Source: http://ca10.washburnlaw.edu/cases/2007/06/06-3152.htm
Timestamp: 2020-02-28 19:19:44
Document Index: 236285143

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 4', '§ 4', '§ 4', '§ 4', '§ 3553', '§ 3553', '§ 3553']

06-3152 -- U.S. v. Pruitt -- 06/04/2007
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Defendant-Appellant. No. 06-3152
(D.C. No.05-CR-20054-01-CM)
I. BACKGROUND A. Pruitt's Criminal History and the Instant Offense Pruitt is a 42-year-old woman with three prior convictions for selling illegal drugs and a criminal history spanning two decades.
Approximately eight months after she was released from probation, Pruitt was again arrested and charged with committing drug-related crimes, this time
possession with intent to sell marijuana and possession of cocaine, felonies under Kansas law. Id. at 9. On this occasion, Pruitt brought her then-infant daughter to a drug transaction and was found in possession of 102.1 grams of marijuana, 10 plastic "baggies," 13 syringes, a metal tin containing cocaine, a plastic spoon, various types of pills, a mirror, a razor blade, a set of scales, and $420. Id. But before the court could adjudicate her case, Pruitt was arrested and charged with another drug-related offense--sale of methamphetamine in violation of Kansas law. Id. at 10. Pruitt was convicted of all of these felonies and served about four years in prison. Id. at 9-10; R., Vol. I, tab 20, at 1-2. She was paroled in 1996 and discharged from parole in 1998. R., Vol. IV, at 9.
Pruitt argues that the district court erred by (1) according a presumption of reasonableness to a within-Guidelines sentence; (2) according a presumption of reasonableness to a sentence within U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1, the Guidelines's career-offender provision; (3) failing to rule on whether Pruitt was entitled to a two-level reduction in offense level for acceptance of responsibility; (4) failing to adequately state its reasons for refusing to impose a below-Guidelines sentence; and (5) imposing a substantively unreasonable sentence of 292 months' imprisonment.
Although the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Rita v. United States, 177 Fed. Appx. 357 (4th Cir. 2006), cert. granted, 127 S.Ct. 551 (Nov. 3, 2006) (No. 06-5754), to decide whether it is consistent with Booker to accord a presumption of reasonableness to a within-Guidelines sentence, Kristl remains good law in this circuit, and this panel lacks authority to overrule it. Thus, the district court did not err by giving "substantial weight" to the Guidelines. B. Presumption of Reasonableness to a U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1 Sentence
Pruitt's second argument reads like a recapitulation of her first argument: just as the district court erred by according a presumption of reasonableness to a within-Guidelines sentence, she argues, the district court also erred by according a presumption of reasonableness to a sentence within the Guidelines's career-offender provision. We disagree. The logical extension of our holding in Kristl--that a within-Guidelines sentence is presumptively reasonable--is that a sentence within the career-offender range, which is part of the Guidelines, is also presumptively reasonable.(2)
Pruitt fails to recognize that these examples and statements bear little to no correlation to her extensive criminal history. Thus, even if we were able to create the exception that Pruitt proposes, the facts here bear so little correlation to the problems identified in the Commission's reports that we would need to disregard the case before us, and speculate about hypothetical cases and facts, before determining that creating the exception is a wise panacea to unreasonable sentences. We are unwilling to create such an important exception based on such speculation. Consistent with Kristl, we therefore find no error in the district court's decision to accord a presumption of reasonableness to a sentence within the Guidelines's career-offender range.
Looking outside this Circuit, the case of United States v. Reyes, 8 F.3d 1379 (9th Cir. 1993), is instructive. In Reyes, the defendant's instant offenses included distribution of .14 grams of cocaine and about five grams of marijuana, and illegal reentry into the United States. Id. at 1381. He also had an extensive record of prior convictions for use of opiates, possession of marijuana with intent to distribute, attempted theft, obstructing a police officer, possession of cocaine and heroine, and possession and delivery of cocaine. Id. Under the career offender provision, the defendant would have qualified for a sentencing range of 210 to 262 months. Id. at 1382. The district court, noting that the defendant's offenses were minor compared to others sentenced under the same guideline, departed downward and sentenced him to 33 months. Id. The Ninth Circuit affirmed, explaining that § 4B1.1 allows for "exceptional discrepancies" that may be sufficient to justify departure. Id. at 1387.
