Opinion ID: 2974148
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: analysis

Text: We will not overturn a sentence imposed by a district court unless that sentence is unreasonable. United States v. Richardson, 437 F.3d 550, 553 (6th Cir. 2006). Reasonableness review has “both substantive and procedural components.” United States v. Jones, 445 F.3d 865, 869 (6th Cir. 2006). A sentence may be procedurally unreasonable if “the district judge fails to ‘consider’ the applicable Guidelines range or neglects to ‘consider’ the other factors listed in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), and instead simply selects what the judge deems an appropriate sentence without such required consideration.” United States v. Webb, 403 F.3d 373, 383 (6th Cir. 2005); see also United States v. McBride, 434 F.3d 470, 476 n.3 (6th Cir. 2006) (noting that “[a] district court’s failure to explicitly consider the section 3553(a) factors without other evidence in the record demonstrating that they were thoroughly considered . . . would result in a procedurally unreasonable” sentence). On the other hand, a sentence may substantively unreasonable where the district court “select[s] the sentence arbitrarily, bas[es] the sentence on impermissible factors, fail[s] to consider pertinent § 3553(a) factors, or giv[es] an unreasonable amount of weight to any pertinent factor.” Webb, 403 F.3d at 385; see also United States v. Moreland, 437 F.3d 424, 434 (4th Cir. 2006) (“A sentence may be substantively unreasonable if the court relies on an improper factor or rejects policies articulated by Congress or the Sentencing Commission.”); accord United States v. Rattoballi, 452 F.3d 127, 134 (2nd Cir. 2006) (“A non-Guidelines sentence that a district court imposes in reliance on factors incompatible with the Commission’s policy statements may be deemed substantively unreasonable in the absence of persuasive explanation as to why the sentence actually comports with the § 3553(a) factors.”). Although sentences within the Guidelines range are afforded a presumption of reasonableness, United States v. Williams, 436 F.3d 706, 708 (6th Cir. 2006), sentences falling outside the Guidelines range are neither presumptively reasonable nor presumptively unreasonable. United States v. Foreman, 436 F.3d 638, 644 (6th Cir. 2006) (explaining that sentences outside the Guidelines range, although not entitled to a presumption of reasonableness, are not “presumptively unreasonable” either) (emphasis in original). Regardless of whether the sentence imposed is inside or outside of the Guidelines range, the district court “must articulate the reasons for the particular sentence imposed in order to enable this [c]ourt to engage in a meaningful reasonableness review of the sentence.” Jones, 445 F.3d at 869. These reasons include an acknowledgment on the record of the defendant’s arguments for a lower sentence and an explanation of the court’s reasons for rejecting those arguments. See Richardson, 437 F.3d at 554. The district court’s overall task remains that of imposing “‘a sentence sufficient, but not greater than necessary, to comply with the purposes’ of section 3553(a)(2).” Foreman, 436 F.3d at 644 n.1 (quoting 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)). B. The district court engaged in permissible judicial factfinding and did not impermissibly consider Ferguson’s socio-economic status Two of Ferguson’s arguments—that the district court engaged in unauthorized judicial factfinding when it determined the amount of loss caused by his crimes and that it impermissibly considered his socio-economic status—can be summarily rejected. As to the first argument, this court and others have repeatedly held since Booker that district judges can find the facts necessary to calculate the appropriate Guidelines range using the same preponderance-of-the-evidence No. 05-3998 United States v. Ferguson Page 5 standard that governed prior to Booker. See United States v. Stone, 432 F.3d 651, 654-55 (6th Cir. 2005) (holding that “Booker did not eliminate judicial fact-finding,” and that district courts must “calculate the Guideline range as they would have done prior to Booker, but then sentence defendants by taking into account all of the relevant factors of 18 U.S.C. § 3553, as well as the Guidelines range”); see also United States v. Bah, 439 F.3d 423, 426 n.1 (8th Cir. 2006) (“[J]udicial fact-finding using a preponderance of the evidence standard is permitted provided that the guidelines are applied in an advisory manner.”). The district court in the present case properly conducted extensive hearings and relied on the PSR to determine the facts used in calculating the Guidelines range. Under this court’s post-Booker caselaw, the district court acted within its authority in calculating