Source: http://www.chanrobles.com/usa/us_supremecourt/520/751/case.php
Timestamp: 2017-11-19 19:58:23
Document Index: 547978075

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 994', '§ 994', '§ 994', '§ 4', '§ 4', '§ 841', '§ 994', '§4', '§ 3584', '§ 3584', '§ 3584', '§3584', '§ 851', '§ 841', '§ 994', '§ 994', '§ 5037', '§ 994', '§ 994', '§ 994', '§ 994', '§ 217', '§ 991', '§ 218', '§ 2', '§ 3553', '§ 991', '§ 841', '§ 3584', '§ 994', '§ 841', '§ 4', '§ 991', '§ 994', '§ 991', '§ 991', '§ 841', '§ 851', '§ 994']

UNITED STATES v. LABONTE ET AL. - US SUPREME COURT DECISIONS ON-LINE
US Supreme Court Decisions - On-Line> Volume 520 > UNITED STATES v. LABONTE ET AL.
Subscribe to Cases that cite 520 U.S. 751
Held: Amendment 506 is inconsistent with § 994(h)'s plain and unambiguous language and therefore must give way. Stinson v. United States, 508 U. S. 36, 38. Assuming that Congress said what it meant in drafting § 994(h), and giving the words used their "ordinary meaning," Moskal v. United States, 498 U. S. 103, 108, the phrase "maximum term authorized" must be read to include all applicable statutory sentencing enhancements. Respondents' contrary argument that the phrase refers only to the highest penalty authorized by the offense of conviction, excluding any enhancements, has little merit. Their assertion that § 994(h) is ambiguous is based, at least in part, on a strained and flawed construction of the phrase "categories of defendants." Their claim that Amendment 506 satisfies Congress' mandate to sentence repeat offenders "at or near" the maximum sentence authorized is also rejected. Although the phrase "at or near" unquestionably permits a certain degreecralaw
THOMAS, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which REHNQUIST, C.J., and O'CONNOR, SCALIA, KENNEDY, and SOUTER, JJ., joined. BREYER, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which STEVENS and GINSBURG, JJ., joined, post, p. 762.
* David Duncan, Lisa B. Kemler, and David M. Zlotnick filed a brief for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers et al. as amici curiae urging affirmance.cralaw
The Commission sought to implement this directive by promulgating the "Career Offender Guideline," which created a table of enhanced total offense levels to be used in calculating sentences for "career offenders." United States Sentencing Commission, Guidelines Manual § 4B1.1 (Nov. 1987)cralaw
2 See United States v. Smith, 984 F.2d 1084, 1087 (CAW), cert. denied, 510 U. S. 873 (1993); United States v. Garrett, 959 F.2d 1005, 1009-1011 (CADC 1992); United States v. Amis, 926 F.2d 328, 329-330 (CA3 1991); United States v. Sanchez-Lopez, 879 F.2d 541, 558-560 (CA9 1989).cralaw
Prior to the adoption of Amendment 506, respondents George LaBonte, Alfred Lawrence Hunnewell, and Stephen Dyer were convicted of various federal controlled substance offenses in the United States District Court for the District of Maine. Each respondent qualified as a career offender under USSG § 4B1.1 (Nov. 1987), had received the required notice that an enhanced penalty would be sought, and was sentenced under the Career Offender Guideline using the enhancement. The First Circuit affirmed each respondent's conviction and sentence. Following the adoption of Amendment 506, however, each respondent sought a reduction in his sentence. In the cases of respondents Dyer and Hunnewell, the District Court found that the amendment was contrary to 21 U. S. C. § 841(b)(1)(C) and 28 U. S. C. § 994(h), and refused to reduce the sentences. In respondent LaBonte's case, however, a different judge of the same District Court upheld the amendment and reduced LaBonte's sentence. The First Circuit consolidated the ensuing appeals and a divided panel, applying the approach set forth in Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc.,cralaw
In validating Amendment 506, the First Circuit here reached the same conclusion as the Ninth Circuit later did in United States v. Dunn, 80 F.3d 402, 404 (1996). Five other Courts of Appeals, however, have reached the opposite conclusion, finding Amendment 506 at odds with the plain lan-cralaw
3 See United States v. McQuilkin, 97 F.3d 723, 731-733 (CA3 1996), cert. pending, No. 96-6810; United States v. Branham, 97 F.3d 835, 845-846 (CA6 1996); United States v. Hernandez, 79 F.3d 584, 595-601 (CA7 1996), cert. pending, Nos. 95-8469, 95-9335; United States v. Fountain, 83 F.3d 946, 950-953 (CA8 1996), cert. pending, No. 96-6001; United States v. Novey, 78 F.3d 1483, 1486-1488 (CAlO 1996), cert. pending, No. 95-8791.cralaw
