Source: http://legaliq.com/Case/Gall_V_United_States
Timestamp: 2018-02-17 19:18:17
Document Index: 505531612

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 3553', '§ 3742', '§ 5', '§ 3553', '§ 3553', '§ 3553', '§ 3553', '§ 3551', '§ 991', '§ 3553', '§ 3553', '§ 3553', '§ 3553', 'art, 461', '§ 1988', '§ 1', '§ 3553']

Gall v. United States (552 U.S. 38, 128 S. Ct. 586, 169 L. Ed. 2d 445)
Case Name: Gall v. United States
Citations: 552 U.S. 38, 128 S. Ct. 586, 169 L. Ed. 2d 445, 2007 U.S. LEXIS 13083
Docket #: 06-7949
128 S.Ct. 586 (2007)
In two cases argued on the same day last Term we considered the standard that courts of appeals should apply when reviewing the reasonableness of sentences imposed by district judges. The first, Rita v. United States, 551 U.S. ___, 127 S.Ct. 2456, 168 L.Ed.2d 203 (2007), involved a sentence within the range recommended by the Federal Sentencing Guidelines; we held that when a district judge's discretionary decision in a particular case accords with the sentence the United States Sentencing Commission deems appropriate "in the mine run of cases," the court of appeals may presume that the sentence is reasonable. Id., at ___, 127 S.Ct., at 2465.
The second case, Claiborne v. United States, involved a sentence below the range recommended by the Guidelines, and raised the converse question whether a court of appeals may apply a "proportionality test," and require that a sentence that constitutes a substantial variance from the Guidelines be justified by extraordinary circumstances. See Claiborne v. United States, 549 U.S. ___, 127 S.Ct. 551, 166 L.Ed.2d 406 (2006). We did not have the opportunity to answer this question because the case was mooted by Claiborne's untimely death. Claiborne v. United States, 551 U.S. ___, 127 S.Ct. 2245, 167 L.Ed.2d 1080 (2007) (per curiam). We granted certiorari in the case before us today in order to reach that question, left unanswered last Term. 551 U.S. ___, 127 S.Ct. 2933, 168 L.Ed.2d 261 (2007). We now hold that, while the extent of the difference between a particular sentence and the recommended Guidelines range is surely relevant, courts of appeals must review all sentences  whether inside, just outside, or significantly outside the Guidelines range  under a deferential abuse-of-discretion standard. We also hold that the sentence imposed by the experienced District Judge in this case was reasonable.
Rather than making an attempt to quantify the value of the justifications provided by the District Judge, the Court of Appeals identified what it regarded as five separate errors in the District Judge's reasoning: (1) He gave "too much weight to Gall's withdrawal from the conspiracy"; (2) given that Gall was 21 at the time of his offense, the District Judge erroneously gave "significant weight" to studies showing impetuous behavior by persons under the age of 18; (3) he did not "properly weigh" the seriousness of Gall's offense; (4) he failed to consider whether a sentence of probation would result in "unwarranted" disparities; and (5) he placed "too much emphasis on Gall's post-offense rehabilitation." Id., at 889-890. As we shall explain, we are not persuaded that these factors, whether viewed separately or in the aggregate, are sufficient to support the conclusion that the District Judge abused his discretion. As a preface to our discussion of these particulars, however, we shall explain why the Court of Appeals' rule requiring "proportional" justifications for departures from the Guidelines range is not consistent with our remedial opinion in United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 125 S.Ct. 738, 160 L.Ed.2d 621 (2005).
In Booker we invalidated both the statutory provision, 18 U.S.C. § 3553(b)(1) (2000 ed., Supp. IV), which made the Sentencing Guidelines mandatory, and § 3742(e) (2000 ed. and Supp. IV), which directed appellate courts to apply a de novo standard of review to departures from the Guidelines. As a result of our decision, the Guidelines are now advisory, and appellate review of sentencing decisions is limited to determining whether they are "reasonable." Our explanation of "reasonableness" review in the Booker opinion made it pellucidly clear that the familiar abuse-of-discretion standard of review now applies to appellate review of sentencing decisions. See 543 U.S., at 260-262, 125 S.Ct. 738; see also Rita, 551 U.S., at ___, 127 S.Ct. 2456 (STEVENS, J., concurring).
