Opinion ID: 187186
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Reasonableness of the Sentences

Text: Farrell was sentenced to concurrent terms of 324 months imprisonment for each offense relating to a quantity of drugs, namely, Counts 1 and 13-15. He contends these sentences were unreasonable because the district court failed to take into account the increasing[ly] prevalent view that sentences based upon the crack cocaine Sentencing Guidelines were improperly harsh when compared to those issued for involvement with powder cocaine. [W]e ... review any sentence, whether within the [Sentencing] Guidelines range or not, to ensure that it is reasonable in light of the sentencing factors that Congress specified in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). United States v. Dorcely, 454 F.3d 366, 374 (D.C.Cir.2006) (quotation marks omitted). [5] A sentence within a properly calculated Guidelines range is entitled to a rebuttable presumption of reasonableness. Dorcely, 454 F.3d at 376; see Rita v. United States, ___ U.S. ___, 127 S.Ct. 2456, 2462, 168 L.Ed.2d 203 (2007). We reject Farrell's contention because, contrary to his assertion, the district court, when considering the factors enumerated in § 3553(a), clearly took account of the Guidelines' disparate treatment of sentences for crack and for powder cocaine offenses. Indeed, the district court calculated the sentencing range as though Farrell's offenses involved powder rather than crack cocaine. The resulting sentencing range was 262-327 months imprisonment, rather than 360 months to life imprisonment. After noting that Farrell's crimes were not victimless, that he was quite along in age, and that his health was declining, the district court settled upon concurrent sentences of 324 months imprisonment for each of Counts 1 and 13-15, which was well below the Guidelines range for crack cocaine, but within (albeit near the high end of) the Guidelines range when crack cocaine is treated as powder cocaine. Thus the district court accounted for the relative harshness of sentences for crack cocaine offenses under the Guidelines; indeed, the court eliminated the disparity altogether. Though Farrell's arguments for re-sentencing focus almost exclusively upon the Guidelines' disparate treatment of crack and of powder cocaine offenses, he throws the court a curveball at the end of his brief. In May 2007, the Commission amended the Guidelines to lower by two the base offense level for certain crack cocaine offenses, which would reduce but not eliminate the disparity. See Sentencing Guidelines for United States Courts, 72 Fed.Reg. 28,558, 28,571-73 (2007); Nat'l Fed. Defender Sentencing Res. Counsel, Applying the Crack Amendments 101 (Nov. 1, 2007), available at http://www. fd.org/pdf_lib/crack.pdf. [6] Farrell asserts these amendments are indicative of a shift away from the draconian penalties for those involved with cocaine, be it of a powder or crack variety.  (Emphasis added.) But it does not follow from this recent effort to reduce the disparity between the sentences for crack and for powder cocaine offenses that the Commission is troubled by the sentences for powder cocaine offenses. Obviously, one can eliminate the disparity without altering the sentences for powder cocaine offenses, as the district court did here. Finding Farrell's arguments without merit, we conclude his below-Guidelines sentences were reasonable.