Opinion ID: 3011689
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Validity of Downward Departur e on this Factor

Text: This leaves re-incarceration as the only possible basis for sustaining the District Court's downward departure.4 Sentencing took place on January 22, 1998 and Mendenhall and Yeaman began to serve their sentences within three months of that date. Resentencing took place on April 10, 2000. At that time, Mendenhall had been released from community confinement and had been living with his family (on probation) for a period of roughly 16 months. Yeaman had served ten months in a federal prison camp and a brief term of community confinement and had been free for over a year. The District Court specifically departed downward on the basis that Yeaman and Mendenhall had served their original sentences, and that it would be cruel to return the defendants to prison following the completion of their original sentences.5 _________________________________________________________________ 4. The defendants claim the government has waived any objection to reincarceration as a basis for downwar d departure, because the government, in several instances, acknowledged that the circumstances of this case were unique or unusual. We have found multiple instances in the record where the gover nment made clear that it is opposed any downward departure in this situation. The government does not, however, contest the theoretical possibility of a downward departures based on reincarceration in some other factual situation. 5. Again we observe that Mendenhall was never incarcerated, but served 10 months in community confinement. 10 Yeaman's counsel argues that we should affirm Mr. Yeaman's sentence on [re-incar ceration] alone, and need not address the other bases for departur e. Appellee's Br. at 31. A court may depart from the guidelines sentence if 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 that should result in a sentence differ ent from that described. U.S.S.G. S 5K2.0 (1997). Departures should be highly infrequent, Koon, 518 U.S. at 96; see also Serafini, at  (Rosenn, J., dissenting in part and concurring in part) (Discretion, like the hole in a doughnut, does not exist except as an area left open by a surr ounding belt of restriction, citing Ronald Dworkin, T aking Rights Seriously 31 (1977)). The Supreme Court has endorsed a four-step test for determining whether a departure fr om the Guidelines should occur based on unusual circumstances. See Koon, 518 U.S. at 95. First, we determine if the factor relied upon in the case makes it special or unusual, taking it outside the heartland. Second, we determine whether departures on such factors have been forbidden by the Commission. Third, we determine whether the Commission has encouraged departures based on such factors. Fourth, we determine whether the Commission has discouraged departures based on such factors. Id. We conclude that the claims of Yeaman and Mendenhall stumble on the first step of Koon. The defendants here present no unusual circumstances that move their situation outside the heartland. The Sentencing Guidelines promote two central Congressional objectives. First, they promote a vertical sentencing uniformity by identifying an appropriate sentencing range for any given crime in light of the goals of sentencing. Second, they promote a horizontal uniformity in sentencing by requiring that similarly situated defendants are sentenced similarly. See U.S.S.G. Ch. 1. Pt. A. P 3 (policy statement). Under the Guidelines scheme, the calculated sentence is presumed to be the standard sentence for typical cases within theheartland. As the lower end of the sentencing range cannot be bridged 11 without some basis for downward departur e, we can conclude that it must identify the minimum sentence required in the heartland case to satisfy the goals of general deterrence, specific deterrence, r etribution, and rehabilitation. See 18 U.S.C. S 3553(a) (setting forth the goals of sentencing). In a system administered by human beings, err ors are inevitable.6 Errors under the Sentencing Guidelines result in breaches of the intended uniformity, however, and error correction is essential to attaining the twin goals of the Guideline scheme. Accordingly, the Guidelines contemplate the correction of errors through appellate review. See U.S.S.G. Ch. 1 Pt. A. P 2; 18 U.S.C. S 3742(b)(2). The correction of errors in sentencing necessarily involves reincarceration in that class of cases where the sentence imposed was less than it should have been and as a r esult, the defendant has been released prior to the correction of the error. The District Court here held that reincar ceration in and of itself constitutes an aggravating or mitigating factor not adequately taken into account by the Guidelines scheme. We can not agree. Rather, r eincarceration as a means to correct error is inherent in the pr ocess of Guideline sentencing. Indeed, as we