Opinion ID: 40802
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Guideline Range

Text: 16 It is undisputed that the district court failed to determine the correct Guideline range. We have held that the applicable range should be determined in the same manner as before Booker/Fanfan  and that a judge may still find all the facts supporting a sentence. Mares, 402 F.3d at 519. Thus, the court's conclusion that it could not adjust Duhon's Guideline range upwardly based on facts neither admitted by Duhon nor proven beyond a reasonable doubt was incorrect. The correct sentencing range was twenty-seven to thirty-three months imprisonment, not the fifteen to twenty-one months considered by the court. 17 Duhon argues that this error was harmless because the court stated that it would have imposed the same non-Guideline sentence regardless of the Guideline range. Duhon is correct that the sentence was imposed in spite of rather than as a result of an incorrect application of the sentencing guidelines. 18 U.S.C. § 3742(f). In Villegas, we recognized that section 3742(f) survives Booker. Under that statute, we review de novo and vacate a sentence imposed as a result of a Guidelines error without reaching the sentence's ultimate reasonableness. Villegas, 404 F.3d at 362. Because Duhon's non-Guideline sentence did not directly result from the Guidelines error, it need not be vacated under Villegas based solely on the miscalculation. 18 But it does not follow from this that the error in calculating the Guideline range is irrelevant to our second-step review for reasonableness. Mares recognized that if the district court commits a legal error in required sentencing procedures, the sentence may not merit the great deference ordinarily accorded on reasonableness review. 402 F.3d at 520. Among those sentencing procedures required by Mares is that the district court calculate the Guideline range before imposing a non-Guideline sentence. Id. at 519; United States v. Angeles-Mendoza, 407 F.3d 742, 746 (5th Cir.2005). 19 This requirement reflects Booker 's mandate that sentencing courts take account of the Guidelines along with other sentencing goals. Booker, 125 S.Ct. at 764-65 (emphasis added). In light of its duty to account for the Guidelines, the court's statement that it would impose the same sentence regardless of which range applied, makes the sentence more, rather than less, problematic. The court cannot reasonably impose the same sentence regardless of the correct advisory range anymore than it could reasonably impose the same sentence regardless of the seriousness of the offense. Both are sentencing factors that must be taken into account under section 3553(a). See Smith, 440 F.3d at 707 (holding that the Guideline range must be a frame of reference for a non-Guideline sentence). A sentencing court cannot evade its duty under Booker and Mares to correctly calculate the Guideline range with the expedient of saying the Guidelines would not affect the result. Accordingly, the miscalculation deprives the sentence of great deference and is a factor to be considered in assessing the reasonableness of the sentence. 20