Opinion ID: 768715
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Departures from the Guidelines - General Principles

Text: 44 For cases out of the ordinary, the Sentencing Reform Act authorizes 45 individualized sentences when warranted by mitigating or aggravating factors not taken into account in the establishment of general sentencing practices. 46 28 U.S.C. §991(b)(1)(B). Thus, the sentencing court may depart from the applicable Guideline range if 47 the court 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. 48 18 U.S.C. §3553(b). In determining whether a circumstance was adequately taken into consideration by the Commission, the court must consider only the sentencing guidelines, policy statements, and official commentary of the Sentencing Commission. Id. Where a policy statement promulgated by the Commission prohibits the district court from taking a specified action, the policy statement is an authoritative guide to the meaning of the applicable guideline. See Williams v. United States, 503 U.S. 193, 201 (1992). 49 In its Introduction to the Guidelines, the Commission noted the statutory constrictions on departures and stated that it intends the sentencing courts to treat each guideline as carving out a heartland, a set of typical cases embodying the conduct that each guideline describes. When a court finds an atypical case, one to which a particular guideline linguistically applies but where conduct significantly differs from the norm, the court may consider whether a departure is warranted. 50 Guidelines Ch. 1, pt. A, subpt. 4(b). While identifying certain Guidelines sections that specify several factors that the court cannot take into account as grounds for departure, including race, gender, national origin, creed, religion, and socioeconomic status, the Commission stated that, with the exceptions specified, the Commission does not intend to limit the kinds of factors, whether or not mentioned anywhere else in the guidelines, that could constitute grounds for departure in an unusual case. Id. (emphasis added). 51 Section 5K2.0 of the Guidelines, under which Bonnet-Grullon and Carter moved, states that departures are permitted where there is 'an aggravating or mitigating circumstance of a kind, or to a degree, not adequately taken into consideration by the Sentencing Commission.' Guidelines §5K2.0 (quoting 18 U.S.C. §3553(b)). This policy statement reiterates a theme found in the statute and in the Guidelines' Introduction, to wit, that departures may be granted where the guideline level attached to a given factor is inadequate in light of unusual circumstances, or where a characteristic or circumstance is present to an unusual degree and distinguishes the case from the 'heartland' cases covered by the guidelines. Guidelines §5K2.0 (Policy Statement). The official commentary accompanying §5K2.0 makes explicit what is implicit, namely that in stating that departures may be granted in unusual cases, the Commission meant that they should not be granted if the case is not unusual. The comment states, inter alia, that [i]n the absence of a characteristic or circumstance that distinguishes a case as sufficiently atypical to warrant a sentence different from that called for under the guidelines, a sentence outside the guideline range is not authorized, and it concludes with the warning that 52 dissatisfaction with the available sentencing range or a preference for a different sentence than that authorized by the guidelines is not an appropriate basis for a sentence outside the applicable guideline range. 53 Id. Commentary. 54 In Koon, the Supreme Court framed the departure inquiry as follows: 55 [A] sentencing court considering a departure should ask the following questions: 56 1) What features of this case, potentially, take it outside the Guidelines' heartland and make of it a special, or unusual, case? 57 2) Has the Commission forbidden departures based on those features? 58 3) If not, has the Commission encouraged departures based on those features? 59 4) If not, has the Commission discouraged departures based on those features? .... 60 .... If the special factor is a forbidden factor, the sentencing court cannot use it as a basis for departure. If the special factor is an encouraged factor, the court is authorized to depart if the applicable Guideline does not already take it into account. If the special factor is a discouraged factor, or an encouraged factor already taken into account by the applicable Guideline, the court should depart only if the factor is present to an exceptional degree or in some other way makes the case different from the ordinary case where the factor is present.... If a factor is unmentioned in the Guidelines, the court must, after considering the structure and theory of both relevant individual guidelines and the Guidelines taken as a whole, ... decide whether it is sufficient to take the case out of the Guideline's heartland. The court must bear in mind the Commission's expectation that departures based on grounds not mentioned in the Guidelines will be highly infrequent. 