It is also clear that a district judge must give serious consideration to the extent of any departure from the Guidelines and must explain his conclusion that an unusually lenient or an unusually harsh sentence is appropriate in a particular case with sufficient justifications. For even though the Guidelines are advisory rather than mandatory, they are, as we pointed out in Rita, the product of careful study based on extensive empirical evidence derived from the review of thousands of individual sentencing decisions.[2]Id., at ___, 127 S.Ct. 2456.
We recognize that custodial sentences are qualitatively more severe than probationary sentences of equivalent terms. Offenders on probation are nonetheless subject to several standard conditions that substantially restrict their liberty. See United States v. Knights, 534 U.S. 112, 119, 122 S.Ct. 587, 151 L.Ed.2d 497 (2001) ("Inherent in the very nature of probation is that probationers `do not enjoy the absolute liberty to which every citizen is entitled'" (quoting Griffin v. Wisconsin, 483 U.S. 868, 874, 107 S.Ct. 3164, 97 L.Ed.2d 709 (1987))).[4] Probationers may not leave *596 the judicial district, move, or change jobs without notifying, and in some cases receiving permission from, their probation officer or the court. They must report regularly to their probation officer, permit unannounced visits to their homes, refrain from associating with any person convicted of a felony, and refrain from excessive drinking. USSG § 5B1.3. Most probationers are also subject to individual "special conditions" imposed by the court. Gall, for instance, may not patronize any establishment that derives more than 50% of its revenue from the sale of alcohol, and must submit to random drug tests as directed by his probation officer. App. 109.
As we explained in Rita, a district court should begin all sentencing proceedings by correctly calculating the applicable Guidelines range. See 551 U.S., at ___, 127 S.Ct. 2456. As a matter of administration and to secure nationwide consistency, the Guidelines should be the starting point and the initial benchmark. The Guidelines are not the only consideration, however. Accordingly, after giving both parties an opportunity to argue for whatever sentence they deem appropriate, the district judge should then consider all of the § 3553(a) factors to determine whether they support the sentence requested by a party.[6] In so doing, he may not presume *597 that the Guidelines range is reasonable. See id., at ___, 127 S.Ct. 2456. He must make an individualized assessment based on the facts presented. If he decides that an outside-Guidelines sentence is warranted, he must consider the extent of the deviation and ensure that the justification is sufficiently compelling to support the degree of the variance. We find it uncontroversial that a major departure should be supported by a more significant justification than a minor one. After settling on the appropriate sentence, he must adequately explain the chosen sentence to allow for meaningful appellate review and to promote the perception of fair sentencing. Id., at ___, 127 S.Ct. 2456.
Regardless of whether the sentence imposed is inside or outside the Guidelines range, the appellate court must review the sentence under an abuse-of-discretion standard. It must first ensure that the district court committed no significant procedural error, such as failing to calculate (or improperly calculating) the Guidelines range, treating the Guidelines as mandatory, failing to consider the § 3553(a) factors, selecting a sentence based on clearly erroneous facts, or failing to adequately explain the chosen sentence  including an explanation for any deviation from the Guidelines range. Assuming that the district court's sentencing decision is procedurally sound, the appellate court should then consider the substantive reasonableness of the sentence imposed under an abuse-of-discretion standard. When conducting this review, the court will, of course, take into account the totality of the circumstances, including the extent of any variance from the Guidelines range. If the sentence is within the Guidelines range, the appellate court may, but is not required to, apply a presumption of reasonableness. Id., at ___, 127 S.Ct. 2456. But if the sentence is outside the Guidelines range, the court may not apply a presumption of unreasonableness. It may consider the extent of the deviation, but must give due deference to the district court's decision that the § 3553(a) factors, on a whole, justify the extent of the variance. The fact that the appellate court might reasonably have concluded that a different sentence was appropriate is insufficient to justify reversal of the district court.
