Source: http://yalelawjournal.org/the-yale-law-journal-pocket-part/criminal-law-and-sentencing/reasoning-through-reasonableness/
Timestamp: 2013-12-10 16:36:05
Document Index: 65319473

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 3553', '§ 3553', '§ 3553', '§ 3553', '§ 3553', 'art 142']

The Yale Law Journal Online - Reasoning Through Reasonableness
Douglas A. Berman,	Sunday, 02 July 2006	[View as PDF] After United States v. Booker, federal district judges may no longer just find Guideline-specified facts, plug those facts into a Guideline calculation, and then mechanically impose a Guideline sentence. Instead of sentencing-by-the-numbers, Booker requires district courts to exercise independent reasoned judgment when imposing a sentence, and requires appellate courts to ensure sentences are both reasoned and reasonable.
This understanding of Booker harmonizes its two seemingly conflicting majority opinions. Justice Stevens’s merits opinion makes reasoned judgment at sentencing constitutionally essential by suggesting first, that the Sixth Amendment permits only the jury to find facts that will have fixed and predictable sentencing consequences, but, second, that judges may, nevertheless, still consider facts when making discretionary sentencing decisions. Justice Breyer’s remedial opinion makes reasoned judgment at sentencing statutorily required by underscoring the continued importance of the dynamic, purpose-oriented considerations in § 3553(a) of the Sentencing Reform Act. In short, Booker’s two opinions indicate that both the Constitution and the Sentencing Reform Act now command judges to think critically and carefully, in each individual case, about how best to achieve the sentencing goals Congress set out in § 3553(a). Section 3553(a) directs judges to consider a range of (sometimes competing) punishment purposes and principles, and mandates the imposition of “a sentence sufficient, but not greater than necessary, to comply with” the traditional purposes detailed in § 3553(a)(2). Booker and § 3553(a) thus demand that federal sentencing judges exercise reasoned judgment by filtering the Guidelines’ advice through the provisions of § 3553(a); by doing so, district judges avoid giving any particular judge-found fact a “determinate” role in calculating the sentence, and thereby avoid the constitutional problem identified in Booker.
Preferred Citation: Douglas A. Berman, Reasoning Through Reasonableness, 115 Yale L.J. Pocket Part 142 (2006), http://www.thepocketpart.org /2006/07/berman.html.