The career offender guideline is an especially appropriate context for the exercise of Booker discretion because any variance would be based on the particular circumstances of the offender and the offense rather than a blunderbuss attack on the sentencing policy reflected in the Guidelines. A judgment that a defendant like Bowser, Collins, Reyes, Williams--or possibly Pruitt--does not warrant the extraordinary sentence that would be meted out under § 4B1.1 is not a critique of the guideline. It is a determination that these individuals, despite meeting the formal criteria for career offenders, fall outside the guideline's heartland or intended scope. See U.S.S.G. ch. 1, pt. A, intro. comment 4(b) ("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."). By contrast, when a district court declines to follow the 100:1 crack/powder cocaine disparity, or refuses to enhance a sentence on the basis of uncharged or acquitted relevant conduct--decisions that the Courts of Appeals have almost uniformly ruled out of bounds under Booker(2)--the sentencing judge is effectively saying that the guideline in question is wrong everywhere and always.(3)
We might draw an analogy to the distinction between "facial" and "as-applied" constitutional challenges to legislation. A facial challenge is a head-on attack on the legislative judgment, an assertion that the challenged statute violates the Constitution in all, or virtually all, of its applications. An as-applied challenge concedes that the statute may be constitutional in many of its applications, but contends that it is not so under the particular circumstances of the case. One plausible way to understand the reach of the sentencing court's post-Booker discretion is to treat it as analogous to an as-applied challenge: although a particular guideline may well point to an appropriate sentence in many cases, the particular characteristics of the offender and the offense in a given case render it inappropriate.(4)
This conception respects the comparative advantages of the sentencing court and the Sentencing Commission. The former is in the best position to evaluate the defendant and make an informed judgment about the necessary extent of punishment under the circumstances. See Koon v. United States, 518 U.S. 81, 113 (1996). The latter is in the best position to set national sentencing policy--not just because the Commission can base its determinations on empirical data and national experience, guided by a professional staff with appropriate expertise, but, more importantly, because it has democratic legitimacy. See United States v. Cage, 451 F.3d 585, 593 (10th Cir. 2006) ("[T]he Guidelines are an expression of popular political will about sentencing that is entitled to due consideration when we determine reasonableness."). Congress has vested the Commission--not individual judges--with authority to engage in the quasi-legislative activity of determining national sentencing policy, and the Commission (for better or worse) is responsive to Congress in the way it performs these duties.(5) When courts exercise their Booker discretion on an "as-applied" basis, they act in their own area of comparative advantage and respect that of the Commission.
But this Court--in company with several other Circuits--has held that within-Guidelines sentences are only presumptively reasonable. United States v. Kristl, 437 F.3d 1050, 1054 (10th Cir. 2006) (announcing that within-Guidelines sentences are "entitled to a rebuttable presumption of reasonableness . . . that either the defendant or the government may rebut by demonstrating that the sentence is unreasonable when viewed against the other factors delineated in § 3553(a)"); see also United States v. Green, 436 F.3d 449, 457 (4th Cir. 2006); United States v. Alonzo, 435 F.3d 551, 554 (5th Cir. 2006); United States v. Williams, 436 F.3d 706, 708 (6th Cir. 2006); United States v. Mykytiuk, 415 F.3d 606, 608 (7th Cir. 2005); United States v. Lincoln, 413 F.3d 716, 717 (8th Cir. 2005); United States v. Dorcely, 454 F.3d 366, 376 (D.C. Cir. 2006).(6) This means that, at least in theory, some such sentences cannot pass the "reasonableness" standard, which in turn means that public defenders, other defense counsel, U.S. Attorneys' offices, and appellate courts devote vast quantities of resources to reviewing thousands of sentences without much likelihood of reversal. The process reminds me of the "snipe hunts" of my boyhood years in the Scouts, where the older boys would take the younger ones out in the woods at night in search for creatures that turned out not to exist. Great fun, for Boy Scouts. So far, in the post-Booker forest, only one apparent snipe has been found, and it turned out, on remand, not to be a snipe after all.
