Opinion ID: 218749
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Alleged Mandatory Presumption in Favor of the Guidelines

Text: Hill, Laudermill, and Farmer contend that their sentences are procedurally unreasonable because the district court applied a presumption in favor of the range of sentences recommended by the guidelines. They base their contention not just on comments at sentencing in this case in 2007 but also on the same judge's remarks in three unrelated cases from 2005 that purportedly indicate he considered the guidelines either binding or presumptively reasonable, contrary to the Supreme Court's holding in United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 125 S.Ct. 738, 160 L.Ed.2d 621 (2005), as developed in Rita v. United States, 551 U.S. 338, 127 S.Ct. 2456, 168 L.Ed.2d 203 (2007). According to these three appellants, it was the judge's policy to impose a sentence within the guidelines range unless there were unusual circumstances that would result in fundamental unfairness approaching a miscarriage of justice. A sentence may be unreasonable if it is the product of a procedure that does not follow Booker 's requirements, regardless of the actual sentence. United States v. Hunt, 459 F.3d 1180, 1182 n. 3 (11th Cir.2006). While it is permissible for appellate courts to apply a presumption of reasonableness to a sentence within a properly calculated guidelines range, the sentencing court does not enjoy the benefit of a legal presumption that the Guidelines sentence should apply. Rita, 551 U.S. at 351, 127 S.Ct. at 2465. If a district court applies the guidelines as though they were mandatory or treats the range as presumptively reasonable, that is procedural error. Hill argues that the district court slavishly adhered to the guidelines in arriving at his sentence. He claims that the judge has a pattern of sentencing defendants to a term of imprisonment within the advisory guidelines range. That a judge imposes sentences within the guidelines range in most cases is not a cause for concern. We suppose that can be said of many judges. Neither 18 U.S.C. § 3553 nor Booker establishes a quota of sentences outside the guidelines range. Hill does not, and in view of the sentences imposed on some of his co-defendants cannot, assert that the district court judge in this case never varies from the guidelines range or only rarely does so. Of the eleven sentences he imposed as a result of this mortgage fraud scheme, three were outside the guidelines range one was above it and two were below it. Faced with that fact about the sentences imposed in this and the related case of Riley Graham [39] from late 2007 through early 2008, Hill cites comments of the district court judge from sentence proceedings in earlier, unrelated cases. First, in United States v. Battle, No. 04-CR-00076, at 51 (N.D. Ga. April 1, 2005) (transcript of sentencing proceedings), the judge said to the defendant at the sentencing hearing in April of 2005: Well, as I've said before, my reading of Booker is that the guidelines remain an important factor in deciding the sentence in a criminal case, and that a non-guideline sentence is only to be imposed in unusual circumstances where the structure of the guidelines or the sentencing range produced by the guidelines produces a fundamentally unfair result. Id. Then, in May 2005, the same judge remarked at another sentencing hearing: Well as I've said many times by now, the guidelines bring a measure of consistency and fairness to sentencing, and it's just fundamentally unfair for a defendant to get a sentence of 151 months in my courtroom and then get a sentence of probation in the next courtroom, and the only way that consistency is going to be achieved in federal sentencing is to follow the guidelines, except in extraordinary cases where there's some fundamental unfairness inherent in the structure of the guidelines or in their application to a particular case. The one non-guideline sentence that I have imposed was a result of that where, because of a quirk in the way the case was indicted, two individuals who engaged in exactly the same conduct and who had exactly the same background, exactly the same criminal record, weren't treated the same; they were treated dramatically differently. United States v. House, No. 02-CR-00745, at 112-13 (N.D.Ga. May 10, 2005) (transcript of sentencing proceeding). Finally, the district court made the following remarks at the sentencing of another defendant in the House case, also in May 2005: As I've said in other cases, in order to impose a non-guideline sentence, I believe there must be some fundamental unfairness approaching a miscarriage of justice .... United States v. House, No. 02-CR-00745, at 27 (N.D.Ga. May 16, 2005) (transcript of sentencing proceeding). But the judge also stated in that case that following Booker he treated the guidelines as advisory, not mandatory. Id. The statements from the three earlier cases are problematic. However, those statements were not made at sentencing in any of the cases before us in this appeal. They were made in April and May of 2005, only months after Booker was decided in January of that year, and a full two years before the Rita decision was issued. By the time that these defendants were sentenced two years later, the post- Booker sentencing law on this point had been clarified by the Rita decision. The district court said nothing in this case indicating a lack of awareness of the Rita decision or suggesting that it was treating the guidelines as anything other than advisory. As Farmer points out, the court did invite the attorney for each defendant to address the issue of whether it should impose a sentence within the advisory guidelines range or outside the range, but there is nothing wrong with that. It is a question every sentencing judge faces in virtually every case, and asking the question actually indicates that the judge fully understands that the guidelines range is only advisory. Laudermill points to a single statement the court made during her sentence hearing. The court said to her counsel: Well, Mr. Rowsey, if I could give your client any more breaks than I already have within the guidelines and under the law, I would do it .... But I think I have given your client every break I can give her. We do not read that as anything more than an indication that the court felt it had calculated the guidelines correctly and had carefully considered all of the non-guidelines factors under the law, that law being 18 U.S.C. § 3553. The court believed it had been as lenient with Laudermill as it could justify being. For all of these reasons we are unpersuaded by the contention of Hill, Laudermill, and Farmer that the district court treated the guidelines in a manner that was inconsistent with the Booker and Rita decisions. The district court properly considered the § 3553(a) factors as well as the guidelines range, it varied upward or downward where it thought the circumstances justified doing so, and it gave well-reasoned explanations for each of its sentencing decisions.