Opinion ID: 155147
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The District Court’s Decision to Depart

Text: Under the Sentencing Guidelines, after a district court determines a defendant’s offense level, criminal history category, and the applicable guideline range, the district court should consider whether a case is a candidate for a departure. U.S.S.G. § 1B1.1(i). The Sentencing Guidelines permit a sentencing court to depart from the Guidelines if “the court finds ‘that there exists an aggravating or mitigating circumstance of a kind, or to a degree, not adequately taken into consideration by the Sentencing Commission in formulating the guidelines.’” U.S.S.G. § 5K2.0 (quoting 18 U.S.C. § 3553(b)). In Koon, the Supreme Court noted that this language necessarily implies a distinction between -6- a “heartland case” and an “unusual case.” Koon, 116 S. Ct. at 2044. The Court explained: The Commission intends the sentencing courts to treat each guideline as carving out a “heartland,” a set of typical cases embodying the conduct that each guideline describes. 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. Id. (quoting U.S.S.G. ch.1 pt. A, intro. comment. 4(b)). In deciding whether the facts of a particular case warrant a departure, sentencing courts must look to all the factors that potentially make a case atypical. Except for a limited number of “forbidden” factors, 3 the guidelines do not “limit the kinds of factors, whether or not mentioned anywhere else in the guidelines, that could constitute grounds for departure in an unusual case.” Id. (quoting U.S.S.G. ch. 1 pt. A, intro. comment. 4(b)). “Sentencing courts are not left adrift, however,” id. at 2045, because the Guidelines list factors that are encouraged as bases for departure and those that are discouraged. The Court in Koon instructed sentencing courts on the proper evaluation of potential departure factors: If the special factor is a forbidden factor, the sentencing court cannot use it as a basis for departure. If the special factor is an encouraged The forbidden factors are race, sex, national origin, creed, religion, and socio- 3 economic status, § 5H1.10; lack of guidance as a youth, § 5H1.12; drug or alcohol dependence, § 5H1.4; and economic duress, § 5K2.12. -7- factor, the court is authorized to depart if the applicable Guideline does not already take it into account. If the special factor is a discouraged factor, or an encouraged factor already taken into account by the applicable Guideline, the court should depart only if the factor is present to an exceptional degree or in some other way makes the case different from the ordinary case where the factor is present. If a factor is unmentioned in the Guidelines, the court must, after considering the “structure and theory of both relevant individual guidelines and the Guidelines taken as a whole,” decide whether it is sufficient to take the case out of the Guideline’s heartland. The court must bear in mind the Commission’s expectation that departures based on grounds not mentioned in the Guidelines will be “highly infrequent.” Id. (citations omitted). After Koon, it is now apparent that a district court may consider a departure when “certain aspects of the case [are] found unusual enough for it to fall outside the heartland of cases in the Guideline.” Id. at 2046. District courts are authorized to depart in this situation because “the Commission itself admits that it has not adequately considered ‘unusual’ cases.” United States v. Rivera, 994 F.2d 942, 947 (1st Cir. 1993); see also Koon, 116 S. Ct. at 2044 (“[W]e learn that the Commission did not adequately take into account cases that are, for one reason or another, ‘unusual.’”). But when is a case so “unusual” that it is a candidate for a departure? The Supreme Court in Koon made clear that this question is largely for the district court to answer. The Court explained that “[t]o resolve this question, the district court must make a refined assessment of the many facts bearing on the outcome, -8- informed by its vantage point and day-to-day experience in criminal sentencing.” Id. at 2046-47. Thus, Koon informs us that the district courts perform the most important function in sentencing, at least in the context of departures, because they have the responsibility of determining in the first instance whether the factual circumstances of a case remove it from the applicable guideline heartland, making the case a candidate for a departure.