Opinion ID: 3039952
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Recall of the Mandate

Text: [5] A mandate should be recalled only “in extraordinary circumstances.” Calderon v. Thompson, 523 U.S. 538, 550 (1998). Our authority to recall the mandate should be exercised only “for good cause or to prevent injustice.” Zipfel v. Halliburton Co., 861 F.2d 565, 567 (9th Cir. 1988) (internal citations and quotation marks omitted). CARRINGTON v. UNITED STATES 19387 [6] We have held that the Supreme Court’s decision in Booker was not, by itself, sufficient to justify recall of the mandate in cases finalized before Booker was filed. See United States v. King, 419 F.3d 1035, 1036 (9th Cir. 2005). But Booker was an extraordinarily important decision that may, when combined with other extraordinary circumstances, justify recall of the mandate. In United States v. Crawford, 422 F.3d 1145 (9th Cir. 2005), we recalled the mandate in a pre-Booker sentence to allow the district court to re-sentence under Booker. We based our decision on the existence of two extraordinary circumstances: (a) that the sentencing judge had expressed reservations at the time of sentencing about the sentence required under the mandatory Guidelines; and (b) that the Supreme Court’s decision in Blakely, which “foreshadowed” its holding in Booker, was rendered before our mandate issued in Crawford. See id. at 1145-46. [7] Here, the first basis for our decision in Crawford is present. In both Carrington and Tillitz’s original sentencing hearing, Judge Bryan expressed his frustration with the lack of discretion afforded to district court judges by the Guide- lines. The second basis is not present, purely by the “accident of timing” as Judge Bryan noted. In Crawford, however, we emphasized that this combination of circumstances was not the only one that would justify recalling our mandate. See id. at 1146 n.2. Instead, we noted that “future panels will necessarily evaluate the existence of ‘extraordinary circumstances’ warranting the recall of a mandate based on the facts of their individual cases.” Id. [8] Here, there is an additional circumstance not present in Crawford that compels our attention—Judge Bryan’s impas- sioned plea to this court.