4 Indeed, the Commission has explicitly recognized that "the phrase 'maximum term authorized' should be construed as the maximum term authorized by statute." USSG §4B1.1, comment., backg'd (Nov. 1987) (emphasis added). And, in our view, the phrase refers to all applicable statutes that would affect the district court's calculation of the prison term. Contrary to the dissent's suggestion, however, 18 U. S. C. § 3584 does not affect the maximum term authorized. Section 3584 merely instructs a sentencing court whether to run "multiple terms of imprisonment" consecutively or concurrently; it says nothing about how the individual term is to be calculated. § 3584 (emphasis added). Of course, § 3584(c), which the dissent highlights, post, at 770, directs that "[m]ultiple terms of imprisonment ... shall be treated for administrative purposes as a single, aggregate term of imprisonment." 18 U. S. C. §3584(c) (emphasis added). Each of the sections cited by the dissent falls within this "administrative purposes" carve-out, which in no way undercuts, and in fact plainly bolsters, our point.cralaw
We see at least two serious flaws in this reasoning. First, respondents' construction of the word "categories" is overinclusive because it subsumes within a single category both defendants who have received notice under § 851(a)(1) and those who have not. The statutory scheme, however, obviously contemplates two distinct categories of repeat offenders for each possible crime. The Commission is no more free to ignore this distinction than it is to ignore the distinction made between those defendants who distributed certain controlled substances and those whose distribution also directly resulted in the death of a user. See, e. g., 21 U. S. C. § 841(b)(1)(C). Thus, for defendants who have received thecralaw
Respondents further seek to circumvent § 994(h)'s plain meaning by claiming that Amendment 506 satisfies Congress' mandate to sentence repeat offenders "at or near" the maximum sentence authorized. The flexibility afforded by the phrase "at or near," respondents contend, justifies the Commission's decision to rely on the unenhanced maximum. This statutory phrase unquestionably permits a certain degree of flexibility for upward and downward departures and adjustments. The pertinent issue, however, "is not how close the sentence must be to the statutory maximum, but to which statutory maximum it must be close." United States v. Fountain, 83 F.3d 946, 952 (CA8 1996), cert. pending, No. 96-6001. Whatever latitude § 994(h) affords the Commission in deciding how close a sentence must come to the maximum to be "near" it, the statute does not license the Commission to select as the relevant "maximum term" a sen-cralaw
5 Respondents' reliance on United States v. R. L. C., 503 U. S. 291 (1992), is inapposite. There, we construed 18 U. S. C. § 5037(c), which provides that the sentence ordered by a court for a juvenile delinquent may not extend beyond "the maximum term of imprisonment that would be authorized if the juvenile had been tried and convicted as an adult." We held that the applicable "maximum" term authorized was the upper limit of the Guidelines range that would apply to a similarly situated adult offender. 503 U. S., at 306-307. R. L. C. involved a directive to a sentencing court, however, whereas 28 U. S. C. § 994(h) is a directive to the Commission. Because § 994(h) is designed to cabin the Commission's discretion in the promulgation of guidelines for career offenders, it would be entirely circular to suggest that the Commission had complied with § 994(h) merely by specifying sentences "at or near" the top of the Guidelines range. The Commission itself recognizes that the "maximum term authorized" within the meaning of § 994(h) is the statutory maximum, not the otherwise applicable Guidelines maximum. See n. 4, supra.cralaw
6 Inasmuch as we find the statute at issue here unambiguous, we need not decide whether the Commission is owed deference under Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837 (1984).cralaw
To understand the legal issue before us, one must keep in mind both what the Guidelines are and how they work. The Guidelines themselves are a set of legal rules written by the United States Sentencing Commission acting under authority delegated to it by a congressional statute, the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 (Sentencing Act), Pub. L. 98-473, § 217, 98 Stat. 2017- 2026, as amended, 28 U. S. C. §§ 991-998. See generally Mistretta v. United States, 488 U. S. 361 (1989). Congress established the United States Sentencing Commission both to create a more honest sentencing system (through the elimination of parole, see Pub. L. 98-473, § 218(a)(5), 98 Stat. 2027) and to create a fairer system by reducing the "unjustifiably wide range of sentences [pre-cralaw
