Opinion ID: 766961
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Reliance on Congressional Intent Instead of on Offenders' Conduct

Text: 29 The core of the district court's decision was to define the heartland of U.S.S.G. S 2G2.4 by cataloguing the harms that Congress sought to address when it prohibited the possession of child pornography and then deciding the extent to which Defendant contributed to those harms. That methodology contradicts the statutory mandate on sentencing, the Guidelines themselves, and precedent. 30 The intent of Congress with respect to sentencing is reflected in 18 U.S.C. S 3553(b), which provides in pertinent part: 31 The court shall impose a sentence of the kind, and within the range, referred to in subsection (a)(4) unless the court finds that there exists an aggravating or mitigating circumstance of a kind, or to a degree, not adequately taken into consideration by the Sentencing Commission in formulating the guidelines that should result in a sentence different from that described. In determining whether a circumstance was adequately taken into consideration, the court shall consider only the sentencing guidelines, policy statements, and official commentary of the Sentencing Commission. 32 In Koon, 518 U.S. at 104-05, the Court explained that the proper comparison is between the conduct of the defendant and the conduct of other offenders. Similarly, in United States v. Sanchez-Rodriguez, 161 F.3d 556, 561 (9th Cir. 1998) (en banc), this court made clear that, to determine the heartland of a particular Guideline, a district court is to compare the defendant's conduct with the conduct of all defendants who are sentenced pursuant to the same Guideline. 5 33 Those holdings are not surprising, because they carry out the Sentencing Guidelines. The Guidelines expressly direct sentencing courts, when determining the heartland, to compare conduct. See U.S.S.G. Ch. 1, Pt. A, Intro. Comment 4(b) (The Commission intends the sentencing courts to treat each guideline as carving out a `heartland,' a set of typical cases embodying the conduct that each guideline describes. When a court finds an atypical case, one to which a particular guideline linguistically applies but where conduct significantly differs from the norm, the court may consider whether a departure is warranted.) (emphasis added). 34 Why Congress enacted a particular substantive criminal statute ordinarily is not relevant in answering the question whether what this defendant actually did is typical of what other offenders do when violating the law in question. The district court was only to compare Defendant's conduct with the conduct of others who are sentenced under the same Guideline. The district court did not do so. 35 This case provides a classic example of how the outcome could differ if the court were to consider conduct instead of congressional intent. The district court heard evidence that most images of child pornography on the Internet are old and found, therefore, that most of the images that Defendant downloaded likewise were old. Relying on its understanding of congressional intent, the court reasoned that only new child pornography is the target of the anti-possession law, 6 so Defendant was not in the heartland of the targeted group of possessors. By contrast, if the heartland is defined by conduct, one logically would conclude that Defendant's conduct of possessing a substantial number of mostly old images, as is typical because most images are old, put him within the heartland. 36 We are mindful of the predicament that a district court faces when sentencing an offender for a crime that is not often committed in a particular way in the district in question. In such a case, the court may (among other things) survey published cases to determine whether the conduct of the person to be sentenced significantly differs from the norm. U.S.S.G. Ch. 1, Pt. A, Intro. Comment 4(b). 37