Opinion ID: 564350
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Statutory Framework and the Sentencing Sequence

Text: 5 All participants in this exercise in sentencing--the prosecutor, the defense counsel, the probation office, the District Court--appear to have assumed that the series of nine sentencing steps prescribed by the Sentencing Commission in Sec. 1B1.1 yields only one correct sentence for the defendant, one right answer that the District Court must find in this and every other case. 2 We asked the parties to brief the question of the correctness of this approach, and we now conclude that this approach advocated by the Sentencing Commission is inconsistent with the enabling statute governing guideline sentencing. 6 First, the governing statute, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 3553(a), enacted as the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, provides in mandatory language in the first sentence that the District Court should consider the facts and fix a sentence not greater than necessary to comply with a group of purposes or factors: (a) a just punishment which will reflect the seriousness of the offense, (b) the need for deterrence of criminal conduct, (c) the need to protect the public from further crimes of the defendant, (d) the need to rehabilitate the defendant through educational ... and other correctional treatment, and (e) the availability of various alternative forms of sentences. This duty to consider the facts according to these steps and to impose a just punishment which is not greater than necessary is the first duty required of the sentencing court by the statute. The guidelines are not mentioned in the statute as a sentencing imperative until later in subsection (a)(4) after the sentencing court has first considered the facts in light of these qualitative first principles. 3 7 The Sentencing Commission has omitted these steps. The guideline instructions for sentencing do not mention these qualitative considerations concerning punishment to which Congress gave primary importance in framing the statute. 8 Second, after the Court has considered the facts in light of these nonmechanical principles, Congress in subsection (b) of the statute then creates a rebuttable presumption that the proposed Sentencing Guidelines create such a just punishment in sentencing cases, a punishment that is not greater than necessary. But the statute qualifies this presumption significantly. In the first sentence of subsection (b), the statute states that the sentencing court is not bound by the guidelines if there is in the case 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. And the statute specifically confines the scope of what the Commission can be viewed as having taken into consideration by limiting it to the circumstances stated in the guidelines themselves and the policy statements and official commentary of the Commission. If there is in the case any circumstance of a kind, or to a degree not adequately taken into consideration by the Sentencing Commission, the statute instructs the District Court to return to the first principles outlined in subsection (a) as follows: 9 In the absence of an applicable sentencing guideline, the court shall impose an appropriate sentence, having due regard for the purposes set forth in subsection (a)(2) [the four considerations or factors enumerated in the text above]. In the absence of an applicable sentencing guideline in the case of an offense other than a petty offense, the court shall also have due regard for the relationship of the sentence imposed to sentences prescribed by guidelines applicable to similar offenses and offenders, and to the applicable policy statements of the Sentencing Commission. 10 Thus, the statute itself establishes the sentencing sequence and the way a district court shall go about applying the Sentencing Guidelines. The Commission does not follow the congressional scheme. Two able scholars, the editors of the Federal Sentencing Reporter, Professor Daniel Freed of Yale and Professor Marc Miller of Emory, have recently explained that the Commission has seemingly reversed the sentencing sequence intended by Congress. 3 Fed.Sent.R. 237 (1991). Under the statute, the District Court should first consider the facts in light of qualitative standards designed to insure punishment not greater than necessary instead of waiting until the very end of the nine-step sentencing process to determine if a departure is permissible, as the Sentencing Commission directs in Sec. 1B1.1. Rather, the court should determine at the outset of the sentencing process whether the case presents circumstances not adequately taken into consideration by the Commission in proposing its offense level for the crime, keeping in mind the Commission's own admonition on page 1.6 of its Introduction that it is difficult to prescribe a single set of guidelines that encompasses the vast range of human conduct potentially relevant to a sentencing decision. If the District Court determines at the outset that the facts and circumstances of the case should render the Guidelines inapplicable, the Court shall impose an appropriate sentence having ... due regard for the relationship of the sentence imposed to sentences prescribed by guidelines applicable to similar offenses. The Court should compare the Commission's proposed offense level for the crime to the first principles outlined by Congress and determine at the outset whether the Commission's proposed level for the crime adequately takes into account the circumstances of the case in light of the need for a just punishment not greater than necessary. 11 The sentencing court should keep firmly in mind that the Commission's proposed offense level for the crime is simply a proposal to the courts to be weighed during the initial qualitative steps in the sentencing sequence. 