The Guidelines divide sentencing factors into two basic categories: "offense" characteristics and "offender" characteristics. See generally USSG § lB1.1. The Guidelines first look to the characteristics of the "offense." The Guidelines tell a sentencing judge to consider the behavior in which an offender engaged when he committed the crime of which he was convicted. They assign a number-called a "Base Offense Level"-to the behavior that constituted the crime itself. (For example, they assign the Base Offense Level 20 to robbery. Id., § 2B3.1(a).) They next tell thecralaw
I say "in an ordinary case" because almost all Guideline rules are meant to govern typical cases. See 18 U. S. C. § 3553(b); 28 u. S. C. §§ 991(b)(1)(B), 994(b)(2) (requiring strict limits upon judge's sentencing discretion in ordinary cases). At the same time, the sentencing judge is free to depart from the Guidelines sentence in an atypical case-onecralaw
"(1) has been convicted of a felony that is"(A) a crime of violence; orcralaw
To understand how the new Guideline works, consider an example: The basic drug distribution statute, 21 U. S. C. § 841, has two relevant subsections, (a) and (b). Subsection (a) makes it a crime to "possess" a "controlled substance," such as cocaine, with "intent to distribute" it. Subsection (b) sets forth penalties-both minimum and maximum penalties-for violating subsection (a). Those penalties depend primarily upon the amount of drugs at issue, but also upon recidivism. One part of subsection (b), namely, subsection (b)(l)(B), for example, specifies a minimum penalty of 5 years and a maximum penalty of 40 years where the amount of cocaine ranges from 500 grams to 5 kilograms. A later por-cralaw
First, the language itself-the words "maximum term authorized"-is ambiguous. As I previously pointed out,cralaw
Nor, to take another example, could the phrase mean to include the federal statute that governs "[m]ultiple sentences of imprisonment," 18 U. S. C. § 3584-a statute that grants sentencing judges broad authority to "run" multiple sentences either "concurrently or consecutively." That statute would permit a judge to impose, say, a 20-year maximum sentence for each count of a six-count indictment and run those sentences consecutively, producing a total sentence of 120 years. Yet judges would not impose a sentence of 120 years upon an offender who engaged in a single related set of six 10-gram cocaine sales, even if each sale were the subject of a separate count in a prosecutor's indictment. (The Guidelines would not permit this 120-year imaginary sen-cralaw
Nor can one resolve the linguistic ambiguity by claiming (as the drafters of the relevant statutory language seem to have claimed, see infra, at 775) that Congress simply meant to refer to the maximum statutory penalties for the "offenses" of which offenders are convicted. That is because the word "offense" is a technical term in the criminal law, referring to a crime made up of statutorily defined "elements." See Staples v. United States, 511 U. S. 600, 604 (1994); Liparota v. United States, 471 U. S. 419, 424 (1985). Although some criminal statutes consider recidivism an ele-cralaw
Second, background sentencing law does not provide an unambiguous answer to the "authorized by what" question. That background law includes a fundamental distinction between "offense characteristics" and "offender characteristics." This distinction underlies the Guidelines' basic structure, see supra, at 764-766; it is embodied in the Commission's authorizing statute, 28 U. S. C. §§ 994(c) and (d); and it grows out of pre-Guideline sentencing law, see, e. g., Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U. S. 280, 304 (1976) (plurality opinion); Pennsylvania ex rel. Sullivan v. Ashe, 302 U. S. 51, 55 (1937). Thus, it is not surprising that the Commission should write a Career Offender Guideline that itself reflects that distinction; nor can one consider the distinction arbitrary, as if, for example, the Commission were to have picked and chosen among different offense characteristics. Cf. ante, at 759. To the contrary, this aspect of background sentencing law makes plausible a reading that sees this directive to create a generally applicable Career Offender Guideline as, in a sense, a substitute for other, more specific recidivism-based sentence enhancements already scattered throughout the Federal Criminal Code. Of course, one could also read the statute as a supplement to those provisions. But the statute itself does not tell us which reading is correct.cralaw
This contextual circumstance helps to explain why Congress might indeed have expected that the Commission would read the career offender subsection to refer to statutory offenses plus conduct-based enhancements alone (without recidivism-based sentence enhancements). Congress realized that the pre-Guideline sentencing system would havecralaw
