Opinion ID: 203760
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Mandatory Sentence as Grounds for Variance

Text: Before assessing the extent to which 18 U.S.C. § 1028A altered the district court's authority to consider the effect of a mandatory sentence as grounds to vary downwardly from the guidelines on other counts of conviction, we will begin by noting the extent of that authority absent statutory intervention. Vidal cites United States v. Webster for his proposition that a sentencing court's discretion to take a mandatory sentence into account is long-acknowledged in the law of this Circuit and reinforced by recent Supreme Court sentencing jurisprudence. See 54 F.3d 1 (1st Cir.1995). In Webster we concluded that: [I]n departing from a guideline sentence the district court is free to exercise its own judgment as to the pertinence, if any, of a related mandatory consecutive sentence. Should the district court think that the latter has some role along with other factors in fixing the extent of a guideline departure in a particular case, that is within its authority; and should that court decline to consider the mandatory minimum in fixing the other sentence, that too is within its authority. For this court to decide upon the ingredients of a departure one by one would go very far toward defeating discretion. Id. at 4. However long-acknowledged such discretion may be, it is clear that such discretion exists following the fundamental revival of discretion in sentencing accomplished by the Supreme Court's decision in United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 125 S.Ct. 738, 160 L.Ed.2d 621 (2005) and its progeny. See United States v. Taylor, 532 F.3d 68, 69 (1st Cir.2008) (noting that the Supreme Court's decisions in Gall v. United States, ___ U.S. ___, 128 S.Ct. 586, 169 L.Ed.2d 445 (2007), Kimbrough v. United States, ___ U.S. ___, 128 S.Ct. 558, 169 L.Ed.2d 481 (2007), and Rita v. United States, 551 U.S. 338, 127 S.Ct. 2456, 168 L.Ed.2d 203 (2007), make[] clear that in the post- Booker world, district judges are empowered with considerable discretion in sentencing). After Booker, the applicable guidelines range is treated merely as advisory and the sentencing court is free to exercise its discretion to impose a reasonable sentence outside the guidelines range that is sufficient, but not greater than necessary based on the factors articulated in § 3553(a). See Rodríguez, 527 F.3d at 227-28 (describing § 3553(a) as a tapestry of factors, through which runs the thread of an overarching ... parsimony principle that instructs district courts to impose a sentence sufficient, but not greater than necessary to accomplish the goals of sentencing (internal quotation marks & citation omitted)). Thus, to the extent that a mandatory term of imprisonment reasonably bears on those relevant factors, [4] it remains, absent legislation to the contrary, within the sentencing court's discretion to take it into account. See Rodríguez, 527 F.3d at 230 ([A]bsent an unambiguous congressional directive barring sentencing courts from considering [a particular factor], a sentencing court can include that datum in its sentencing calculus, as long as the court grounds its rationale in the complex of factors enumerated in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)). The issue then, is whether the language of 18 U.S.C. § 1028A curtails that discretion.