Opinion ID: 2994307
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Applicability of Meza

Text: We now are confronted with an issue that was anticipated in Meza: whether the district court must consider an unjustified disparity in the sentencing of co-defendants as a factor in determining whether to grant a downward departure. In Meza, we noted that in the case of an unjustified disparity, the sentencing court should consider the disparity to determine whether a defendant merits a departure downward so that the federal courts may provide ’the even-handedness and neutrality that are the distinguishing marks of any principled system of justice.’ 127 F.3d at 550 (quoting Koon, 518 U.S. at 113). While we acknowledge that [t]he goal of the Sentencing Guidelines is, of course, to reduce unjustified disparities, Koon, 518 U.S. at 113, we believe that the interpretation of the term unjustified disparity, provided as dicta in Meza, which would require the sentencing court to consider all unjustified sentencing disparities between co-defendants as a basis to depart from the applicable Guidelines range, focuses too narrowly on comparison of sentences of participants in one offense, rather than on comparison of sentences of all persons convicted of the same offense, nationwide. As we noted in Meza, the determination of whether to consider a factor as a permissible basis for departure depends on whether the Commission has adequately taken it into consideration in its construction of each Guideline’s heartland. See Meza, 127 F.3d at 550. By the creation of a heartland, the Commission intended that each federal sentence for the same federal crime be judged under the same standard. See 28 U.S.C. sec. 991(b) (The purposes of the United States Sentencing Commission are to . . . provide certainty and fairness in meeting the purposes of sentencing, avoiding unwarranted sentencing disparities among defendants with similar records who have been found guilty of similar criminal conduct . . .). In furtherance of this purpose, the Sentencing Commission promulgated Guidelines sec. 1B1.4, which limits the information that may be considered in imposing a sentence to any information concerning the background, character and conduct of the defendant. U.S.S.G. sec. 1B1.4. The sentences imposed on others who have been convicted of similar criminal conduct do not constitute information about the background, character or conduct of a particular defendant. Rather, the Guidelines by their nature anticipate the range of sentences of others found guilty of similar criminal conduct, suggesting that, by promulgating them, the Commission expressly considered the degree to which sentencing courts may consider the sentences given to others. Therefore, a plain language interpretation of sec. 1B1.4 would seem to expressly preclude sentencing courts from considering the sentences imposed on others as a basis to be used for imposing a sentence. However, sec. 1B1.4 may also be construed as a grant of authority to consider the character and conduct of the defendant beyond those acts for which the defendant was convicted, and at least one other court has found that this guideline was not intended as a limitation on the court’s power to consider other factors if appropriate. United States v. Newby, 11 F.3d 1143, 1149 (3d Cir. 1993). This expansive interpretation of sec. 1B1.4 corresponds more directly to the statutory requirement of sec. 3553(a)(6), which directs courts to consider the need to avoid unwarranted sentence disparities among defendants with similar records who have been found guilty of similar conduct. 18 U.S.C. sec. 3553(a)(6). On this basis, courts occasionally have included sentencing disparity between co-defendants among the factors to be considered in departing from the heartland of the Guidelines’ sentencing range. See United States v. Daas, 198 F.3d 1167, 1180-81 (9th Cir. 1999); Meza, 127 F.3d at 550; United States v. Nelson, 918 F.2d 1268 (6th Cir. 1990). The inclusion of sentencing disparity between co-defendants as a factor in the determination of whether to depart seemingly accords with Koon’s directive that courts of appeals not render impermissible a factor not contemplated by the Sentencing Commission. See Koon, 518 U.S. at 106-107. Despite Koon, most other courts have concluded that sentencing disparities between co-defendants should never constitute a permissible basis for departure from the Guidelines’ sentencing range. See, e.g., United States v. McKnight, 186 F.3d 867, 869 (8th Cir. 1999) (citing United States v. Polanco, 53 F.3d 893, 897 (8th Cir. 1995)); United States v. Contreras, 180 F.3d 1204, 1209- 10 (10th Cir. 1999); United States v. Lawrence, 179 F.3d 343, 351 (5th Cir. 1999); United States v. Gallegos, 129 F.3d at 1143-44; United States v. Perkins, 108 F.3d 512, 515 (4th Cir. 1997). Those courts rejecting the permissibility of using co-defendants’ sentences as a factor to depart distinguish their decisions from the appellate court conduct prohibited by Koon, 518 U.S. at 107, by claiming that the rejection of this factor acted to clarify the types of sentencing disparities that courts must consider under sec. 3553(a)(6). See Gallegos, 129 F.3d at 1143. In Gallegos, the court explained that the promulgation of the Guidelines was an attempt by the Sentencing Commission to eliminate unwarranted disparities [in sentencing] nationwide, 129 F.3d at 1143 (quoting United States v. Garza, 1 F.3d 1098, 1100 (10th Cir. 1993)), rather than to eliminate disparity between