To understand the impact of real-time sentencing thus helps explain why recidivist maximums are different from maximums associated with offense characteristics; it shows how the Commission's reading is consistent with Congress' obvious intent to increase recidivist sentences significantly; it shows how a general recidivist Guideline has an effect of a different kind than the statutory recidivist enhancements contained in prior law and hence might have been thought of as operating without reference to those enhancements; and it explains how legislators might reasonably have sought the goals implicit in the Commission's reading of the statute. Of course, it may also be the case that no legislator actuallycralaw
One can find a possible historical explanation for what occurred. The classifying subsection, like the sentencing law itself, originated in a congressional effort to rewrite the entire Federal Criminal Code. See, e. g., S. 1, 94th Cong., 1st Sess. (1975); S. 1437, 95th Cong., 2d Sess. (1978); S. 1630, 97th Cong., 2d Sess. (1981). That rewrite attached a classifying letter to each substantive crime. The classifying subsection attached a maximum penalty to each letter; and the penalty was a real-time penalty, for the rewrite contained the later enacted new sentencing law, which abolished parole and created real-time sentences. For example, the rewrite characterized its only drug recidivism provision-an enhanced penalty for a recidivist opiate crime-as a Class B felony; to which the classifying subsection attached a 25-year maximum sentence. See, e. g., S. Rep. No. 95-605, pt. 1, pp. 798, 801 (1977). The rewrite did not become law. Congress, instead, enacted into law its sentencing provisions, which included a career offender statute that initially contained acralaw
Finally, the majority is wrong when it argues that the Career Offender Guideline "eviscerate[s] the penalty enhancements Congress enacted in statutes such as § 841." Ante, at 760. Section 841 increases maximum penalties for recidivists, for example, for crimes involving less than 500 grams of cocaine, from 20 years to 30 years. The Commission's career offender penalties for these offenses yield sentences "at or near" the "non-recidivist" maximum. This increased statutory maximum increases what would otherwise be a statutory cap on any sentence imposed, thereby permitting the sentencing judge to sentence a recidivist to more than the statute's first offender maximum (20 years for 30 grams). Consequently, the statutory increase authorizes a higher sentence when the relevant Guideline range reaches beyond that first offender maximum (as it does in the case of some of the ranges prescribed by the Career Offender Guideline). See, e. g., USSG § 4B1.1 (table); id., ch. 5, pt. A (table). It authorizes a higher sentence when the sentencing judge faces an atypical case warranting a departure upward. See 18cralaw
This kind of inference makes sense in this case. Although the Commission is in the "judicial branch" of Government, 28 U. S. C. § 991(a); Mistretta, 488 U. S., at 384-397, Congress intended it to carry out a task similar to rulemaking tasks that Congress has often delegated to administrative agencies. The Commission's overall congressional mandate is sweeping. See 28 U. S. C. § 994(f) ("providing certainty and fairness in sentencing and reducing unwarranted sentence disparities"); § 991(b). Without broad delegated authority, it would not be possible to reconcile Congress' general objectives-of uniformity, proportionality, and administrabilitynor to reconcile those general objectives with a host of morecralaw
As a matter of policy, the Commission could take account of the fact that the Guideline that the majority believes the statute requires would significantly interfere with one of the Sentencing Act's basic objectives-greater uniformity in sentencing. 28 U. S. C. §§ 991(b)(1)(B), 994(f). That is because at least one important set of statutory recidivist enhancements-the drug crime enhancements contained in 21 U. S. C. § 841(b)-may be imposed only when the prosecutor files a specific document requesting it. § 851(a). Consequently, the majority's interpretation of 28 U. S. C. § 994(h) places significant power in the hands of the prosecutor to determine the length of the offender's sentence; and different prosecutors at different times may exercise that power incralaw
Consider an example: The ordinary (non-Career Offender) Guideline sentence, applicable to a three-time offender, for possession with intent to distribute a single dose of cocaine is 18 months; for possession with intent to distribute 400 grams it is 6 years. The statutory first-offender maximum is 20 years. The recidivist maximum is 30 years. As a matter of policy, the Commission might have thought that an increase from 18 months (or 6 years) to 20 real-time years adequately served basic punishment objectives (as well as Congress' specific instruction to assure "substantial prisoncralaw