Opinion ID: 3019620
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Legal Landscape Post-Booker: The Third

Text: Circuit 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 (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. 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 7 18 U.S.C. § 3553(b)(1) instructed a sentencing court that it “shall impose a [Guidelines] sentence . . . unless [it] 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.” 14 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. 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.” (Emphasis added.) 8 The Sentencing Reform Act created the Sentencing Commission to develop guidelines for federal sentencing. 9 Section 3553(a) begins with the broad mandate that sentencing courts “shall impose a sentence sufficient, but not greater than necessary, to comply with the purposes set forth in paragraph (2) of this subsection.” It goes on to state that sentencing courts must take into account a number of factors when sentencing a defendant, including in pertinent part: (1) the nature and circumstances of the offense and the history and characteristics of the defendant; (2) the need for the sentence imposed— (A) to reflect the seriousness of the offense, to promote respect for the law, and to provide just punishment for the offense; 15 Id. at 245-61. 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. (B) to afford adequate deterrence to criminal conduct; (C) to protect the public from further crimes of the defendant; and (D) to provide the defendant with needed educational or vocational training, medical care, or other correctional treatment in the most effective manner; (3) the kinds of sentences available; (4) the kinds of sentence and the sentencing range established for— (A) the applicable category of offense committed by the applicable category of defendant as set forth in the guidelines— (i) issued by the Sentencing Commission . . . ; (5) any pertinent policy statement— (A) issued by the Sentencing Commission . . . ; (6) the need to avoid unwarranted sentence disparities among defendants with similar records who have been found guilty of similar conduct; and (7) the need to provide restitution to any victims of the offense. 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). 16 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). 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, No. 05-1604, 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)). 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.