12 In its Application Instructions for applying the Guidelines contained in Sec. 1B1.1, the Commission does not call attention to the statutory requirement in Sec. 3553(a) or in the first sentence of Sec. 3553(b) that the District Court determine if a circumstance exists that would make the Guidelines inapplicable. The Applicable Instructions counsel the court to consider such a circumstance, if at all, only as a possible departure in step 9 at the end of the process after the court has already found that an applicable offense guideline section exists and seven other intervening steps have been completed that assume the existence of an applicable section and offense level. Because the statute itself states instead that if an applicable sentencing guideline does not exist the court is not bound by the guidelines, logically this determination should be made at the outset and not after the court has accepted the proposed applicable offense guideline section and offense level and has completed eight other steps on the assumption that the guideline is applicable. 13 The legislative history of Sec. 3553(b) states unambiguously that the District Court should first consider whether there are facts and circumstances which make the Commission's proposed sentencing level inappropriate. The legislative history establishes an order for considering the nature and circumstances of the offense, including a pertinent aggravating or mitigating circumstance. The District Court shall perform this function first and then decide whether to impose a sentence outside the guidelines. The Senate Report suggests the proper sequence. Referring to Sec. 3553(a) and (b), the Senate Report explains: 14 The bill requires the judge, before imposing sentence, to consider the history and characteristics of the offender, the nature and circumstances of the offense, and the purposes of sentencing. He is then to determine which sentencing guidelines and policy statements apply to the case. Either he may decide that the guideline recommendation appropriately reflects the offense and offender characteristics and impose sentence according to the guideline recommendation or he may conclude that the guidelines fail to reflect adequately a pertinent aggravating or mitigating circumstance and impose sentence outside the guidelines. (Emphasis added.) 15 S.Rep. No. 98-225, 98th Cong.2d Sess., reprinted in 1984 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 3182, 3235. 16 The section-by-section analysis of the 1987 Amendments to the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 by the House of Representatives reinforces the view that the correct sequence of sentencing steps must first take into account Sec. 3553(a): 17 Section 3553(a) as enacted by the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 requires that the court (1) consider several factors, including the purposes of sentencing, and (2) impose a sentence sufficient, but not greater than necessary, to comply with the purposes of sentencing. Thus, if the court finds that the sentence called for by the applicable sentencing guidelines is greater than necessary to comply with the purposes of sentencing, section 3553(a) would seem to require the court to impose a more lenient sentence. 18 Such an interpretation, it might be argued, is inconsistent with the Sentencing Reform Act's intention to limit judicial discretion in sentencing. That argument, however, is not convincing. The Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 limited, but did not eliminate, judicial sentencing discretion. Section 3553(a) does not give the court unlimited discretion in sentencing, but rather authorizes the court to depart from the guidelines only if the court finds that the sentence called for by the guidelines is greater than necessary to serve the purposes of sentencing. 19 133 Cong.Rec. 31,947 (1987). The Sentencing Commission has declined to follow this language. The view of the Sentencing Commission, as reflected in the remarks of senators on the Senate floor, contradicts the view of the House of Representatives on this matter. 133 Cong.Rec. 33,106-10 (1987). 20 The nonqualitative guideline application process advocated by the Sentencing Commission, which omits the initial steps outlined by Congress designed to insure individualized sentences not greater than necessary, 4 insures maximum deference by judges to the Commission's complex code of interlocking rules that seek to mete out exact punishments for different crimes. Such a mechanical application of a complex code has the effect of delegating more sentencing responsibility to a sentencing bureaucracy--to probation officers who in turn are now trained by the Commission to apply the steps of the Applicable Instructions. It reduces the responsibility of the judge for the result, and it does not emphasize the court's first duty under Sec. 3553(a): to impose a just punishment which is not greater than necessary to comply with the sentencing objectives established by Congress. 5 21 Unless courts interpret the statutory guideline application process in the more flexible manner suggested in Sec. 3553(a) and in the legislative history, Justice Scalia's forecast in dissent in Mistretta v. United States, 488 U.S. 361, 109 S.Ct. 647, 675, 102 L.Ed.2d 714 (1989), will have come true. Although they are given the modest name 'guidelines' they [will] have the force and effect of laws, id. 109 S.Ct. at 676, and the responsibility vested in judges by Congress to insure a just punishment will have been removed from the judiciary and delegated to a body completely divorced from any responsibility for execution of the law or adjudication of private rights under the law. Id. at 679. 22 The legal effect of the more flexible approach to the guidelines outlined here is to transform mandatory rules into the more modest name 'guidelines'  in those cases in which the Commission's proposed guideline sentence is greater than necessary or in which the parties present a legitimate aggravating or mitigating circumstance of a kind, or to a degree, not adequately taken into consideration. When such a circumstance is presented, the guidelines become inapplicable as mandatory rules to be followed by the District Court without regard to its own judgment. Instead, the guidelines become more general principles of sentencing to be used in light of the principles of sentencing outlined in Sec. 3553(a).