co-defendants. As such, the disparity between co-defendants’ sentences was an implicit consideration of the Sentencing Commission. For this reason, rather than curing the problem of nationwide sentencing disparity, consideration of the sentences given to co-defendants creates a new and entirely unwarranted disparity between the defendant’s sentence and that of all similarly situated defendants throughout the country. Joyner, 924 at 460-61. In addition, in Gallegos, the court noted the practical consideration that allowing consideration of sentencing disparities among co-defendants as a basis for departure might discourage the government from offering plea bargains in cases involving multiple defendants, see United States v. Garrett, 179 F.3d 1143, 1145 (9th Cir. 1999), a scenario that we would find troubling, although we find this scenario inherently improbable. In Meza, we held that justified disparities, which include all disparities which arise from a proper application of the Sentencing Guidelines, should never be considered as permissible bases for departure. 127 F.3d at 549. However, we indicated that any unjustified disparity in sentences between co-conspirators was potentially a sentencing factor to consider as a basis for departure from the sentencing range. Id. at 550. In light of the promulgation of Guidelines with the intent to create uniformity of sentencing nationwide for all similarly situated defendants, we believe that the Sentencing Commission implicitly considered the potential for disparity of sentences, whether justified or unjustified, between co-defendants in its creation of an applicable sentencing range. As such, we conclude that disparities between the sentences of co- defendants ordinarily should not be considered as a factor in the decision to depart from the Guidelines. Because district courts must only consider factors that have not been considered by the Sentencing Commission, see 28 U.S.C. sec. 3553(b), our holding that the naked existence of an unjustified disparity between the sentences of co-conspirators should not be considered as a basis for departure from the applicable sentencing range of the Guidelines does not conflict with the proscription in Koon that the appellate courts not create new classes of impermissible grounds for departure. As such, we believe that the sentencing court should consider only an unjustified disparity in the sentencing of co-defendants when the sentence imposed on the appellant co-defendant is unjustified in length in comparison to the sentences imposed on all other individuals appropriately sentenced under the Guidelines for similar criminal conduct. On this basis, we correct the dicta in Meza that suggests that an unjustified disparity in co-conspirators’ sentences should be considered as a factor in the decision to depart from the Guidelines. Instead, the sentencing court should consider unjustified disparities in only those cases where the unjustified disparity between codefendants actually creates a disparity between the length of the appellant’s sentence and all other similar sentences imposed nationwide. We refrain from holding, however, that unjustified disparities may never be considered as bases for departure. In certain circumstances, such as when an unjustified disparity is created by the abuse of prosecutorial discretion, but see United States v. Krilich, 159 F.3d 1020, 1031 (7th Cir. 1998) (holding that proper exercise of prosecutorial discretion does not create impermissible disparity), the sentencing court may consider the disparity as a factor in the determination whether to depart from the sentence of a co-defendant. In addition, a sentencing court abuses its discretion by deciding to depart from the applicable sentencing range for the sentence of any defendant, whenever such departure creates an unjustified disparity between the sentence of that defendant and the sentences of all other similarly situated individuals nationwide. Neither McMutuary nor Grier contend that the district court erred in the computation of their sentences, nor did the district court depart from the applicable Guidelines range in their sentences. Absent a claim that the court should have considered the unjustified disparity created by the improper sentence the court granted Brown, neither party could even appeal the court’s failure to consider a downward departure. See United States v. Mattison, 153 F.3d 406, 413 (7th Cir. 1998). Both McMutuary and Grier were sentenced to a term of imprisonment consistent with all other defendants convicted of similar criminal conduct, and neither party has presented any evidence that would suggest that a disparity exists between their sentences and the sentences of all other similarly situated defendants nationwide. For this reason, even though there was an unjustified sentence disparity relative to their co-defendant Brown, there was no unjustified or unwarranted disparity in these appellants’ sentences, as those terms are used in Koon or in sec. 3553(a)(6). Were we to credit the appellants’ arguments and reduce their sentences accordingly, this court would be creating the type of unjustified disparity between their sentences and the sentences of all other similarly situated defendants that the Guidelines were promulgated to avoid. We cannot abide by such a rule, which would allow three wrongs to equal one right. McMutuary and Grier fail to present an argument that the sentences imposed on them are illegally long, and we affirm the imposition of their sentences.