Opinion ID: 2976712
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: McConer’s sentence

Text: Finally, however, we must vacate McConer’s sentence because the district court misstated its mandate and explicitly applied a presumption of reasonableness to McConer’s Guidelines range: Well, this is difficult for one reason only, as far as I’m concerned, and that is that no matter how you look at it, 30 years is just a ton of time. And if I were the original decision maker, I probably wouldn’t have come up with 30 years as the appropriate sentence in this case. And I recognize that I have discretion under Booker to fashion a reasonable sentence, but the Sixth Circuit has given us guidelines which require that I start with the presumption that the guideline sentence is reasonable, look for possible areas of departure, and also look at 3553(a) and see if there is any basis for adjusting the sentence because of that. JA 988-89 (emphasis added). As the Supreme Court explained in Rita v. United States, “the sentencing court does not enjoy the benefit of a legal presumption that the Guidelines sentence should apply.” 127 S. Ct. 2456, 2465 (2007); see also United States v. Wilms, 495 F.3d 277, 281-82 (6th Cir. 2007). Rather, the district court’s duty is to impose a sentence “sufficient, but not greater than necessary, to comply with the purposes” of 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(2), and “appellate ‘reasonableness’ review merely asks whether the trial court abused its discretion.” Rita, 127 S. Ct. at 2465. Indeed, the rationale for permitting a presumption of reasonableness on appellate review is that, “by the time an appeals court is considering a within-Guidelines sentence on review, both the sentencing judge and the Sentencing Commission will have reached the same conclusion as to the proper sentence in the particular case,” Rita, 127 S. Ct. at 2463, and “where judge and Commission both determine that the Guidelines sentence is an appropriate sentence for the case at hand, that sentence likely reflects the § 3553(a) factors (including its ‘not greater than necessary’ requirement),” id. at 2467; see also Wilms, 495 F.3d at 282. Here, the district court stated that it “probably wouldn’t have come up with 30 years” had the court been the original decision-maker; explicitly stated that a presumption of reasonableness applied to McConer’s Guidelines sentence; and characterized the court’s mandate as “to fashion a reasonable sentence.” McConer’s case must therefore be remanded for resentencing, No. 06-1909 United States v. McConer Page 15 notwithstanding that, as in Wilms, 495 F.3d at 282 n.1, the district court may simply have misspoken. McConer’s other arguments for unreasonableness fail. On remand, the district court may reconsider whether it should adjust McConer’s sentence based on the consideration that his coparticipants in state court would receive lesser sentences. See United States v. Malone, 503 F.3d 481, 486 (6th Cir. 2007) (holding “that it is impermissible for a district court to consider the defendant’s likely state court sentence as a factor in determining his federal sentence”).