Opinion ID: 2977371
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Sentencing Reform Act of 1984

Text: The Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 itself reflects the same type of offense/offender distinction described above and should be read to foreclose the use of acquitted conduct at sentencing. As to offense conduct, the statute requires that the 6 Even accounting for those few states who permit the use of acquitted conduct at sentencing, supra note 5, the federal system is alone in requiring sentencing judges to include acquitted conduct in calculating an advisory sentencing range. See U.S.S.G. § 1B1.3 (2006) (requiring enhancements for all relevant conduct); ALI, Model Penal Code: Sentencing, Tentative Draft No. 1 (approved May 16, 2007), § 6B.06, cmt. e at 227 (“The federal sentencing system is the only system in the United States to require sentencing courts to base guidelines sentences upon both conviction and nonconviction offenses.”). 7 See ALI, Model Penal Code: Sentencing, Tentative Draft No. 1 (approved May 16, 2007), § 6B.06; ABA Standards for Criminal Justice, Sentencing, § 18-3.6 (3d ed. 1994). 8 Not only is there a conflict between the federal courts and the state courts over the use of acquitted conduct at sentencing, there is a wide-open conflict between federal and state courts after Blakely, Booker, Rita, and Cunningham concerning the continued use of judge-found facts to allow sentencing judges to ratchet up offense levels. See, e.g., State v. Gomez, 239 S.W.3d 733, 735, 738-40 (Tenn. 2007) (“Upon further review following Cunningham, we now conclude that the trial court’s enhancement of the Defendants’ sentences on the basis of judicially determined facts other than the Defendants’ prior convictions violated the Defendants’ constitutional rights under the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution.”); State v. Allen, 615 S.E.2d 256, 264-65 (N.C. 2005) (interpreting Blakely to foreclose judge-found offense conduct facts to increase sentencing level beyond facts corresponding to the jury verdict); State v. Hughes, 110 P.3d 192 (Wash. 2005) (same). No. 05-6596 United States v. White Page 23 defendant be “convicted” of the offense and does not allow the use of acquitted conduct. Congress provided a “convicted” offense sentencing system just as the states have created and just as the common law and the Constitution contemplate. In the Act that created the Sentencing Commission and defined its authority, the Commission “in establishing categories of offenses for use in the Guidelines” may use “the circumstances under which the offense was committed.” 28 U.S.C. § 3994(c) (emphasis added). Under the Act, the Commission must stick to “convicted” conduct when providing for an “incremental penalty for each offense in a case in which that defendant is convicted of (A) multiple offenses committed in the same course of conduct . . . and (B) multiple offenses committed at different times.” Id. at § 994(L) (emphasis added).9 No language of the Act allows what our court has done here “in imposing an incremental penalty for” acquitted or unconvicted offenses. The 1984 Act repeatedly refers to a “defendant who has been found guilty of the offense,” e.g., 18 U.S.C. § 3551 (emphasis added), which describes the scope of the Act’s provisions and 18 U.S.C. § 3552(a), (b), and (c), and §§ 3554, 3555, 3556, 3561, 3571, and 3581. In no provision regarding offense conduct does the statute authorize the use of acquitted or unconvicted conduct. Moreover, when Congress instructed sentencing judges to rectify sentencing disparity, it applied this idea only to “defendants with similar records who have been found guilty of similar conduct.” 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(6) (emphasis added).10 9 This argument was cursorily dismissed in Watts. See 519 U.S. at 154; id. at 168-69 (Stevens, J., dissenting). Nevertheless, the Supreme Court itself admitted that Watts was neither fully briefed nor argued and, consequently, that the case was not well considered. Id. at 171 (Kennedy, J., dissenting). Several years later, the Court went on to limit Watts’s reach to the Fifth Amendment double-jeopardy question then before it. See Booker, 542 U.S. at 240. For these reasons, the statutory argument based on 28 U.S.C. § 994(L) remains a valid one. 10 As the supplemental brief of amici curiae law professors who study federal sentencing points out: The Supreme Court has instructed that statutory construction “should go in the direction of constitutional policy even though not commanded by it.” United States v. Johnson, 323 U.S. 273, 276 (1944). As Judge Friendly explained, “the Constitution is itself a datum in the interpretation of a statute.” Henry J. Friendly, Benchmarks 210 (167). Accordingly, to the extent that the meaning of “offense” is ambiguous, the appropriate course is to interpret the SRA in a way that furthers the central role of the jury in sentencing as required by Apprendi, Blakely, and Booker. Brief at 5-6. No. 05-6596 United States v. White Page 24 On the other hand, on the offender characteristics side of the Guideline calculation, the section of the statute following the section confining offense conduct to “convicted” conduct, instructs the Commission and the courts to consider an open-ended set of aggravating and mitigating offender characteristics including eleven specified “matters,” such as “age,” “vocational skills,” “drug dependence,” “livelihood,” and “criminal history.” 28 U.S.C. § 994(d). These considerations are consistent with an individualized, indeterminate sentencing process that follows upon a Guideline calculation based only on convicted offense conduct. The result of such an individualized sentencing process should produce a sentence that takes into account the “characteristics of the defendant” and “the need . . . to promote respect for the law” and “to provide the defendant with needed educational or vocational training, medical care, or other correctional treatment.” 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) (emphasis added). The statute does not allow “retribution” as a consideration and advises the court to err on the side of lenity by imposing a sentence “not greater than necessary” to accomplish the goals of punishment and treatment. Id. It seems obvious that a sentencing system that allows a judge to add 14 years based on acquitted conduct to the eight years for convicted conduct is unauthorized and inconsistent with the statute, as well as inconsistent with the Sixth Amendment and our common law heritage. There remains the overall question under the statute: How does this 14-year sentence enhancement based on acquitted conduct “promote respect for law?” A recently reported incident in the District Court in Washington, D.C., recounted by Judge Bright in his concurring opinion in United States v. Canania, 532 F.3d 764 (8th Cir. 2008), answers that question. A jury had acquitted the defendant of several counts of the indictment while convicting him on one count. When it learned that the judge was considering sentencing him for the acquitted conduct, a juror wrote the judge a letter as follows: It seems to me a tragedy that one is asked to serve on a jury, serves, but then finds their work may not be given the credit it deserves. We, the jury, all took our charge seriously. We virtually gave up our private lives to devote our time to the cause of justice, and it is a very noble cause as you know, sir. We looked across the table at one another in respect and No. 05-6596 United States v. White Page 25 in sympathy. We listened, we thought, we argued, we got mad and left the room, we broke, we rested that charge until tomorrow, we went on. Eventually, through every hour-long tape of a single drug sale, hundreds of pages of transcripts, ballistics evidence, and photos, we delivered to you our verdicts. What does it say to our contribution as jurors when we see our verdicts, in my personal view, not given their proper weight. It appears to me that these defendants are being sentenced not on the charges for which they have been found guilty but on the charges for which the District Attorney’s office would have liked them to have been found guilty. Had they shown us hard evidence, that might have been the outcome, but that was not the case. That is how you instructed your jury in this case to perform and for good reason. May 16, 2008 Letter from Juror # 6 to The Honorable Richard W. Roberts, available at http://video1.washingtontimes.com/video/docs/letter.pdf (last accessed July 3, 2008). This juror’s reaction is the same, I believe, as the reaction that the drafters of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 would have upon learning of this 14-year additional sentence for acquitted conduct imposed on the defendant here.