Opinion ID: 615992
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Barnes' Family Circumstances

Text: Barnes contends that the district court refused to exercise its discretion to reduce his sentence based on the hardship his children would suffer as a result of his incarceration. He suggests that the court wrongly disregarded the hardship on his children as the result of his own conduct, thereby affording the argument insufficient consideration. At Barnes' re-sentencing, the district court made the following comments in response to his mother's testimony and his request that it consider his family circumstances as mitigating evidence: [E]very time somebody is sentenced in this court or any other court and has to leave their family, it does work a hardship not only on the individual offender like Mr. Barnes, but on the entire family. And that's the consequence of the conduct. And it's the consequence of what our system of judgment provides in having to sentence somebody to do a term of incarceration like Mr. Barnes, there will be these kinds of sad circumstances. . . . But that cannot be a justification or a reason for the Court to do other than what the law provides and allows for in terms of what the Court can do for sentencing, because the circumstances of this family are similar to others who have to go through this process, because a loved one has been sent to jail. In Barnes' view, the district court summarily rejected his family circumstances as mitigating evidence because he was responsible for imposing that hardship upon his family. In doing so, he argues, the district court ran afoul of this Court's ruling that the fact that the consequences of incarceration are attributable to [a defendant's] own misconduct may be a factor in the analysis but . . . not the sole factor nor [the] dispositive one. United States v. Schroeder, 536 F.3d 746, 755-56 (7th Cir. 2008). However, the district court's explanation for its sentence calculation counsels against Barnes' interpretation of its earlier comments. As the court announced its ruling, it stated: The first factor I assessed was the seriousness of the offense. I noted that this case involved a plan to carry out the armed robbery of other armed individuals. . . . Mr. Barnes also anticipated selling a large quantity of drugs into the community. The fact that Mr. Barnes had high capacity weapons and bullet proof vests, further spoke to the violent potential of his crime and his willingness and preparedness to engage in that violence. . . . I also addressed the need to promote respect for law, noting that Mr. Barnes not only shunned the law for his own gain as a get-rich-quick-scheme, but recruited others into his criminal activity. I note further that Mr. Barnes noted an absolute disregard for the law when his committed perjury. . . . I noted at sentencing that Mr. Barnes' criminal activity had escalated. . . . In consideration of these factors, I believed that a sentence of 292 months was the sentence that best took into account all the purposes of punishment. . . . That same belief holds true today. In consideration of mitigating factors, the Court . . . is sympathetic to [his] family circumstances, but finds that they do not outweigh the seriousness of the offense, or the need to impose a sentence that adequately addressed the other purposes of punishment. The court declined to reduce Barnes' sentence in light of his family circumstances not because his conduct created the hardship, but because his family difficulties were not so extraordinary as to outweigh or mitigate against the other § 3553(a) factors the court considered. The court's analysis does not, as Barnes alleges, give short shrift to his family circumstances. Rather, it fully considers his circumstances and deems them insufficient to merit a sentence reduction. To this end, Barnes' assertion that the court viewed itself as legally unable to weigh the hardship on his children and, therefore, failed to exercise its discretion similarly lacks merit. Reading the court's comments at sentencing in their entirety, Barnes' selected phrasescannot be a justification, what the Court can do for sentencing, and what the law provides and allows forcommunicate the court's unwillingness to reduce his sentence based on family hardship, not its legal inability to do so. In this case, the court's refusal to reduce Barnes' sentence in light of other § 3553(a) factors reflects judicial discretion, not its absence.