Opinion ID: 195088
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Greater Includes the Lesser. The principle

Text: 1. The Greater Includes the Lesser. that the grant of a greater power includes the grant of a lesser power is a bit of common sense that has been recognized in virtually every legal code from time immemorial. It has found modern expression primarily in the realm of constitutional law. See, e.g., City of Lakewood v. Plain Dealer Publishing Co., 486 U.S. 750, 763 (1988) (commenting that the power to prohibit speech entirely includes the lesser power to license it at the government's discretion); Posadas de Puerto Rico Assocs. v. Tourism Co., 478 U.S. 328, 345 (1986) (holding that the power to ban casino gambling includes the lesser power to prohibit advertising of casino gambling). While this principle has nested less frequently in the criminal law context, it is fully applicable in that milieu. To illustrate, we use an example that bears a strong family resemblance to the problem at hand. The federal sentencing guidelines originally stated that an extraordinary physical impairment may be a reason to impose a sentence other than imprisonment. U.S.S.G. 5H1.4, p.s. (Nov. 1990). Three courts of appeals, including this one, refused to understand this provision to require an all-or-nothing choice between imposing an incarcerative sentence within the guideline range or imposing no prison sentence. The courts reasoned that, despite the 12 unvarnished language of the provision, the greater departure (no incarceration) necessarily included the lesser departure (a prison sentence below the bottom of the guideline sentencing range). See United States v. Slater, 971 F.2d 626, 635 (7th Cir. 1992); United States v. Hilton, 946 F.2d 955, 958 (1st Cir. 1991); United States v. Ghannam, 899 F.2d 327, 329 (4th Cir. 1990).3 Similarly, in this case, we are reluctant to posit an all-or-nothing choice between continuing a defendant on supervised release (with no further incarceration) and imprisoning the defendant (with no further supervision). We agree with the Eighth Circuit that if the SRR provision gives a district court the power to sentence an offender to a full term of imprisonment upon revocation, it must necessarily confer upon the court the power under that subsection to impose a less drastic sanction. Schrader, 973 F.2d at 625.