Practical considerations also underlie this legal principle. "The sentencing judge is in a superior position to find facts and judge their import under § 3553(a) in the individual case. The judge sees and hears the evidence, makes credibility determinations, has full knowledge of the facts and gains insights not conveyed by the record." Brief for Federal Public and Community Defenders et al. as Amici Curiae 16. "The sentencing judge has access to, and greater familiarity with, the individual case and the individual defendant *598 before him than the Commission or the appeals court." Rita, 551 U.S., at ___, 127 S.Ct., at 2469. Moreover, "[d]istrict courts have an institutional advantage over appellate courts in making these sorts of determinations, especially as they see so many more Guidelines sentences than appellate courts do." Koon v. United States, 518 U.S. 81, 98, 116 S.Ct. 2035, 135 L.Ed.2d 392 (1996).[7]
"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." Id., at 113, 116 S.Ct. 2035.[8] The uniqueness of the individual case, however, does not change the deferential abuse-of-discretion standard of review that applies to all sentencing decisions. As we shall now explain, the opinion of the Court of Appeals in this case does not reflect the requisite deference and does not support the conclusion that the District Court abused its discretion.
In that portion of his sentencing memorandum, however, the judge was discussing the "character of the defendant," not the nature of his offense. App. 122. He noted that Gall's criminal history included a ticket for underage drinking when he was 18 years old and possession of marijuana that was contemporaneous with his offense in this case. In summary, the District Judge observed that all of Gall's criminal history "including the present offense, occurred when he was twenty-one-years old or younger" and appeared "to stem from his addictions to drugs and alcohol." Id., at 123. The District Judge appended a long footnote to his discussion of Gall's immaturity. The footnote includes an excerpt from our opinion in Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551, 569, 125 S.Ct. 1183, 161 L.Ed.2d 1 (2005), which quotes a study stating that a lack of maturity and an undeveloped sense of responsibility are qualities that "'often result in impetuous and ill-considered actions.'" The District Judge clearly stated the relevance of these studies in the opening and closing sentences of the footnote:
Given the dramatic contrast between Gall's behavior before he joined the conspiracy and his conduct after withdrawing, it was not unreasonable for the District Judge to view Gall's immaturity at the time of the offense as a mitigating factor, and his later behavior as a sign that he had matured and would not engage in such impetuous and ill-considered conduct in the future. Indeed, his consideration of that factor finds support in our cases. See, e.g., Johnson v. Texas, 509 U.S. 350, 367, 113 S.Ct. 2658, 125 L.Ed.2d 290 (1993) (holding that a jury was free to consider a 19-year-old defendant's youth when determining whether there was a probability that he would continue to commit violent acts in the future and stating that "`youth is more than a chronological fact. It is a time and condition of life when a person may be most susceptible to influence and to psychological damage'" (quoting Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 U.S. 104, 115, 102 S.Ct. 869, 71 L.Ed.2d 1 (1982))).
In Rita v. United States, 551 U.S. ___, ___, 127 S.Ct. 2456, 168 L.Ed.2d 203 (2007), I wrote separately to state my view that any appellate review of sentences for substantive reasonableness will necessarily result in a sentencing scheme constitutionally indistinguishable from the mandatory Guidelines struck down in United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 125 S.Ct. 738, 160 L.Ed.2d 621 (2005). Whether a sentencing scheme uses mandatory Guidelines, a "proportionality test" for Guidelines variances, or a deferential abuse-of-discretion standard, there will be some sentences upheld only on the basis of additional judge-found facts.
I join the Court's opinion here, as I do in today's companion case of Kimbrough v. United States, ___ U.S. ___, 128 S.Ct. 558, ___ L.Ed.2d ___, 2007 WL 4292040, which follow United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 125 S.Ct. 738, 160 L.Ed.2d 621 (2005), and Rita v. United States, 551 U.S. ___, 127 S.Ct. 2456, 168 L.Ed.2d 203 (2007). My disagreements with holdings in those earlier cases are not the stuff of formally perpetual dissent, but I see their objectionable points hexing our judgments today, see id., at ___, 127 S.Ct. 2456 (SOUTER, J., dissenting), and Booker, supra, at 272, 125 S.Ct. 738 (STEVENS, J., dissenting in part). After Booker's remedial holding, I continue to think that the best resolution of the tension between substantial consistency throughout the system and the right of jury trial would be a new Act of Congress: reestablishing a statutory system of mandatory sentencing guidelines (though not identical to the original in all points of detail), but providing for jury findings of all facts necessary to set the upper range of sentencing discretion. See Rita, supra, at ___, 127 S.Ct., at 2463-2464.