2. On the crack/powder issue, compare United States v. Pho, 433 F.3d 62­65, 54 (1st Cir. 2006) (concluding that a district court cannot categorically reject the 100:1 crack/powder disparity), and United States v. Castillo, 460 F.3d 337, 361 (2d Cir. 2006) (same), and United States v. Eura, 440 F.3d 625, 633 (4th Cir. 2006) (same), and United States v. Leatch, 482 F.3d 790, 791­92 (5th Cir. 2007) (same), and United States v. Jointer, 457 F.3d 682, 687­88 (7th Cir. 2006) (same), and United States v. Spears, 469 F.3d 1166, 1175­76 (8th Cir. 2006) (same), and United States v. Williams, 456 F.3d 1353, 1367 (11th Cir. 2006) (same), with United States v. Gunter, 462 F.3d 237, 249 (3d Cir. 2006) (concluding that district courts have discretion to consider the crack/powder disparity as a factor in sentencing), and United States v. Pickett, 475 F.3d 1347, 1354 (D.C. Cir. 2007) (finding error in the district court's refusal to evaluate whether sentencing in accordance with the crack/powder disparity effectuates § 3553(a)). On the refusal to account for uncharged or acquitted relevant conduct, see United States v. Rico, 182 F. App'x 722, 723 (9th Cir. 2006) (unpublished); United States v. Pineiro, 470 F.3d 200, 206­07 (5th Cir. 2006); United States v. Ashworth, 139 F. App'x 525, 527 (4th Cir. 2005) (unpublished). But see United States v. Faust, 456 F.3d 1342, 1349 (11th Cir. 2006) (Barkett, J., specially concurring) ("I strongly believe . . . that sentence enhancements based on acquitted conduct are unconstitutional under the Sixth Amendment, as well as the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment."); United States v. Pimental, 367 F.Supp.2d 143, 149­55 (D. Mass. 2005) (declining to enhance a sentence on the basis of acquitted conduct).
3. I do not choose these examples because of any personal agreement with the sentencing policies involved. Quite the contrary, these are examples of Guidelines policies that are problematic (and, in the case of the 100:1 crack/powder distinction, virtually indefensible). The reason that appellate courts have tended to reverse exercises of Booker discretion in these contexts is not that the district courts have somehow been unreasonable in thinking that these policies are misguided, but that, as a structural matter, these are policy questions whose resolution Congress entrusted to the Commission. See Pho, 433 F.3d at 62­63.
4. The Supreme Court has heard argument in a case that could alter the structure of federal sentencing, and in particular could reduce the legal significance of the Sentencing Guidelines to but one of many sentencing factors a district court must consider under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). See United States v. Rita, 177 F. App'x 357 (4th Cir. 2006) (unpublished), cert. granted, 127 S. Ct. 551 (Nov. 3, 2006) (No. 06-5754). The outcome of this case could render the analysis in text regarding the nature of sentencing courts' Booker discretion obsolete.
5. One might well think that this arrangement subverts the separation-of-powers protections of the Constitution, by enabling Congress to accomplish its purposes through low-level and nontransparent means, and without the alternative safeguards entailed by delegation of rulemaking authority to executive branch agencies. But these objections were rejected by the Supreme Court in Mistretta v. United States, 488 U.S. 361 (1989), a decision the Court does not seem inclined to revisit.
6.It is not evident that in practice, appellate review in circuits that have declined to recognize a presumption is any different.
URL: http://ca10.washburnlaw.edu/cases/2007/06/06-3152.htm.