the amount of loss. Ferguson’s contention that the district court impermissibly based its sentence on his socioeconomic status likewise lacks merit. He maintains that the district court’s statements during the sentencing hearing contravened the policy statement found at U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual § 5H1.10, which bars the court from using socio-economic status, along with factors like race and religion, as a basis for a sentencing determination. But as this court explained in United States v. Holz, 118 F. App’x 928, 935 (6th Cir. 2004) (unpublished), “[t]he prohibition against consideration of socio-economic status simply precludes a district court from determining that a defendant’s prominence, or lack thereof, weighs in favor of, or against, a departure.” Citing the Supreme Court’s decision in Williams v. United States, 503 U.S. 193, 201 (1992), for the proposition that where “a policy statement prohibits a district court from taking a specified action, the statement is an authoritative guide to the meaning of the applicable Guideline,” Ferguson maintains that “the articulated basis for the [district] court’s sentence is directly contrary to the policy statement” found in § 5H1.10. Ferguson specifically objects to the following statement made by the district court during the final sentencing hearing: [T]he failure to consider persons similarly situated to this defendant and the deterrent effect upon them of any sentence imposed today will not promote respect for the law. It will simply tend to set in concrete the public perception that the higher you are, the less you have to fear from the law; and that if a person can afford it, the system, such as it is, can be beaten. District courts are still obliged to consider the Commission’s policy statements after Booker. See Jones, 445 F.3d at 869 (noting that 18 U.S.C § 3553(a)(5) “requires the district court to consider any relevant policy statements in determining the sentence to be imposed”); see also Moreland, 437 F.3d at 432 (explaining that the “remaining provisions of the Sentencing Reform Act require the district court to consider the guideline range applicable to the defendant and pertinent policy statements of the Sentencing Commission”). But we agree with the government that the district court’s statement, when taken in context, does not indicate that the court impermissibly considered Ferguson’s socio-economic status. To the contrary, the court reasoned that granting Ferguson’s request for no jail time on the basis of his educational and employment history and his standing in the community would lead to precisely the type of disrespect for the law that the Commission sought to avoid when it adopted § 5H1.10. Nothing in the district court’s sentencing explanation demonstrates that Ferguson’s “prominence, or lack thereof, weigh[ed] in favor” of or against a longer term of imprisonment. See Holz, 118 F. App’x at 935. We therefore reject this argument. C. Ferguson’s sentence is reasonable The primary challenge lodged by Ferguson is that his 12-month prison sentence, which is twice the maximum of the Guidelines range calculated by the district court, is unreasonable. In No. 05-3998 United States v. Ferguson Page 6 considering this challenge, we note that this court recently issued its first published opinions sustaining a district court’s imposition of a post-Booker sentence that varied upward from the advisory Guidelines range. See United States v. Barton, — F.3d —, 2006 WL 2164260 (6th Cir. Aug. 3, 2006) (upholding as reasonable a sentence 43 months above the Guidelines maximum); United States v. Matheny, 450 F.3d 633 (6th Cir. 2006) (upholding as reasonable a sentence 6 months above the Guidelines maximum); see also United States v. Hampton, 441 F.3d 284, 287 (4th Cir. 2006) (differentiating between “variances” from the Guidelines range and traditional “departures” made pursuant to Guidelines provisions). In Matheny, the district court calculated an advisory Guidelines range of 24 to 30 months, but imposed a sentence of 36 months on the ground that the Guidelines range “severely” underestimated the seriousness of the defendant’s criminal history. 