Consistent with my dissenting opinion in Kimbrough v. United States, ___ U.S. ___, 128 S.Ct. 558, ___ L.Ed.2d ___, 2007 WL 4292040, I would affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals because the District Court committed statutory error when it departed below the applicable Guidelines range.
In Booker, a bare majority held that the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 (Sentencing Reform Act), as amended, 18 U.S.C. § 3551 et seq., 28 U.S.C. § 991 et seq., violated the Sixth Amendment insofar as it required district judges to follow the United States Sentencing Guidelines, but another bare majority held that this defect could be remedied by excising the two statutory provisions, 18 U.S.C. §§ 3553(b)(1) and 3742(e) (2000 ed. and Supp. IV), that made compliance with the Guidelines mandatory. As a result of these two holdings, the lower federal courts were instructed that the Guidelines must be regarded as "effectively advisory," Booker, 543 U.S., at 245, 125 S.Ct. 738, and that individual sentencing decisions are subject to appellate review for "`reasonableness.'" Id., at 262, 125 S.Ct. 738. The Booker remedial opinion did not explain exactly what it meant by a system of "advisory" guidelines or by "reasonableness" review, and the opinion is open to different interpretations.
It is possible to read the opinion to mean that district judges, after giving the Guidelines a polite nod, may then proceed essentially as if the Sentencing Reform Act had never been enacted. This is how two of the dissents interpreted the Court's *604 opinion. Justice STEVENS wrote that sentencing judges had "regain[ed] the unconstrained discretion Congress eliminated in 1984" when it enacted the Sentencing Reform Act. Id., at 297, 125 S.Ct. 738. Justice SCALIA stated that "logic compels the conclusion that the sentencing judge. . . has full discretion, as full as what he possessed before the Act was passed, to sentence anywhere within the statutory range." Id., at 305, 125 S.Ct. 738.
"The district courts, while not bound to apply the Guidelines, must consult those Guidelines and take them into account when sentencing. See 18 U.S.C.A. §§ 3553(a)(4), (5) (Supp.2004). But compare post, at 305 (SCALIA, J., dissenting in part) (claiming that the sentencing judge has the same discretion 'he possessed before the Act was passed'). The courts of appeals review sentencing decisions for unreasonableness. These features of the remaining system, while not the system Congress enacted, nonetheless continue to move sentencing in Congress' preferred direction, helping to avoid excessive sentencing disparities while maintaining flexibility sufficient to individualize sentences where necessary." Id., at 264-265, 125 S.Ct. 738 (emphasis added).
The implication of this passage is that district courts are still required to give some deference to the policy decisions embodied in the Guidelines and that appellate review must monitor compliance. District courts must not only "consult" the Guidelines, they must "take them into account." Id., at 264, 125 S.Ct. 738. In addition, the passage distances the remedial majority from Justice SCALIA's position that, under an advisory Guidelines scheme, a district judge would have "discretion to sentence anywhere within the ranges authorized by statute" so long as the judge "state[d] that `this court does not believe that the punishment set forth in the Guidelines is appropriate for this sort of offense.'" Id., at 305, 125 S.Ct. 738 (opinion dissenting in part).
Moreover, in the passage quoted above and at other points in the remedial opinion, the Court expressed confidence that appellate review for reasonableness would help to avoid "`excessive sentencing disparities'" and "would tend to iron out sentencing differences." Id., at 263, 125 S.Ct. 738. Indeed, a major theme of the remedial opinion, as well as our decision last Term in Rita v. United States, 551 U.S. ___, 127 S.Ct. 2456, 168 L.Ed.2d 203 (2007), was that the post-Booker sentencing regime would still promote the Sentencing Reform Act's goal of reducing sentencing disparities. See, e.g., 551 U.S., at ___, 127 S.Ct., at 2463, 2463-2464, 2467; Booker, supra, at 259-260, 263-264, 125 S.Ct. 738.
It is unrealistic to think this goal can be achieved over the long term if sentencing judges need only give lip service to the Guidelines. The other sentencing factors set out in § 3553(a) are so broad that they impose few real restraints on sentencing judges. See id., at 305, 125 S.Ct. 738 (SCALIA, J., dissenting in part). Thus, if judges are obligated to do no more than consult the Guidelines before deciding upon the sentence that is, in their independent judgment, sufficient to serve the other § 3553(a) factors, federal sentencing will not "move . . . in Congress' preferred direction." Id., at 264, 125 S.Ct. 738 (opinion of the Court). On the contrary, sentencing disparities will gradually increase. *605 Appellate decisions affirming sentences that diverge from the Guidelines (such as the Court's decision today) will be influential, and the sentencing habits developed during the pre-Booker era will fade.