have indicated, the corr ection of error through reincarceration pr ovides the only means of preserving the appropriateness and unifor mity of sentencing. Accepting the District Court's view that err or correction through reincarceration places a case outside the heartland would require us to endorse the pr oposition that the original imposition of unduly lenient sentences can entitle defendants in Yeaman's and Mendenhall's positions to sentences that do not conform to the intended uniform pattern. Such an endorsement would not only be inequitable and inconsistent with Congressional intent, it would also produce the greatest deviation from the desired uniformity in those cases where the original errors are the most egregious. Permitting a downwar d departure to avoid _________________________________________________________________ 6. See Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism, part ii, line 325 (1711) (To err is human . . ..). 12 reincarceration where an erroneously lenient sentence is successfully appealed would have the perverse ef fect of compounding judicial error. The mor e egregious the error of a District Court at an original sentencing, the mor e likely that error would become irreversible. If, for example, the District Court in this case had misinterpreted the proper guidelines sentence as requiring only four years imprisonment for each defendant, no departur e would have been available under the District Court's theory. Only when the error is most egregious does this theory support departure. We are especially hesitant to adopt a rule that creates such dubious inversions.7 We hold only that error correction through reincarceration cannot alone take a case outside the heartland. We do not rule out the possibility that _________________________________________________________________ 7. In support of its view, the District Court made reference to this Court's opinion in United States v. Romualdi, 101 F.3d 971 (3d Cir. 1996). In that case, we reversed an err oneous sentence of home confinement that should have been a sentence of three years incarceration. In the course of our opinion, we suggested that on remand the District Court might consider whether a departur e would be appropriate: [W]e note that Romualdi has apparently completed his service of the most stringent part of the sentence imposed by the district court, i.e. home confinement for six months. On r emand, the district court may want to consider whether this is a factor that would warrant departure. Id. at 977. We read this language as suggesting that in the absence of any compensation under the guidelines for time err oneously served in home confinement, such confinement might possibly be credited to the defendant through a downward departur e mechanism at resentencing. See 18 U.S.C. S 3585 (b) (providing that a defendant shall be given credit toward the service of a term for any time spent previously in federal custody); Edwards v. United States, 41 F.3d 154 (3d Cir. 1994) (holding that home confinement is not official detention for purposes of 18 U.S.C. S 3585(b)). Romauldi thus has no bearing on cases like the ones before us where the defendants will receive full credit for the time they have served and the sole issue is whether reincarceration for error correction can alone move the defendant's case outside the heartland. 13 extraordinary circumstances surrounding reincarceration or extraordinary effects of reincar ceration in a particular case may provide a basis for departure just as the circumstances and effects of an original incarceration, if sufficiently extraordinary, can constitute a basis for a downward departure. See United States v. Milikowsky, 65 F.3d 4,7 (2d Cir. 1995) (downwar d departure to avoid incarceration warranted under extraor dinary family circumstances exception); United States v. Lara, 905 F.2d 599, 605 (2d Cir. 1990) (downward departure for extreme vulnerability during incarceration). Y eaman and Mendenhall, however, present no extraor dinary circumstances or effects of reincar ceration moving their cases beyond the heartland. Under the Guidelines a sentence for Yeaman of at least eight years and one month and a sentence for Mendenhall of at least five years and three months ar e deemed necessary to serve the Congressionally declar ed objectives of sentencing and the goal of uniform tr eatment of similarly situated defendants. Any departure from those minima must be justified by extraordinary cir cumstances placing their cases beyond the heartland and must be consistent with the objectives of the Guidelines. U.S. v. Gomez-Villa, 59 F.3d 1199 (11th Cir. 1995); U.S. v. Ullyses-Salazar, 28 F.3d 932 (9th Cir. 1994). We are unwilling to hold that the original imposition of unduly lenient sentences and the resulting necessity of reincarceration of the defendants following correction of those sentences can justify the fourteen month and ten month sentences here under review.