Opinion ID: 532063
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Casto's Sentence Under the Sentencing Guidelines

Text: 49 Casto claims that the United States Sentencing Commission's Sentencing Guidelines are unconstitutional. She adopts the positions taken by the defendants in Mistretta v. United States, --- U.S. ----, 109 S.Ct. 647, 102 L.Ed.2d 714 (1989) and United States v. White, 869 F.2d 822 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 109 S.Ct. 3172, 104 L.Ed.2d 1033 (1989). These cases have recently affirmed the constitutionality of the Sentencing Guidelines. Casto's reliance on these cases is, therefore, foreclosed. 50 Casto also contends that the Sentencing Guidelines violate her due process rights by allowing the trial judge to decide by a preponderance of the evidence when she entered the drug-trafficking conspiracy. Casto's jury, in its general verdict, was not asked to decided the date on which Casto joined the conspiracy. At the sentencing hearing, the trial judge held that although there was insufficient evidence to show that Casto had joined the conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine as early as the January 27 sale, there was sufficient evidence to conclude that Casto joined the conspiracy prior to the February 1 sale. The trial judge computed Casto's sixty-month sentence using the amount of methamphetamine contained in the February 1, February 10, and March 22 transactions. Casto contests this determination. 51 In Williams v. People of State of New York, 337 U.S. 241, 69 S.Ct. 1079, 93 L.Ed. 1337 (1949), a state court jury convicted the defendant of first-degree murder and recommended a sentence of life imprisonment. At the sentencing hearing the trial judge, relying heavily on a probation officer's report of the defendant's criminal history, sentenced the defendant to death. The defendant appealed, arguing that the judge's reliance on facts which were not proven beyond a reasonable doubt at trial violated his fourteenth amendment right to due process. The Supreme Court affirmed the sentence, noting: 52 Tribunals passing on the guilt of a defendant always have been hedged in by strict evidentiary procedural limitations. But both before and since the American colonies became a nation, courts in this country and in England practiced a policy under which a sentencing judge could exercise a wide discretion in the sources and types of evidence used to assist him in determining the kind and extent of punishment to be imposed within limits fixed by law ... [a] recent manifestation of the historical latitude allowed sentencing judges appears in Rule 32 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, 18 U.S.C.A. 53 Williams, 337 U.S. at 246, 69 S.Ct. at 1082 (footnote omitted). The trial judge, in imposing the enhanced sentence on Williams, acted under a New York statute which allowed trial judges to consider out-of-court information in formulating criminal sentences. The situation of the New York judge was similar to that of a federal trial judge today who considers the aggravating and mitigating factors listed in the Sentencing Guidelines in order to compute the defendant's offense level. Indeed, the modern federal trial judge has less discretion in contemplating sentencing than did a New York trial judge in 1949. 54 Based on the amount of methamphetamine and marijuana included in the transactions of February 1, February 10, and March 22, the trial judge here decided that Casto's base offense level was twenty-two. In making this computation, the trial judge had to decide at what point Casto joined the conspiracy. He held that she joined the conspiracy prior to the February 1 drug sale. Under the standard set out in Williams, that sentencing factor did not have to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. See McMillan v. Pennsylvania, 477 U.S. 79, 91, 106 S.Ct. 2411, 2418, 91 L.Ed.2d 67 (1986) (Sentencing courts have traditionally heard evidence and found facts without any prescribed burden of proof at all.). Once the jury convicted Casto under the reasonable doubt standard, the trial judge was authorized to sentence Casto based on both the evidence proven beyond a reasonable doubt at trial and facts which he believed had been proven by a preponderance of that evidence. As Justice Black stated in Williams: 55 In a trial before verdict the issue is whether a defendant is guilty of having engaged in certain criminal conduct of which he has been specifically accused ... [a] sentencing judge, however, is not confined to the narrow issue of guilt. His task within fixed statutory or constitutional limits is to determine the type and extent of punishment after the issue of guilt has been determined. 56 Williams, 337 U.S. at 246-47, 69 S.Ct. at 1082-83. Justice Black concluded: 57 The due-process clause should not be treated as a device for freezing the evidential procedure of sentencing in the mold of trial procedure. So to treat the due-process clause would hinder if not preclude all courts--state and federal--from making progressive efforts to improve the administration of criminal justice. 58 Williams, 337 U.S. at 251, 69 S.Ct. at 1085. Here, we need not extend the authority of the trial judge in sentencing even to the extent allowed by Williams. The trial judge did not rely on out-of-court evidence in sentencing Casto, rather, he merely interpreted the evidence presented in court. Because his interpretation of the facts before him was reasonable and because the sentence imposed is fully within the applicable Sentencing Guidelines, we affirm.