Finally, in reading the Booker remedial opinion, we should not forget the decision's constitutional underpinnings. Booker and its antecedents are based on the Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury. The Court has held that (at least under a mandatory guidelines system) a defendant has the right to have a jury, not a judge, find facts that increase the defendant's authorized sentence. See id., at 230-232, 125 S.Ct. 738; Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. 296, 303-304, 124 S.Ct. 2531, 159 L.Ed.2d 403 (2004). It is telling that the rules set out in the Court's opinion in the present case have nothing to do with juries or factfinding and, indeed, that not one of the facts that bears on petitioner's sentence is disputed. What is at issue, instead, is the allocation of the authority to decide issues of substantive sentencing policy, an issue on which the Sixth Amendment says absolutely nothing. The yawning gap between the Sixth Amendment and the Court's opinion should be enough to show that the Blakely-Booker line of cases has gone astray.
In Blakely, the Court drew a distinction  between judicial factfinding under a guidelines system and judicial factfinding under a discretionary sentencing system, see 542 U.S., at 309-310, 124 S.Ct. 2531  that, in my judgment, cannot be defended as a matter of principle. It would be a coherent principle to hold that any fact that increases a defendant's sentence beyond the minimum required by the jury's verdict of guilt must be found by a jury. Such a holding, however, would clash with accepted sentencing practice at the time of the adoption of the Sixth Amendment. By that time, many States had enacted criminal statutes that gave trial judges the discretion to select a sentence from within a prescribed range,[1] and the First Congress enacted federal criminal statutes that were cast in this mold. See An Act for the *606 Punishment of certain Crimes against the United States, 1 Stat. 112.[2]
Appellate review for abuse of discretion is not an empty formality. A decision calling for the exercise of judicial discretion "hardly means that it is unfettered by meaningful standards or shielded from thorough appellate review." Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U.S. 405, 416, 95 S.Ct. 2362, 45 L.Ed.2d 280 (1975). Accord, United States v. Taylor, 487 U.S. 326, 336, 108 S.Ct. 2413, 101 L.Ed.2d 297 (1988); Franks v. Bowman Transp. Co., 424 U.S. 747, 783, 96 S.Ct. 1251, 47 L.Ed.2d 444 (1976) (Powell, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). And when a trial court is required by statute to take specified factors into account in making a discretionary decision, the trial court must be reversed if it "ignored or slighted a factor that Congress has deemed pertinent." Taylor, supra, at 337, 108 S.Ct. 2413. See Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 438-440, 103 S.Ct. 1933, 76 L.Ed.2d 40 (1983) (finding an abuse of discretion where the District Court "did not properly consider" 1 of 12 factors Congress found relevant to the amount of attorney's fees when passing the Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Awards Act of 1976, 42 U.S.C. § 1988). See also United States v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative, 532 U.S. 483, 497-498, 121 S.Ct. 1711, 149 L.Ed.2d 722 (2001) (A court exercising its discretion "cannot `ignore the judgment of Congress, deliberately expressed in legislation.' Virginian R. Co. v. Railway Employees, 300 U.S. 515, 551, 57 S.Ct. 592, 81 L.Ed. 789 (1937)"); American Paper Institute, Inc. v. American Elec. Power Service Corp., 461 U.S. 402, 413, 103 S.Ct. 1921, 76 L.Ed.2d 22 (1983) ("To decide whether [Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's] action was. . . an abuse of discretion, we must determine whether the agency adequately considered the factors relevant" under the statute (internal quotation marks omitted)); Southern S.S. Co. v. NLRB, 316 U.S. 31, 46, 47, 62 S.Ct. 886, 86 L.Ed. 1246 (1942) (finding an abuse of discretion where the National Labor Relations Board sought to fulfill one congressional objective but "wholly ignore[d] other and equally important Congressional objectives").
