Opinion ID: 203422
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Russell's Third Sentencing Hearing

Text: The question, then, is whether the district court avoided procedural error at Russell's third sentencing hearing by properly considering all of the relevant factors  including the crack/powder disparity  in making its § 3553(a) determination that a 180-month sentence was sufficient, but not greater than necessary in this particular case. Our review of the transcript reveals no error. At the hearing, the district court began by addressing its rationale for denying Russell's motion for a continuance, explaining that Pho did not substantially constrain its discretion: So the reason that I really felt that, on that ground, that I wasn't inclined to grant the motion is that I feel that we have a substantial discretion to impose a non-guideline sentence, and what Pho said really was that district courts should not get into the business of defining a, sort of a uniform or across-the-board policy basis with respect to those kinds of sentences, but rather should be doing them on a case-by-case basis, but sort of left open, I think very clearly left open [to] the discretion of the district court to formulate a sentence that is whatever the Court feels is a reasonable sentence. This view of Pho is, as we noted above, consistent with the Supreme Court's later holding in Kimbrough. Indeed, we think that the district court here presciently anticipated the guidance that the Court would provide in Kimbrough. Later in the hearing, the court stated: [W]e have been told by the Court of Appeals that the application of a rigid 20-to-1 ratio was error and that that's not the way to go about doing these sentences. And I think I've said before, and sort of reflecting on this over the last few years, I think the Court of Appeals was probably right about that. And as to the policy part of it, I think that our job is to look at these cases on a real case-by-case basis and try to come up with a sentence that is appropriate. The court clearly  and correctly  believed that it had the authority to consider the crack/powder disparity as one factor in that case-by-case analysis. Referencing the proposed amendments to the crack sentencing guidelines, the court explained: The history of these amendments is that Congress has rejected them, although there's some reason to believe they would accept this one. But, again, as I'm looking at it, I'm inclined to think that you can argue, I suppose, that this is further evidence that the guideline range in this case is not reasonable. And you might have a lot of arguments that sort of fit into that  a number of arguments that you would make in order to say it's not reasonable, including various statements of the Sentencing Commission about crack cocaine sentences over the last few years, and this would just be an additional item to support that argument. From my point of view, I feel that I've got the discretion to put all of that into the basket and try to figure out what a reasonable sentence is under the advisory guideline system. So once again, I'm not sure I need to see that amendment either be adopted or not be adopted in order to figure out, from my point of view, what I think a reasonable sentence is. The court concluded that a reasonable sentence for Russell was 180 months, 29 months longer than the 151-month sentence that the court had imposed at the second sentencing but still well below the bottom of Russell's guideline sentencing range. Given the court's understanding of the discretion it retained after Pho in fashioning an individualized sentence, Russell's contention that the constraints of Pho produced the longer sentence at his third sentencing is untenable. Rather, the court explained that it had undervalued other factors at Russell's second sentencing. The court described being struck by three factors in reviewing the case: One is that I think the quantity of cocaine here was pretty substantial. And there were several transactions, not just one. The amount of money involved was substantial, and I think these facts pointed to your role as a dealer as somewhat more substantial than other defendants that I've seen.... The second thing that struck me is that the Government did not file an 851 enhancement [8] in this case, which it certainly could have.... And then the third thing that struck me was that, in rereading the facts of the case, was the attempt to escape and the fact that three officers were hit by the car, the fact that this all occurred at a McDonald's restaurant, a busy place. There could have been children running around. And I think that's a disturbing fact, even perhaps more disturbing is the fact that the police officers had to fire their weapons in response to the attempt to escape. These three factors led the court to conclude that a somewhat greater sentence than what [it had] previously imposed is appropriate. Thus, the record of Russell's third sentencing hearing reveals that the district court considered the crack/cocaine disparity as well as a host of other individualized factors in reaching a holistic assessment of the sentence called for by § 3553. We perceive no procedural error.