Opinion ID: 653704
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Clarification or Change?

Text: 10 It may not always be easy to determine whether an amendment clarifies or changes a guideline. We have, however, stated that an amendment to the introductory commentary which made it clear that the defendant's role in an offense was not limited to the offense of conviction was a clarifying amendment, despite some dicta to the contrary in an earlier case. United States v. Lillard, 929 F.2d 500, 502-03 (9th Cir.1991). We have reached the same conclusion regarding amendments which clarify application notes. See United States v. Lonczak, 993 F.2d 180, 182 n. 4 (9th Cir.1993). We have also given weight to the Sentencing Commission's own declaration that an amendment was intended to clarify the intent of the Guidelines. Restrepo, 903 F.2d at 656. Similarly, in United States v. Webster, 996 F.2d 209, 211 (9th Cir.1993), we pointed out that comments in our prior cases about the lack of availability of role adjustments to sole participants in offenses were no longer valid. That was because the Commission had clarified the Guidelines and the opposite was now true. Id. at 212 n. 4. In fact, we said, that clarifying amendment now made it appear that absent unusual circumstances, merely being a drug courier did not qualify a person for a downward departure, although a downward adjustment for being a minor participant might now be available. Id. at 211-12. We were careful not to decide whether other grounds for departure, expressly approved by us in an earlier case, were also affected by the clarifying amendment. Id. at 211 n. 2. Therefore, we did not consider whether elimination of those grounds could have ex post facto effect. However, we did make reference, without approval or disapproval, to United States v. Saucedo, 950 F.2d 1508 (10th Cir.1991). There, the court decided that an amendment--even one declared to be clarifying--was a true change to the substance of the Guidelines because it overruled circuit precedent. Id. at 1514. 11 When the Commission adopted section 5H1.12 it did not say that the amendment was intended to be clarifying in nature. The government argues that the amendment was clarifying because it merely clarified the Commission's intent that youthful lack of guidance never was a proper basis for departure. In pursuit of that conclusion, the government points to a number of preexisting provisions in the section 5H1 series which discouraged the use of certain considerations. Thus, the Guidelines provided that certain considerations are not ordinarily relevant. Among those are: age, including youth, section 5H1.1; education and vocational skills, section 5H1.2; mental and emotional conditions, section 5H1.3; physical condition or appearance, section 5H1.4; employment record, section 5H1.5; and family and community ties, section 5H1.6. As the government sees it, section 5H1.12 is just a clarification of the penumbrae emanating from these preexisting elements. 12 We think that argument must fail for two reasons. First, we were well aware of those longstanding provisions when we decided Floyd and we determined that certain of them did not preclude a departure for youthful lack of guidance. 945 F.2d at 1100-01. (Sections 5H1.2 and 5H1.6 were specifically considered.) Second, and more telling, each of those restrictions was limited by the adverb ordinarily. Thus, in proper circumstances a departure could be founded upon those grounds. We recognized as much in Floyd, 945 F.2d at 1100 n. 3. 13 In fact, before the adoption of section 5H1.12 only one of the Part H sections declared that certain factors were never relevant, and that was section 5H1.10. It precluded consideration of race, sex, national origin, creed, religion, and socio-economic status. It did so based, in part, on 28 U.S.C. Sec. 994(d) which required that the Guidelines be entirely neutral in those respects. In the departure area, youthful lack of guidance now joins that limited set of prohibited considerations, but does so without a specific statutory direction. Of course, 5H1.12 does not declare youthful lack of guidance to be an improper ground for imposing a sentence within the applicable Guideline range. 14 We do not see how a new Guidelines section which enacts a prohibition that did not exist before can possibly be called a mere clarification. Whatever the Commission might have thought when it first beheld Floyd, it has now changed the Guidelines to eliminate the effects of that case. No matter how affecting a defendant's story of his upbringing might be, a court may not depart from the applicable Guideline range on that ground. That is a definite change to the preexisting law in this circuit. 15