Opinion ID: 662450
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Applicable Guidelines

Text: 5 The first question we address is which version of the Guidelines is applicable to the defendant. This issue was not raised by either party, but given its potential importance to the defendant we requested supplemental briefing from both parties. 1 When an issue is not raised by a party, our review is limited to plain error. Plain errors or defects affecting substantial rights may be noticed although they were not brought to the attention of the court. Fed.R.Crim.P. 52(b); United States v. Kopshever, 6 F.3d 1218, 1222 (7th Cir.1993) (although ex post facto problem not raised at sentencing, the gravity of the constitutional concerns warranted addressing the issue for the first time on appeal); United States v. Belanger, 936 F.2d 916, 920 (7th Cir.1991) (remand compelled after court discovered sua sponte a sentencing error); cf. United States v. Wilson, 962 F.2d 621, 627-28 (7th Cir.1992) (vacating defendant's sentence on the basis of ex post facto violation raised for the first time in a reply brief). 6 Contrary to the contention of the concurrence that we have taken a detour by roving through the record in search of error, we are merely exercising judicial discretion to rectify a constitutional harm that all other circuits have previously recognized and acted upon to correct. In the instant case the harm is not only to the defendant, Seacott, but to the criminal justice system as a whole, i.e., by preventing the prospect of future defendants serving extra prison time (reducing overcrowding in our prison system) as well as by curbing needless future litigation on this issue. The concurrence further maintains that because the statute (18 U.S.C. Sec. 3553(a)(4)) is not screechingly unconstitutional we should refrain from passing judgment on it. While we have been unable to discover any legal precedent for the newly created screechingly unconstitutional doctrine, we do know that after receiving supplemental briefing on the subject from both parties (in response to the concurring judge's request that we not address the ex post facto problem without further briefing from the parties), we can confidently say that retroactive application of a harsher sentencing guideline contravenes the very purpose of the Ex Post Facto Clause. Finally, the concurrence expresses concern that the ex post facto issue does not matter[ ] to the judgment. We fail to understand this argument for we are unaware of anyone who would maintain that even one additional hour of confinement, much less a day or week of confinement, does not matter. 7 As a general rule, a district court must sentence a defendant based on the Guidelines in effect on the date of sentencing. 18 U.S.C. Sec. 3553(a)(4). However, as we recently noted, every circuit except our own has held that the Ex Post Facto Clause of the Constitution prohibits application of a guidelines provision not in effect on the date of the offense if the new provision operates to the detriment of the defendant. United States v. Harris, 994 F.2d 412, 416 n. 9 (7th Cir.1993). United States v. Schnell, 982 F.2d 216, 218 (7th Cir.1992), lists representative cases so holding from each of the other eleven circuits. Many of our cases have stated this proposition in dicta. See, e.g., United States v. Willey, 985 F.2d 1342, 1350 (7th Cir.1993); United States v. Foutris, 966 F.2d 1158, 1160 (7th Cir.1992); United States v. Golden, 954 F.2d 1413, 1417 (7th Cir.1992). Compare United States v. Wilson, 962 F.2d 621, 627-28 (7th Cir.1992) (invalidating on ex post facto grounds the retroactive application of a criminal statute amended to the detriment of the defendant after the commission of the offense). 8 This court addressed the ex post facto question most recently in United States v. Kopshever, in which we stated [e]xcept for a suggestion by way of dictum in one of our opinions [United States v. Bader, 956 F.2d 708, 709 (7th Cir.1992) ], it has been universally held that when the Sentencing Commission amends the Guidelines to increase the severity of a punishment, the Ex Post Facto Clause prohibits application of the amended Guidelines to crimes performed before the amendment's effective date.... Kopshever, 6 F.3d at 1222. Rather than resolving the ex post facto problem, Kopshever, remanded the issue to the district court because the record was undeveloped, the government had conceded there was a violation and the issue may have been moot. Id. at 1222-23 & n. 6. 9 As mentioned in Kopshever, one of our cases has suggested in dicta that retroactive application of guidelines amendments which disadvantage the defendant does not violate the Ex Post Facto Clause. United States v. Bader, 956 F.2d 708, 709 (7th Cir.1992). The Bader dicta conceded that Miller v. Florida, 482 U.S. 423, 107 S.Ct. 2446, 96 L.Ed.2d 351 (1987) shows that sentencing guidelines may be 'laws' for purposes of the ex post facto clause but argued that it remains to determine how the laws have changed, and whether the particular change exceeds the constitutional constraint. Bader, 956 F.2d at 709. Bader then argued that[a]lthough the guidelines influence the exercise of discretion within the statutory range, judges may depart at appropriate times. On this understanding, a change in the sentencing guidelines is no different from, say, the institution of a get-tough policy under which the prosecutor no longer accepts guilty pleas to lesser offenses, or the appointment of a new judge who favors longer sentences, or a change in the guidelines for parole, see Prater v. U.S. Parole Commission, 802 F.2d 948 (7th Cir.1986) (in banc), or a decision by the President to cease commuting the sentences of a class of felons. All of these may increase the time a criminal spends in prison without transgressing the ban on ex post facto laws. 10 Id. at 709. As pointed out in the Bader dicta, in Prater we held that parole guidelines are not laws subject to the ex post facto clause, but that holding rested on a conclusion that the parole guidelines served an interpretive rather than legislative function. Prater, 802 F.2d at 954. The parole guidelines, we explained, are not the exercise of delegated authority (e.g., to make rules of procedure); they are statements of enforcement policy. They are ... 