Source: https://casetext.com/case/us-v-dean-68
Timestamp: 2018-12-15 08:10:52
Document Index: 217703105

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 3553', '§ 5', '§ 6', '§ 3553', '§ 3553', '§ 3553', '§ 3663', '§ 6', '§ 3661']

U.S. v. Dean, 414 F.3d 725 | Casetext
414 F.3d 725 (7th Cir. 2005)
United States Court of Appeals, Seventh CircuitJul 7, 2005
U.S. v. Wachowiak
…Rita, 127 S.Ct. at 2465, 2468-70; Wallace, 458 F.3d at 609; United States v. Repking, 467 F.3d 1091, 1096…
…First, the government notes that "[t]he current state of the law is that district courts must accurately…
holding that the sentencing judge need only provide an adequate statement of the judge&apos;s reasoning, consistent with section 3553, for thinking that the sentence selected is indeed appropriate for the particular defendant
Summary of this case from U.S. v. Vasquez, 223 Fed.Appx. 509
Donald J. Chewning (argued), Radosevich, Mozinski Cashman, Manitowoc, WI, for Defendant-Appellant.
A federal jury convicted Lavell Dean of being a felon in possession of a firearm, and the district judge sentenced him to 120 months in prison. The appeal, which challenges only the sentence, presents an important issue — the role of 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) in sentencing — that was presented, but left unresolved, by United States v. Booker, ___ U.S. ___, 125 S.Ct. 738, 160 L.Ed.2d 621 (2005).
The sentencing hearing was conducted after our decision in Booker that the Supreme Court later affirmed, and so the judge treated the guidelines as merely advisory. To decide whether the guidelines sentence of 120 months (when the sentence indicated by the guidelines exceeds the statutory maximum, the statutory maximum becomes the guidelines sentence, U.S.S.G. § 5G1.1(a)) was proper, the judge said he'd have "to consider the gravity of the offense, the character of the Defendant, the need to protect the community in this and any disposition," and "the elements of deterrence, punishment, rehabilitation, retribution, all of those factors that go toward assuring the safety of the community, and that an appropriate sentence is rendered." He proceeded to discuss those factors at some length, even to the extent of noting that "defendant has three siblings, and he has disappointed his sisters. His mother said he is a beautiful person. Nice, easygoing guy, although he has a quick temper. His two brothers are incarcerated at different institutions I believe in this State for various offenses. And — however, those [family members] that are not in prison seem to be supportive of the Defendant." The judge concluded that "the guidelines are not far off on this sentence. Fairly accurate."
The Supreme Court's decision in Booker requires the sentencing judge first to compute the guidelines sentence just as he would have done before Booker, and then — because Booker demoted the guidelines from mandatory to advisory status — to decide whether the guidelines sentence is the correct sentence to give the particular defendant. The decision to add four levels to Dean's base offense level because he possessed the gun in connection with illegal drug dealing, and two additional levels because the gun was stolen, was a stage-one determination that brought the guidelines sentence up to the statutory maximum (without those enhancements, the sentencing range would have been only 77 to 96 months), and Dean is right that the determination was made incorrectly. Rule 32 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, and in fact the guidelines themselves, require the judge to rule on any disputed portion of a PSI report, Fed.R.Crim.P. 32(i)(3)(B); U.S.S.G. § 6A1.3; United States v. Sykes, 357 F.3d 672, 674-75 (7th Cir. 2004); United States v. Cureton, 89 F.3d 469, 472-74 (7th Cir. 1996); United States v. Ameline, 409 F.3d 1073, 1085-86, 2005 WL 1291977, at *12 (9th Cir. June 1, 2005) (en banc), and the judge didn't do that. He treated the government's factual contentions (that Dean possessed the pistol in connection with drug dealing and that the pistol was stolen) as "arguments" that he could accept or reject, or factors to which he could give more or less weight, without having to determine whether the factual underpinnings of the government's arguments were true. And so he thought it unnecessary to hear testimony concerning the contested issue of the cellphone call, even though the call was the critical evidence that Dean was a drug dealer rather than merely a customer — for remember that it was not his house in which the drugs were found.
Until Booker, the uses that a sentencing judge could make of the factors listed in section 3553(a) were severely circumscribed by the next subsection in order to preserve the mandatory character of the guidelines. 18 U.S.C. § 3553(b). But now that they are advisory, while section 3553(a) remains unchanged, judges will have to consider the factors that the section tells them to consider. "Section 3553(a) remains in effect, and sets forth numerous factors that guide sentencing." United States v. Booker, supra, 125 S.Ct. at 766; see also id. at 764-65. " Booker suggests that the sentencing factors articulated in § 3553(a), which the mandatory application of the Guidelines made dormant, have a new vitality in channeling the exercise of sentencing discretion." United States v. Trujillo-Terrazas, 405 F.3d 814, 819 (10th Cir. 2005).
