Opinion ID: 62347
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Resentencing Hearing

Text: Prior to his resentencing hearing, McGowan submitted a memorandum to the district court, quoting extensively from a United States Sentencing Commission report (“the Report”) identifying the crack/powder disparity as adversely impacting African-American offenders. (R.44 at 7.) McGowan argued that both the career offender guideline and the crack/powder disparity led to a Guideline calculation that was significantly greater than necessary to serve the purposes of sentencing. He asked the court to sentence him based on a 20-to-1 ratio instead of 100-to-1, which would have produced a Guideline range of 92-115 3 months. At the resentencing hearing, McGowan’s counsel explicitly argued that the crack/powder disparity was unreasonable: I think the Commission’s report is significant in light of Booker, because as I have argued in my memorandum, Booker instructs the courts to impose sentences that are reasonable, not in light of the guidelines, but in light of 3553(a), of which there are seven factors, the guidelines being only one of the seven. So, the Sentencing Commission itself has recognized that there are problems with the career offender guideline, both in its application, disproportionately impacting African American offenders . . . . The Commission has also repeatedly criticized the 100-to-1 crack-topowder sentencing disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine, saying that the pharmacological differences between the two drugs just don’t justify that jump. Based on those two points, which I took from the Sentencing Commission, I proposed a 20-to-1 ratio for Mr. McGowan of what his sentence might have been if he had sold powder cocaine instead of crack cocaine . . . . (R.52 at 5-6.) The Government responded to these arguments, implying that the court could not reduce a sentence based on a policy disagreement with the Guidelines: “As to [McGowan’s counsel’s] arguments, I believe some of those have been – the Sentencing Commission has voiced those to Congress, and that has not been changed.” (Id. at 9.) The sentencing judge did not address McGowan’s crack/powder disparity argument. 4 At the time of McGowan’s resentencing, the district court had no direct, post-Booker precedent from this Circuit addressing its discretion to reduce a sentence based on a policy disagreement with the crack/powder disparity. We had held, prior to Booker, that a reduction of a sentence on this basis would have constituted an abuse of discretion. See United States v. Hanna, 153 F.3d 1286 (11th Cir. 1998); United States v. King, 972 F.2d 1259 (11th Cir. 1992). After McGowan’s resentencing, we reaffirmed Hanna and King: “The 100-to-1 drug quantity ratio not only reflects Congress’s policy decision that crack offenders should be punished more severely, but also reflects its choice as to how much more severe the punishment should be. Federal courts are not at liberty to supplant this policy decision.” United States v. Williams, 456 F.3d 1353, 1367 (11th Cir. 2006).