Opinion ID: 162392
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: methodology required to explain extent of departure

Text: 16 The broad framework for analysis of a district court's sentencing departure decision is provided by United States v. Collins, 122 F.3d 1297 (10th Cir.1997). The validity of a particular departure depends upon: 17 (1) whether the factual circumstances supporting a departure are permissible departure factors; (2) whether the departure factors relied upon by the district court remove the defendant from the applicable Guideline heartland thus warranting a departure, (3) whether the record sufficiently supports the factual basis underlying the departure, and (4) whether the degree of departure is reasonable. 18 Id. at 1303. We have explained our standard of review in performing each of these inquiries as follows: 19 All four inquiries are subject to a unitary abuse of discretion standard, understanding that a district court by definition abuses its discretion when it makes an error of law. Applying this standard, we need not defer to the district court's determination of an issue of law, such as that presented by the first inquiry pertaining to the permissibility of departure factors. However, we must give substantial deference to the district court when making the second inquiry, because the heartland determination is primarily a factual inquiry. Similarly, our review of the underlying factual determinations relevant to the third inquiry is limited to clear error. 20 United States v. Benally, 215 F.3d 1068, 1073 (10th Cir.2000) (alteration and internal quotation marks omitted). In determining whether the degree of departure is reasonable per the fourth inquiry, the appellate court should afford the trial court some discretion, as we should not lightly overturn determinations of the appropriate degree of departure. United States v. Flinn, 987 F.2d 1497, 1504 (10th Cir.1993) (internal quotation omitted). In sum, a district court's decision to depart from the Guidelines ... will in most cases be due substantial deference, for it embodies the traditional exercise of discretion by a sentencing court. Koon v. United States, 518 U.S. 81, 98, 116 S.Ct. 2035, 135 L.Ed.2d 392 (1996). 21 Nevertheless, we have consistently required that the district court must specifically articulate reasons for the degree of departure using any reasonable methodology hitched to the Sentencing Guidelines, including extrapolation from or analogy to the Guidelines. United States v. Hannah, 268 F.3d 937, 941 (10th Cir.2001) (emphasis added, internal quotation marks omitted); accord United States v. Neal, 249 F.3d 1251, 1258 (10th Cir.2001); United States v. Bartsma, 198 F.3d 1191, 1196 (10th Cir.1999); United States v. Checora, 175 F.3d 782, 794 (10th Cir.1999); Collins, 122 F.3d at 1309; United States v. Shumway, 112 F.3d 1413, 1429 (10th Cir.1997); Flinn, 987 F.2d at 1504; United States v. St. Julian, II, 966 F.2d 564, 569 (10th Cir.1992); United States v. Little, 938 F.2d 1164, 1166 (10th Cir.1991); United States v. Harris, 907 F.2d 121, 123-24 (10th Cir.1990). 22 Our fullest explanation of what constitutes a reasonable methodology hitched to the Sentencing Guidelines was provided in United States v. Whiteskunk: 23 [W]e [have] rejected the notion that the Koon unitary abuse of discretion standard changed our pre- Koon mechanistic approach requiring the district court to state with particularity and with reference or analogy to the Guidelines the basis for its degree of departure. ... [O]ur decisions have continued to maintain this standard. We have declined to follow the Ninth Circuit's less rigid analysis of the district court's degree of departure espoused in United States v. Sablan, 114 F.3d 913, 918-19 (9th Cir.1997) (en banc), where that court abolished the requirement that district courts justify their degree of departure by drawing analogies to the Sentencing Guidelines. 24 In the present case, the district court gave almost no rationale for its degree of departure from the Guideline range, stating only the departure is warranted because it more appropriately reflects the dangerousness of the defendant's conduct, as well as the extent to which risked [sic] the potential death of another. This explanation does nothing more than restate the justification for upward departure and does not fulfill the separate requirement of stating the reasons for imposing the particular sentence. In departing upward, the district court should have attempted to predict what the Sentencing Commission would have established as a guideline range had it adequately considered the circumstances justifying the departure. The district court's findings leave us with no reasonable indicia of whether the sentence is proportional to the crime. We do not require the district court to justify the degree of departure with mathematical exactitude, but we do require the justification to include some method of analogy, extrapolation or reference to the sentencing guidelines. 25 162 F.3d 1244, 1253-54 (10th Cir.1998) (emphasis added, citations, footnote, and internal quotation marks omitted). 26 In the present case, the district court's justification for the degree of departure was devoid of any analogy, extrapolation or reference to the sentencing guidelines. Id. at 1254. The explanation given by the district court for the sentence it imposed focused on the court's belief that Goldberg was unlikely to recidivate ([T]he defendant is a first time offender. He has had treatment. The Court does not believe that there will be a reoccurrence of the downloading of pictures.... [T]here has been extraordinary post offense rehabilitation....) and that the crime was not more serious ([T]here was not an offense where pictures were taken, nor was there any luring of children.). These were reasons for some downward departure, but they offer no principled basis for determining the degree of that departure. 27 Although the district court did not say so explicitly, it is apparent it chose a downward departure of eight levels because such a departure was the minimum necessary to render the defendant eligible for a sentence that did not involve incarceration. The court stated that it chose to depart[ ] downward eight levels to a level 10, resulting in a guideline range of six to twelve months, which is in Zone B of the sentencing table. (App.317.) As noted, the significance of a reduction to Zone B is that a sentence in this zone need not include imprisonment. U.S.S.G. § 5C1.1(c)(3). 