'merely guides, and not laws: guides may be discarded where circumstances require; laws may not.'  Id. (citation omitted). Under the parole guidelines, the granting of parole remained in the exclusive discretion of the [Parole Commission]. Id. (citation omitted). Bader 's analogy between the parole guidelines (and the other examples it gives of changes which can effect a defendant's sentence) and the sentencing guidelines is unpersuasive because the sentencing guidelines tightly control the discretion of sentencing courts. As the Eighth Circuit recently explained in United States v. Bell, 991 F.2d 1445 (8th Cir.1993): 11 Sentencing courts must impose sentences consistent with the [United States Sentencing] Guidelines; they are not merely a factor to be considered by the sentencing court.... In this sense, the Guidelines represent (in a typical case) additional minimums and maximums that are superimposed over the minimums and maximums statutorily enacted by Congress; a court is required to impose a sentence that is both between the applicable statutory minimum/maximum and within the Guideline-generated minimum/maximum. 12 In a truly atypical case, a district court is permitted to depart from the guidelines.... Although a court has discretion to grant or deny a departure once a sufficiently unusual circumstance is present, ... appellate courts scrutinize such decisions to insure that the factors relied on are truly of a kind or degree not already considered or rejected by the [Sentencing] Commission.... Thus the district court has no ability to exercise discretion because its power is firmly controlled by the Commission. We conclude that [18 U.S.C. Sec. 3353(b) (authorizing departures) ] does not give district courts the degree of discretion to ignore the guidelines sufficient to prevent the obvious conclusion that the guidelines dictate defendants' sentences. 13 Bell, 991 F.2d at 1450. 14 Applying the ex post facto clause to Sentencing Guideline amendments is consistent with the Supreme Court's opinion in Miller v. Florida, 482 U.S. 423, 107 S.Ct. 2446, 96 L.Ed.2d 351 (1987), in which it considered the ex post facto clause in connection with Florida's sentencing guidelines. At the time the petitioner in Miller committed the crime for which he was convicted, Florida's sentencing guidelines would have resulted in a presumptive sentence of 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 years' imprisonment, but at the time he was sentenced the revised guidelines called for a presumptive sentence of 5 1/2 to 7 years in prison. Id. at 424, 107 S.Ct. at 2448. The Florida trial court applied the guidelines in effect at the time of sentencing and imposed a 7-year sentence. Id. The Supreme Court held that the petitioner's sentence was in violation of the ex post facto clause. Id. at 435-36, 107 S.Ct. at 2453-54. The Court explained that to fall within the ex post facto prohibition, two critical elements must be present: first, the law 'must be retrospective, that is, it must apply to events occurring before its enactment'; and second, 'it must disadvantage the offender affected by it.'  Id. at 430, 107 S.Ct. at 2451 (citation omitted). The Court held that the amended guidelines increasing the petitioner's sentence contained both critical elements since ex post facto concerns are implicated by [e]very law that changes the punishment, inflicts a greater punishment, than the law annexed to the crime, when committed. Miller, 482 U.S. at 429, 107 S.Ct. at 2450 (quoting Calder v. Bull, 3 Dall. 386, 390, 1 L.Ed. 648 (1798)). The reasoning of Miller is directly applicable to the federal sentencing guidelines, which are substantially similar to Florida's. We thus join all of our sister circuits in holding that a guideline amendment which occurs after the commission of the defendant's crime which works to the defendant's detriment is inapplicable because it is a violation of the Ex Post Facto Clause. 15 The only remaining question is whether the trial court's application of the 1990 Guidelines was plain error. In light of Miller, 482 U.S. 423, 107 S.Ct. 2446; Kopshever, 6 F.3d 1218; Willey, 985 F.2d 1342 and Wilson, 962 F.2d 621, as well as the fact that each of the other circuits has determined that retroactive application of amended guidelines resulting in stiffer sentences violates the Ex Post Facto Clause, we are of the opinion that it was plain error for the sentencing court to apply the 1990 Guidelines rather than the 1988 version. The prejudice to the defendant is clear as the 1990 Guidelines resulted in a sentence that was potentially three months longer than under the 1988 Guidelines. See United States v. Olano, --- U.S. ----, ---- - ----, 113 S.Ct. 1770, 1777-78, 123 L.Ed.2d 508 (1993) (plain error must be clear and prejudicial). 16 In this case, the district court applied the Guidelines in effect when the defendant was sentenced in October, 1991. As we stated above, under that version of the Guidelines the defendant's base offense level was increased eight levels because the loss involved was $78,572. U.S.S.G. Sec. 2B1.1(b)(1)(I) (1990). However, the Guidelines in effect when Seacott committed his crime in 1988 and early 1989 provided that an offense involving a loss of between $50,001 and $100,000 triggered a seven level increase in the base offense level. U.S.S.G. Sec. 2B1.1(b)(1)(H) (1988). The amendment increasing to eight the offense level adjustment applicable to a crime involving a loss of $78,572 became effective on November 1, 1989, after Seacott committed his crime but before his sentence was imposed. U.S.S.G., App. C at C.51-52 (1989). Under the 1990 Guidelines Seacott's adjusted offense level is one level higher than under the 1988 Guidelines (fourteen rather than thirteen). Therefore, the 1988 Guidelines, those in effect when Seacott committed his crime, are applicable to him. With an offense level of thirteen and a criminal history category of I, the Guidelines sentencing range applicable to Seacott is 12-18 months, not 15-21 months.