1995 USSG ch. 1, pt. A, p.6. 61 Koon, 518 U.S. at 95-96 (internal quotation marks omitted) (emphases added). A district court must impose a sentence within the applicable Guideline range, if it finds the case to be a typical one. Id. at 85. The Koon Court concluded that 62 a federal court's examination of whether a factor can ever be an appropriate basis for departure is limited to determining whether the Commission has proscribed, as a categorical matter, consideration of the factor. If the answer to the question is no as it will be most of the time the sentencing court must determine whether the factor, as occurring in the particular circumstances, takes the case outside the heartland of the applicable Guideline. 63 Id. at 109, 116 S.Ct. 2035. 64 The determination of whether a case is within the heartland of the applicable guideline cannot be a matter of generalization. Rather, that determination requires a comparison of the particular facts of the case against the class of cases typically within that guideline. 65 For example, it does not advance the analysis much to determine that a victim's misconduct might justify a departure in some aggravated assault cases. What the district court must determine is whether the misconduct that occurred in the particular instance suffices to make the case atypical. The answer is apt to vary depending on, for instance, the severity of the misconduct, its timing, and the disruption it causes. These considerations are factual matters. 66 Id. at 100 (emphases added); see id. at 99-100 (The relevant question ... is ... whether the particular factor is within the heartland given all the facts of the case.); id. at 98 ([t]o resolve this question, the district court must make a refined assessment of the many facts of the case at hand in comparison with the facts of other Guidelines cases, using its day to day experience in criminal sentencing to determine whether the factor in the case at hand is present in some unusual or exceptional way). 67 One of the Koon Court's principal concerns was the standard of review to be applied to departures granted by the district court. Embracing the standards adopted in Cooter & Gell v. Hartmarx Corp., 496 U.S. 384 (1990) (appropriateness of sanctions under Fed. R. Civ. P. 11), and Pierce v. Underwood, 487 U.S. 552 (1988) (appropriateness of attorney's fee award against the government under the Equal Access to Justice Act, 28 U.S.C. §2412(d)), the Koon Court concluded that because a district court's departure decision involves the consideration of unique factors that are little susceptible ... of useful generalization, 518 U.S. at 99 (internal quotation marks omitted), and because [d]istrict courts have an institutional advantage over appellate courts in making these sorts of determinations, especially as they see so many more Guidelines cases than appellate courts do, id. at 98, the decision of a sentencing court to depart is reviewable under an abuse-of-discretion standard, see id. at100. The abuse of discretion standard includes review to determine that the discretion was not guided by erroneous legal conclusions. Id. The question of whether a factor is a permissible basis for departure under any circumstances is a question of law, and a district court by definition abuses its discretion when it makes an error of law. Id.; see also Cooter & Gell v. Hartmarx Corp., 496 U.S. at 405. [T]he court of appeals need not defer to the district court's resolution of the point. Koon, 518 U.S. at100. 68 Applying this standard of review in Koon, which involved convictions of police officers for civil rights violations, to wit, the use of excessive force during an arrest, the Supreme Court considered rulings of the court of appeals reversing several departures granted by the district court, including the ground that the defendants would likely be barred from working in the field of law enforcement. The Supreme Court held that the court of appeals had erred in ruling that loss of occupation in general was an impermissible ground for departure as a matter of law; but the Supreme Court 69 nonetheless conclude[d] that the District Court abused its discretion by considering petitioners' career loss because the factor, as it exists in these circumstances, cannot take the suit out of the heartland of 1992 USSG §2H1.4.... [O]ffenses [under 18 U.S.C. §242] ... 70 involve willful violations of rights under color of law. Although cognizant of the deference owed to the district court, we must conclude it is not unusual for a public official who is convicted of using his governmental authority to violate a person's rights to lose his or her job and to be barred from future work in that field. 71 Koon, 518 U.S. at 110 (emphases added). 72