28 It appears, then, that the specific reasons the district court gave for the sentence imposed must have been meant to explain why a non-incarceration sentence is appropriate, although the court did not say so explicitly. 2 Given the district court's analysis, our inquiry must proceed in two stages. First, was the district court's desire to impose a non-incarceration sentence a permissible basis for choosing an eight-level downward departure? Second, were the district court's conclusions that Goldberg was unlikely to recidivate and that the crime was not a more serious one a permissible basis for choosing a non-incarceration sentence? We answer each of these questions in the negative. 29 The methodology employed by the district court to determine the degree of departure was not a reasonable methodology hitched to the Sentencing Guidelines, Hannah, 268 F.3d at 941, because it is based neither on analogy, extrapolation, or reference to the sentencing guidelines, Whiteskunk, 162 F.3d at 1254, nor on other sentences imposed under the Guidelines. The approach used by the district court is not consistent with the fundamental goal of enacting the Guidelines, which was to promote uniformity in sentencing for federal crimes. United States v. Hines, 133 F.3d 1360, 1364 (10th Cir.1998) (citing U.S.S.G. Ch. 1 Pt. A). 30 Our established rule that the district court must justify the extent of its departure by a reasonable methodology hitched to the guidelines is consistent with the majority of other circuits that have confronted the issue. See United States v. Crouse, 145 F.3d 786, 792 (6th Cir.1998) (holding that [t]he extent of any departure must be tied to the structure of the Guidelines, and concluding that the district court violated this principle and abused its discretion when it determined the result it wanted to reach — no jail time for Crouse — then departed downward to a level that would allow that result); United States v. Seacott, 15 F.3d 1380, 1389 (7th Cir.1994) ([T]he district court concluded that the defendant should not serve any time in prison, and then departed downward four levels to achieve that result.... [S]uch a method of departing, completely untethered to the structure, rationale or methodology of the Guidelines, is impermissible. The guidelines must be used as a reference when departing. (internal quotation marks omitted)); cf. United States v. Terry, 142 F.3d 702, 707 (4th Cir.1998) (In determining [the appropriate degree of departure], the sentencing court should first consider the rationale and methodology of the Sentencing Guidelines. In particular, it is often helpful to look to the treatment of analogous conduct in other sections of the Sentencing Guidelines. In the event the Sentencing Guidelines do not provide any useful analogies, however, the sentencing court must set forth some form of principled justification for its departure determination. (citations, footnotes, and internal quotation marks omitted)); United States v. Puello, 21 F.3d 7, 10 (2d Cir.1994) (A sentencing court is encouraged to look to analogous guideline provisions to determine the extent of departure. (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted)). But cf. United States v. Sablan, 114 F.3d 913, 919 (9th Cir.1997) (case did not involve a predetermined result but nevertheless the court held, in a six to five en banc decision, that degree of departure need not be determined by analogy to the Guidelines). 31 Significantly, our research reveals no opinion from another circuit approving of a methodology such as that employed by the district court here; as noted above, both the Sixth and Seventh Circuits explicitly have rejected such a methodology. See Crouse, 145 F.3d at 792; Seacott, 15 F.3d at 1389. 32 There is one Tenth Circuit case that arguably justifies the degree of departure by referring to the resulting sentence rather than to an analogy to the Guidelines. In United States v. Jones, 158 F.3d 492, 505-06 (10th Cir.1998), we noted that the sentencing court had approved a three-level downward departure because that was exactly the extent of downward departure required ... to `reach Zone B [of the sentencing table], which would allow a sentence of probation.' Id. at 505. In affirming the district court's departure decision, we noted that only a sentence of probation would address the district court's explicit concern with maintaining the ongoing, and apparently effective, rehabilitative counseling relationship. Id. at 505-06; see also id. at 503-04. We also noted that incarceration would impose unique burdens on Jones by causing him to lose a good job in an economically depressed area. Id. at 498-99. 33 Those statements could be read to suggest that the degree of departure may be properly justified by the resulting sentence. Such a reading would be inconsistent with our prior precedent. See Collins, 122 F.3d at 1309; Shumway, 112 F.3d at 1429; Flinn, 987 F.2d at 1504; St. Julian, II, 966 F.2d at 569; Little, 938 F.2d at 1166; Harris, 907 F.2d at 123-24. To avoid conflict with precedent predating Jones, we choose not to read that case in this manner. In explaining the district court's departure decision there, the Jones court observed that the district court also explicitly considered the magnitude of the departure relative to both Mr. Jones' offense level under the Sentencing Guidelines and to guidance provided by our case law. Id. at 505. Although it is not entirely clear from that statement what methodology the district court employed, we will presume that the district court employed a methodology based on the Guidelines. So read, the statements in Jones justifying the degree of departure by referring to the resulting sentence are dicta that should not be followed here. 34 In sum, we conclude that the district court here abused its discretion by failing to base its degree of departure determination on a reasonable methodology hitched to the Guidelines. This case, involving an eight-level departure, does not fall within the extremely narrow class of cases where, even without a valid explanation for the sentence imposed, we independently can unmistakably determine the reasonableness of the district court's selection of a particular sentence. Flinn, 987 F.2d at 1503. 35