This Court's opinion is also wrong in suggesting that the Eighth Circuit's approach was inconsistent with the abuse-of-discretion standard of appellate review. Ante, at 596. The Eighth Circuit stated unequivocally that it was conducting abuse-of-discretion review, 446 F.3d, at 888-889; abuse-of-discretion review is not toothless; and it is entirely proper for a reviewing court to find an abuse of discretion when important factors  in this case, the Guidelines, policy statements, and the need to avoid sentencing disparities  are "slighted." Taylor, 487 U.S., at 337, 108 S.Ct. 2413. The mere fact that the Eighth *610 Circuit reversed is hardly proof that the Eighth Circuit did not apply the correct standard of review.
[2] Notably, not all of the Guidelines are tied to this empirical evidence. For example, the Sentencing Commission departed from the empirical approach when setting the Guidelines range for drug offenses, and chose instead to key the Guidelines to the statutory mandatory minimum sentences that Congress established for such crimes. See United States Sentencing Commission, Guidelines Manual § 1A1.1 (Nov.2006) (USSG). This decision, and its effect on a district judge's authority to deviate from the Guidelines range in a particular drug case, is addressed in Kimbrough v. United States, ___ U.S. ___, 128 S.Ct. 558, ___ L.Ed.2d ___, 2007 WL 4292040.
[7] District judges sentence, on average, 117 defendants every year. Administrative Office of United States Courts, 2006 Federal Court Management Statistics 167. The District Judge in this case, Judge Pratt, has sentenced over 990 offenders over the course of his career. United States v. Likens, 464 F.3d 823, 827, n. 1 (C.A.8 2006) (Bright, J., dissenting). Only a relatively small fraction of these defendants appeal their sentence on reasonableness grounds. See Koon, 518 U.S., at 98, 116 S.Ct. 2035 ("In 1994, for example, 93.9% of Guidelines cases were not appealed"); Likens, 464 F.3d, at 827, n. 1 (Bright, J., dissenting) (noting that the District Judge had sentenced hundreds of defendants and that "[w]e have reviewed only a miniscule number of those cases"); cf. United States Sentencing Commission, 2006 Sourcebook of Federal Sentencing Statistics 135-152.
[8] It is particularly revealing that when we adopted an abuse-of-discretion standard in Koon, we explicitly rejected the Government's argument that "de novo review of departure decisions is necessary `to protect against unwarranted disparities arising from the differing sentencing approaches of individual district judges.'" 518 U.S., at 97, 116 S.Ct. 2035 (quoting Brief for United States in O.T. 1995, No. 94-1664, p. 12). Even then we were satisfied that a more deferential abuse-of-discretion standard could successfully balance the need to "reduce unjustified disparities" across the Nation and "consider every convicted person as an individual." 518 U.S., at 113, 116 S.Ct. 2035.
[2] We have often looked to laws passed by the First Congress to aide interpretation of the Bill of Rights, which that Congress proposed. See, e.g., Harmelin v. Michigan, 501 U.S. 957, 980, 111 S.Ct. 2680, 115 L.Ed.2d 836 (1991) (opinion of SCALIA, J.) (noting, while interpreting the Eighth Amendment, that "[t]he actions of the First Congress . . . are of course persuasive evidence of what the Constitution means"); Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 783, 788-790, 103 S.Ct. 3330, 77 L.Ed.2d 1019 (1983) (looking to the actions of the First Congress in interpreting the First Amendment); Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 150-152, 45 S.Ct. 280, 69 L.Ed. 543 (1925) (looking to the actions of the First Congress in interpreting the Fourth Amendment).
[3] While I believe that the Court's analysis of the sentence imposed in this case does not give sufficient weight to the Guidelines, it is noteworthy that the Court's opinion does not reject the proposition that the policy decisions embodied in the Guidelines are entitled to at least some weight. The Court's opinion in this case conspicuously refrains from directly addressing that question, and the opinion in Kimbrough v. United States, ___ U.S. ___, 128 S.Ct. 558, ___ L.Ed.2d ___, 2007 WL 4292040, is explicitly equivocal, stating that "while the Guidelines are no longer binding, closer review may be in order when the sentencing judge varies from the Guidelines based solely on the judge's view that the Guidelines range `fails properly to reflect § 3553(a) considerations' even in a mine-run case." Post, at ___, 128 S.Ct. 558, at 575 (quoting Rita v. United States, 551 U.S. ___, ___, 127 S.Ct. 2456, 2465, 168 L.Ed.2d 203 (2007)).
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