Opinion ID: 627480
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Other grounds for departure.

Text: 11 Mr. Gaither alleges the district court did not base its decision to depart solely upon drug rehabilitation, but also upon Mr. Gaither's exceptional acceptance of responsibility and lack of sophistication in counterfeiting. The Government asserts the contrary. The district court stated its rationale for departure as follows: 12 [Y]ou have demonstrated to me about that which sentencing is about in part, and that is the rehabilitation, and it strikes me that since [your arrest] you have been a product of self-rehabilitation. The person I have just heard speak to me is certainly not the same person that was dealing with drugs or drug abuse or giving thoughts to manufacturing counterfeit bills to find the funds to support that abuse. I think I'm dealing with an entirely different person. 13 ... [This] is a departure from the sentencing guidelines, but seems to me one that is deserving in this case, given your own acceptance of not only responsibilities for what you did but the acceptance of the situation that gave rise to your involvement and the total rehabilitation, as I see it. I see absolutely no useful purpose whatsoever for you now to be required to spend time incarcerated at some prison facility. 14 Our reading of the district court's rationale shows the district court based the departure primarily, if not solely, upon Mr. Gaither's rehabilitation. The district court saw Mr. Gaither's crime as an end product of drug abuse and apparently based the departure upon Mr. Gaither's rehabilitation from that dependency. The district court did make reference to Mr. Gaither's acceptance of ... responsibilities, but it is unclear what weight that factor was given, if any. 15 Even if we were to assume the district court based its decision in part upon Mr. Gaither's acceptance of responsibility, we could not affirm the sentence for the following reasons. First, if a district court bases a decision to depart from the Guidelines upon an impermissible factor, as it did in this case, remand is appropriate unless this court concludes the district court would have imposed the same sentence absent the erroneous factor. Williams v. United States, --- U.S. ----, ----, 112 S.Ct. 1112, 1121, 117 L.Ed.2d 341 (1992). The record does not support such a conclusion. 16 Second, a district court may depart downwards from the guidelines if it finds  'there exists [a] ... mitigating circumstance of a kind, or to a degree, not adequately taken into consideration by the Sentencing Commission in formulating the guidelines that should result in a sentence different from that described.'  U.S.S.G. Sec. 5K2.0, p.s.; 18 U.S.C.A. Sec. 3553(b) (West Supp.1993). Since a defendant's acceptance of responsibility is expressly accounted for under U.S.S.G. Sec. 3E1.1, 3 it is not a basis for departure unless the district court finds the acceptance of responsibility to be so exceptional that it is to a degree not considered by U.S.S.G. Sec. 3E1.1. See United States v. Smith, 930 F.2d 1450, 1454 (10th Cir.) cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 112 S.Ct. 225, 116 L.Ed.2d 182 (1991) (Where ... departure is based on factors that are considered by the guidelines, the sentencing court cannot depart unless it finds that consideration to be inadequate in light of unusual circumstances.); United States v. White, 893 F.2d 276, 278 (10th Cir.1990) (When a court finds an atypical case, one to which a particular guideline linguistically applies but where conduct significantly differs from the norm, the court may consider whether a departure is warranted.) Such a finding by the district court, however, must be explained. Smith, 930 F.2d at 1454; see White, 893 F.2d at 278. In the present case, the district court elaborated upon why Mr. Gaither's rehabilitative efforts were justification for departure, but failed to give any reason why his acceptance of responsibility was so exceptional or the circumstances so unusual as to make Sec. 3E1.1 inadequate. 17 For the reasons stated above, we remand and instruct the district court to vacate the sentence imposed and resentence in accordance with this opinion. 18