sentence. Departures, in other words, must be consistent with rational normative order.
1 Although it is not essential to my analysis, I note in passing that the unusual extent of outside publicity is probably irrelevant in the prison environment. Given any amount of outside publicity, prison inmates quickly learn about new arrivals, including former police officers, and the crimes of which they were convicted.
The Court of Appeals appreciated the significance of the requisite moral calculus when it wrote that "[a]ny public outrage was the direct result of [petitioners'] criminal acts. It is incongruous and inappropriate to reduce [petitioners'] sentences specifically because individuals in society have condemned their acts as criminal and an abuse of the trust that society placed in them." 34 F.3d 1416, 1456 (CA9 1994). The Court of Appeals should be affirmed on this point.
2 The requirement of normative order does not, of course, say anything one way or the other about considering exceptionally unusual physical appearance as a basis to anticipate abuse.
are brought each year and that from March 1977 to September 1980 only seven successive prosecutions were authorized); United States v. Davis, 906 F.2d 829, 832 (CA2 1990) ("In practice, successive prosecutions for the same conduct remain rarities"). Those figures do not, however, demonstrate that all convictions on successive federal prosecutions under 18 U. S. C. § 242 should for that reason be subject to discretion to depart downward, for they do not take account of the normative ordering, discussed below.
the State was unavailable in the state trial through no one's fault), there was no evidence to overcome it here.
As a consequence, reading the Guidelines to suggest that those who profit from state-court malfunctions should get the benefit of a downward departure would again attribute a normative irrationality to the heartland concept. The sense of irrationality here is, to be sure, different from what was presupposed by the District Court's analysis on the issue of susceptibility to abuse in prison, for the incongruity produced by downward departures here need not depend on the defendant's responsibility for the particular malfunction of the state system. But the fact remains that it would be a normatively obtuse sentencing scheme that would reward a defendant whose federal prosecution is justified solely because he has obtained the advantage of injustice produced by the failure of the state system.
I join the Court's opinion with the exception of Part IVB-3. I agree with JUSTICE SOUTER'S conclusion in respect to that section. The record here does not support departures based upon either the simple fact of two prosecutions or the risk of mistreatment in prison.
ment efforts had proved inadequate. See, e. g., Ngiraingas v. Sanchez, 495 U. S. 182, 187-189 (1990); Monroe v. Pape, 365 U. S. 167, 171-180 (1961); Screws v. United States, 325 U. S. 91, 131-134 (1945) (Rutledge, J., concurring in result). Before promulgating the Guidelines, the Commission "examined the many hundreds of criminal statutes in the United States Code," 1995 USSG ch. 1, pt. A, intro. comment. 5, and it would likely have been aware of this well-known legislative purpose. The centrality of this purpose, the Commission's likely awareness of it, and other considerations that JUSTICE SOUTER mentions, ante, at 116-118, lead me to conclude on the basis of the statute and Guideline itself, 18 U. S. C. § 3553(b), that the Commission would have considered a "double prosecution" case as one ordinarily within, not outside, the "civil rights" Guideline's "heartland." For that reason, a simple double prosecution, without more, does not support a departure. See § 3553(b) (departures permitted only when circumstances were "not adequately taken into consideration" by the Commission) (emphasis added).
The departure on the basis of potential mistreatment in prison presents a closer question. Nonetheless, differences in prison treatment are fairly common-to the point where too frequent use of this factor as a basis for departure could undermine the uniformity that the Guidelines seek. For that reason, and others that JUSTICE SOUTER mentions, ante, at 115-116, I believe that the Guidelines themselves embody an awareness of potentially harsh (or lenient) treatment in prison, thereby permitting departure on that basis only in a truly unusual case. Even affording the District Court "due deference," §3742(e), I cannot find in this record anything sufficiently unusual, compared, say, with other policemen imprisoned for civil rights violations, as to justify departure.

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