Opinion ID: 795611
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Legal Landscape Post-Booker: The Third Circuit

Text: 21 As mentioned above, Gunter relies on Booker for his argument that the District Court had discretion to consider and impose a sentence below the range set in the Guidelines for crack offenses. That decision is described in various opinions of our Court, see, e.g., United States v. Cooper, 437 F.3d 324 (3d Cir.2006), and we will not go over the same ground in detail here. Simply stated, the Supreme Court delivered two different opinions in Booker, both by five-to-four votes, with the dissenters to each opinion switching sides (Justice Ginsburg providing the tie-breaking vote in each opinion). In the first, or constitutional, opinion, the Court reaffirmed its state-law holding in Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000), that [a]ny fact (other than a prior conviction) which is necessary to support a sentence exceeding the [statutory] maximum authorized by the facts established by a plea of guilty or a jury verdict must be admitted by the defendant or proved to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. Booker, 543 U.S. at 244, 125 S.Ct. 738. If not, the defendant's Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury is violated. When district judges are permitted by the Sentencing Guidelines, the application of which was mandatory under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(b)(1), 7 to cross into this forbidden area of judicial fact-finding at sentencing, they are unconstitutional. In the second, or remedial, opinion, the Court remedied this constitutional violation by excising § 3553(b)(1) from the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, Pub.L. No. 98-473, 98 Stat. 1837, 1987 (1984), 8 thereby rendering the Guidelines effectively advisory. Id. at 245, 125 S.Ct. 738. Combining these holdings in practice means that district courts may fact-find to increase sentences beyond the Guidelines range provided they are within the statutory minimum and maximum dictated by the United States Code, take into account the relevant sentencing factors set out in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), 9 and ultimately are reasonable. Id. at 245-61, 125 S.Ct. 738. 22 Prior to the decision in Booker, our Court routinely upheld the 100:1 differential against constitutional attack, including equal protection claims. See, e.g., United States v. Frazier, 981 F.2d 92, 95-96 (3d Cir.1992) ( per curiam ) (holding that distinctions between crack and cocaine powder for sentencing purposes are not an equal protection violation and that the 100:1 ratio is not cruel and unusual punishment); United States v. Jones, 979 F.2d 317, 320 (3d Cir.1992) (holding Guidelines provisions imposing higher offense levels for offenses involving crack cocaine not to be unconstitutionally vague), superseded by statute as stated in United States v. Roberson, 194 F.3d 408, 417 (3d Cir.1999). 23 Since Booker made the Guidelines advisory, we have had only one occasion to revisit the crack/powder cocaine differential, and that was not a precedential opinion: United States v. Scott, 178 Fed.Appx. 140, 2006 WL 1113513, at  (3d Cir. Apr.27, 2006) (holding that, given our pre- Booker case law, it would be inconsistent to require the District Court to give a nonguidelines sentence based on the [crack/powder cocaine] disparity(emphasis in text; internal quotation marks and brackets omitted)). 24 Neither our pre- nor post- Booker case law gives the answer here. The pre- Booker decisions are distinguishable because they were decided under a mandatory (and now unconstitutional) sentencing regime, whereas Scott provides little guidance because it is not precedential and, even if it were, it did not reach the question now before us: whether it is legal error for a sentencing court to believe that it must follow the crack/powder differential in the Guidelines when imposing a sentence under the now-advisory Guidelines regime. 25