Opinion ID: 4656619
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Addressing Arguments in Mitigation

Text: Stephens next argues that the district court ignored his primary mitigation arguments: his mental illnesses, his minimal risk of re-oﬀending, and his policy disagreement with the child pornography sentencing enhancements. Resentencing may be required when the district court’s discussion of a principal mitigation argument is “so cursory that we are unable to 1 The qualification about not putting new factual information into the recommendation is critical. A defendant has a due process right not to be sentenced on the basis of incorrect factual information. See, e.g., United States v. Tucker, 404 U.S. 443, 447 (1972); United States v. Miller, 900 F.3d 509, 514 (7th Cir. 2018); United States ex rel. Welch v. Lane, 738 F.2d 863, 864−65 (7th Cir. 1984). A confidential recommendation should not be turned into a back-channel for unreliable information that the defendant never has a chance to address. Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 32 is designed to ensure procedural fairness in sentencing, particularly in paragraphs (e) through (i), to prevent such errors. 8 No. 20-1463 discern the court’s reasons for rejecting the argument.” United States v. Vidal, 705 F.3d 742, 744 (7th Cir. 2013). Before we address the argument, we repeat our advice that at the end of every sentencing hearing, the court should speciﬁcally ask whether it addressed suﬃciently the defendant’s main arguments in mitigation. See United States v. Hancock, 825 F.3d 340, 343–44 (7th Cir. 2016); United States v. Donelli, 747 F.3d 936, 941 (7th Cir. 2014); United States v. Garcia-Segura, 717 F.3d 566, 569 (7th Cir. 2013) (encouraging courts to ask “whether [defendants] are satisﬁed that the court has addressed their main arguments in mitigation” and if they assent, “a later challenge … would be considered waived”). This approach allows courts to correct possible procedural errors immediately, while their thinking is fresh, rather than wait for “correction after appellate review, a year or more of delay, and a new hearing after remand.” See United States v. Brown, 932 F.3d 1011, 1020 (7th Cir. 2019), quoting Donelli, 747 F.3d at 941. We also encourage defense attorneys and prosecutors to speak up proactively if a district court overlooks a major argument. District judges rightly rely on advo- cates to raise and emphasize the points that warrant their attention. As for Stephens’s mitigating arguments, the district court did not designate them each for separate discussion, but the transcript does not leave us questioning whether the court considered them adequately. First, the court said that it reviewed the PSR and read the parties’ submissions and supplemental reports, which is often enough to show that it considered the mitigation arguments. See United States v. Graham, 915 F.3d 456, 459 (7th Cir. 2019); United States v. RamirezGutierrez, 503 F.3d 643, 646 (7th Cir. 2007). With respect to the No. 20-1463 9 mental illnesses and recidivism risk, the court thoroughly addressed these while considering the factors under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). Stephens maintains that the district court silently passed over his recidivism and diminished-capacity arguments supported by the report on his psychosexual evaluation. We read the record diﬀerently. The court concluded that Stephens’s diminished capacity and risk of re-oﬀending were aggravating factors, not mitigating factors. That signaled its unmistakable rejection of these contentions as mitigating. See United States v. Wade, 890 F.3d 629, 632 (7th Cir. 2018). While the court never explicitly mentioned Stephens’s diagnoses, it concluded that imposing a below-guideline sentence was a “grave risk” based, in part, on Stephens’s inability to understand the seriousness of his oﬀense. Instead of crediting the psychologist’s ﬁnding that Stephens had a low risk of “sexually oﬀending” as a pornography-only oﬀender, the court looked at Stephens’s recent history. The court emphasized that, “despite his statements and explanation in open court,” Stephens’s actions demonstrated that the initial seizure “had no deterrent eﬀect whatsoever as [he] found the means to collect yet another 10,000 images.” Although the district court only “implicit[ly] or imprecise[ly]” noted the psychologist’s evaluation at the hearing, its discussion still shows that the court “considered the argument.” See United States v. Patel, 921 F.3d 663, 670 (7th Cir. 2019), quoting United States v. Tounisi, 900 F.3d 982, 987 (7th Cir. 2018). The district court was also not required to address Stephens’s policy argument that the guideline enhancements resulted in an artiﬁcially high sentence for his no-contact child 10 No. 20-1463 pornography oﬀense. First, he never mentioned his (or the probation oﬃcer’s) policy view at the hearing. It was not a central argument. Second, a sentencing court may pass over generalized policy disagreements with the Guidelines. E.g., United States v. Schmitz, 717 F.3d 536, 541–42 (7th Cir. 2013). We have rejected appellate arguments based on a district court’s failure to address policy disagreements with the child-pornography guidelines. E.g., United States v. Grisanti, 943 F.3d 1044, 1053–54 (7th Cir. 2019); United States v. Oberg, 877 F.3d 261, 264 (7th Cir. 2017); United States v. Hancock, 825 F.3d 340, 344–45 (7th Cir. 2016). Stephens did not object to any speciﬁc increase to his guideline range; he agreed to the calculations. The court explained why it was appropriate to impose a sentence within that applicable range: Stephens’s offense went beyond “mere” child pornography because he collected a “staggering amount” of images depicting violent, traumatic, and sadistic abuse.