450 F.3d at 637. Although expressing some doubt as to whether the district court had chosen to impose a traditional upward departure under the Guidelines as opposed to a post-Booker variance, see id. at 640 n.4, this court nonetheless upheld the sentence as reasonable. The Matheny court noted that the concern over Matheny’s criminal history expressed by the district court aligned with the § 3553(a) factors and was borne out by the record. Furthermore, the district judge had considered Matheny’s need for rehabilitation and family ties, even recommending that he be incarcerated at a prison close to his home if that facility had a drug treatment program. Id. at 641. These reasons, this court ruled, sufficed to justify the higher sentence. Id. Similarly, the district court in the present case justified a sentence six months above the high end of the Guidelines range with specific reference to the factors enumerated in § 3553(a). The district court acknowledged that some of the statutory factors favored leniency, but ultimately concluded that two others—the need for the sentence “to promote respect for the law” and the need for the sentence “to afford adequate deterrence to criminal conduct,” § 3553(a)(2)(A), (B)—supported a sentence above the Guidelines range that the court had calculated. With respect to these two factors, the court expressed its view that a sentence with significant jail time would “have a serious deterrent effect on others similarly situated who might be inclined to abuse a position of trust and as a result to steal and dispose of an item that is, for better or worse, irreplaceable.” This analysis also demonstrates that the district court was not thinking in the abstract, but was instead focused on the particular “nature and circumstances of the offense,” another factor enumerated in § 3553(a). Nothing in the court’s nuanced application of the § 3553(a) factors to Ferguson’s case indicates that the court gave “an unreasonable amount of weight to any pertinent factor.” Webb, 403 F.3d at 385. In sum, the sentence was substantively reasonable. The sentence was also procedurally reasonable. In explaining its sentencing decision, the district court presciently complied with the requirement that this court would later articulate in Richardson—namely, it provided reasons for rejecting Ferguson’s plea for no jail time. See 437 F.3d at 554 (“Where a defendant raises a particular argument in seeking a lower sentence, the record must reflect both that the district judge considered the defendant’s argument and that the judge explained the basis for rejecting it.”). The court discussed on the record both why it believed that a term of imprisonment was appropriate and why it would disregard letters from museum and Air Force officials that asked the court to impose an even higher sentence. This direct explanation assured that Ferguson could “understand the basis for the particular sentence” imposed, and also allowed this court to “intelligently determine whether the specific sentence is indeed reasonable.” See id. The 12-month sentence imposed upon Ferguson, in short, was both procedurally and substantively reasonable. Although Ferguson disagrees with the manner in which the district court weighed the statutory factors, the record amply demonstrates that the court evaluated all of those No. 05-3998 United States v. Ferguson Page 7 factors, entertained a forceful argument for leniency, and balanced the relevant considerations in light of Congress’s command that the sentence imposed be “sufficient, but not greater than necessary, to comply with the purposes” articulated in § 3553(a)(2). Indeed, the district court twice quoted this so-called “parsimony provision,” which this court has highlighted as the guidepost for sentencing decisions post-Booker. See Foreman, 436 F.3d at 644 n.1; see also United States v. Buchanan, 449 F.3d 731, 740 (6th Cir. 2006) (Sutton, J., concurring). The district court therefore did what it was obligated to do by both this court’s caselaw and the governing statute—it followed a congressional command and then “exercis[ed] independent judgment in sentencing [a] criminal defendant[] within statutory limits.” See id.; Douglas A. Berman, Reasoning Through Reasonableness, 115 Yale L.J. Pocket Part 142 (2006), http://www.thepocketpart.org /2006/07/berman.html (reading Booker as requiring “district courts to exercise independent reasoned judgment when imposing a sentence”). Under these circumstances, we cannot say that the court’s decision to impose a sentence six months above the advisory Guidelines range was unreasonable. Finally, we return to a point mentioned briefly above. The government, as an alternative ground for affirmance, argues that Ferguson’s sentence “does not need any unusual justification” because it falls within what the Guidelines range would have been had the district court not mistakenly believed that it could not impose an enhancement for abuse of a position of trust. See U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual § 3B1.3 (1998); United States v. Young, 266 F.3d 468, 479 (6th Cir. 2001). Because we hold that the sentence is reasonable even if viewed as an upward variance, we have no need to address this alternative argument or to decide generally whether a sentence that inadvertently ends up within the properly calculated Guidelines range is entitled to a presumption of reasonableness.