Section 3553(a), unlike the guidelines themselves after Booker, is mandatory. United States v. Booker, supra, 125 S.Ct. at 764-65. The sentencing judge cannot, after considering the factors listed in that statute, import his own philosophy of sentencing if it is inconsistent with them. And therefore he can, as a matter of prudence, unbidden by either party, do what Dean wants him to do — write a comprehensive essay applying the full panoply of penological theories and considerations, which is to say everything invoked or evoked by section 3553(a) — to the case before him.
But that is not required; like Chief Judge Randa in the present case, the sentencing judge can discuss the application of the statutory factors to the defendant not in checklist fashion but instead in the form of an adequate statement of the judge's reasons, consistent with section 3553(a), for thinking the sentence that he has selected is indeed appropriate for the particular defendant. United States v. Hadash, 408 F.3d 1080, 1084, 2005 WL 1250331, at *3 (8th Cir. May 27, 2005); United States v. Mares, 402 F.3d 511, 518-20 (5th Cir. 2005). "Judges need not rehearse on the record all of the considerations that 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) lists; it is enough to calculate the range accurately and explain why (if the sentence lies outside it) this defendant deserves more or less." United States v. George, 403 F.3d 470, 472-73 (7th Cir. 2005). This shortcut is justified by the indeterminate and interminable character of inquiry into the meaning and application of each of the "philosophical" concepts in which section 3553(a) abounds.
However, the farther the judge's sentence departs from the guidelines sentence (in either direction — that of greater severity, or that of greater lenity), the more compelling the justification based on factors in section 3553(a) that the judge must offer in order to enable the court of appeals to assess the reasonableness of the sentence imposed. (Cf. United States v. Dalton, 404 F.3d 1029, 1033-34 (8th Cir. 2005), reversing a 60-month sentence when the minimum guidelines sentence was four times as long.) But although the judge must therefore articulate the factors that determined the sentence that he has decided to impose, his duty "to consider" the statutory factors is not a duty to make findings, as we have held in dealing with the directive of the Victim and Witness Protection Act that the sentencing judge "shall consider" specified factors in deciding whether to order a criminal defendant to pay restitution. 18 U.S.C. § 3663(a)(1)(B)(i). Not only are findings not required (with a qualification noted below), but "lack of findings coupled with an award of full restitution implies that the defendant has failed to carry this burden." United States v. Ahmad, 2 F.3d 245, 247 (7th Cir. 1993).
This does not mean trial by jury, proof beyond a reasonable doubt, consideration limited to evidence that satisfies the requirements of admissibility that are found in the Federal Rules of Evidence, or any other such formalities. U.S.S.G. § 6A1.3; United States v. Polson, 285 F.3d 563, 566-67 (7th Cir. 2002); United States v. Kroledge, 201 F.3d 900, 908-09 (7th Cir. 2000); United States v. Hough, 276 F.3d 884, 891 (6th Cir. 2002); United States v. Atkins, 250 F.3d 1203, 1212-13 (8th Cir. 2001); see also 18 U.S.C. § 3661. Only when factual determinations require a particular sentence does the Sixth Amendment come into play, imposing formalities on factual determinations (other than criminal history) that influence sentence length. United States v. Booker, supra, 125 S.Ct. at 750; see also Shepard v. United States, ___ U.S. ___, ___-___, 125 S.Ct. 1254, 1262-63, 161 L.Ed.2d 205 (2005); United States v. Carter, 410 F.3d 942, 954, 2005 WL 1367195, at *9 (7th Cir. June 10, 2005); United States v. Iskander, 407 F.3d 232, 242-43 (4th Cir. 2005); United States v. Mashek, 406 F.3d 1012, 1014-15 (8th Cir. 2005); United States v. Coles, 403 F.3d 764, 766 (D.C. Cir. 2005). With the guidelines now merely advisory, factfindings that determine the guidelines sentence do not determine the actual sentence, because the sentencing judge is not required to impose the guidelines sentence; and so the Sixth Amendment is not in play.
Our focus thus far has been on cases in which the sentencing judge is minded to impose a sentence outside the guidelines range. Recognizing that the guidelines are promulgated and continually revised by an agency staffed by experts (the Sentencing Commission), the court in United States v. Mares, supra, 402 F.3d at 519, said that "if the sentencing judge exercises her discretion to impose a sentence within a properly calculated Guideline range, in our reasonableness review we will infer that the judge has considered all the factors for a fair sentence set forth in the Guidelines. . . . When the judge exercises her discretion to impose a sentence within the Guideline range and states for the record that she is doing so, little explanation is required." But the defendant must be given an opportunity to draw the judge's attention to any factor listed in section 3553(a) that might warrant a sentence different from the guidelines sentence, for it is possible for such a variant sentence to be reasonable and thus within the sentencing judge's discretion under the new regime in which the guidelines, being advisory, can be trumped by section 3553(a), which as we have stressed is mandatory. Simon v. United States, 361 F.Supp.2d 35, 39-41 (E.D.N.Y. 2005); United States v. Kelley, 355 F.Supp.2d 1031, 1035-37 (D.Neb. 2005); United States v. Ranum, 353 F.Supp.2d 984, 985-86 (E.D.Wis. 2005).