Opinion ID: 6350082
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: District Court’s Statutory Interpretation

Text: The district court stated that it was “subject to the spirit of the congressional statutes” in order to explain its decision to run the sentences of 210 months per count consecutively, rather than concurrently. Id. Mr. Farley construes this statement to mean that the district court “believed that it needed to sentence Mr. Farley to at least 45 years— i.e., to impose consecutive 15-year sentences for each of the three counts—in order to” respect the 15-year statutory mandatory minimum attached to 18 U.S.C. § 2251 charges and to follow 18 U.S.C. § 3584, which governs the imposition of multiple sentences.3 Aplt. Br. at 21. Mr. Farley then claims that this belief constituted plain error because no congressional statute mandates a consecutive sentence for Mr. Farley’s offenses, and § 3584 is written so that concurrent sentences are the default when a court imposes multiple terms of imprisonment at one time, as was the case here. Id. 3 In relevant part, 18 U.S.C. § 3584 states: If multiple terms of imprisonment are imposed on a defendant at the same time . . . the terms may run concurrently or consecutively, except that the terms may not run consecutively for an attempt and for another offense that was the sole objective of the attempt. Multiple terms of imprisonment imposed at the same time run concurrently unless the court orders or the statute mandates that the terms are to run consecutively. 7 Appellate Case: 21-8013 Document: 010110697264 Date Filed: 06/15/2022 Page: 8 Mr. Farley’s characterization of the district court’s statement about the “spirit of the congressional statutes” as plainly erroneous fails for several reasons. First, § 3584 explicitly empowers a sentencing court to order consecutive sentences instead of concurrent sentences, without imposing any limits on when the court can do so. 18 U.S.C. § 3584. Thus, the district court’s order here did not reflect any misunderstanding about the scope of its authority under § 3584. Second, it is not clear what “statutes” the district court was actually referring to. Given that the district court mentioned the statutory minimum in the sentence immediately prior to the challenged statement about the “spirit” of the statutes, the court was most likely referring to the statute under which Mr. Farley was convicted, 18 U.S.C. § 2251, which imposes a 15-year mandatory minimum. If § 2251 was indeed the statute the district court had in mind, the court did not err by suggesting that the “spirit” of the statute supported sentencing Mr. Farley to at least 15 years per § 2251 count to be served consecutively, especially because the court acknowledged that although it was not bound by the single-count minimum when imposing a cumulative sentence, it nonetheless felt that the single-count minimum “should be respected.” ROA Vol. III at 91. The government also suggests that the district court may have been referencing 18 U.S.C. § 3553, which among other things requires sentencing courts to consider the federal sentencing guidelines. The guidelines instruct district courts to run sentences consecutively “[i]f the sentence imposed on the count carrying the highest statutory maximum is less than the total punishment . . . to the extent necessary to produce a combined sentence equal to the total punishment.” U.S.S.G. § 5G1.2(d). That instruction 8 Appellate Case: 21-8013 Document: 010110697264 Date Filed: 06/15/2022 Page: 9 to run the sentences consecutively would apply to Mr. Farley,4 because his offense level corresponded to a life sentence but the statutory maximum under § 2251 limited his sentence for each count to 30 years. Thus, if § 3553 and its cross-reference to the guidelines were one of the “congressional statutes” the district court was referring to, there could be no error in the district court’s finding that those authorities counseled consecutive sentencing here. And, in any event, the district court’s decision to run Mr. Farley’s terms of imprisonment consecutively was not directly based on its interpretation of any of the above federal statutes. We read the district court’s explanation to indicate that it believed consecutive sentences for each of the three charges were appropriate not because Congress said so, but because the court wanted to give full respect to each of the three victims involved in the respective counts. This judgment is reasonable and falls within the district court’s sentencing discretion. Accordingly, we find no error in the district court’s reasoning for running Mr. Farley’s sentences consecutively. B. District Court’s Application of the Guidelines Separately, Mr. Farley claims that the district court plainly erred by using an unreasonable method to determine the sentence that it would apply to each count under the guidelines. In particular, Mr. Farley highlights the district court’s erroneous 4 The guidelines would not mandate that the district court run the sentences consecutively, however. See United States v. Lymon, 905 F.3d 1149, 1153 (10th Cir. 2018). But Mr. Farley does not contend, nor is there evidence to suggest, that the district court believed it had no choice but to impose a consecutive sentence under U.S.S.G. § 5G1.2. 9 Appellate Case: 21-8013 Document: 010110697264 Date Filed: 06/15/2022 Page: 10 statements about how much it would have to vary from the PSR’s 1080-month sentence in order to impose the 40-year (480-month) sentence recommended by the prosecution. Early in the sentencing hearing, the district court expressed concern that the proposed 40year sentence “would require the Court to depart ten levels” from the PSR recommendation. ROA Vol. III at 63.5 Then in explaining its final decision at the end of the hearing, the court said it had decided to “vary downward six levels” from the PSR sentence to impose the 210-month-per-count sentence for a total of 630 months’ imprisonment. Id. at 93. But the district court did not have to vary ten levels or nine levels or six levels to impose the requested 40-year sentence. It would have had to vary downward only one offense level, from 43 to 42,6 which corresponds to a sentencing range of 360 months (30 5 The district court later revised its estimate of the downward variance to nine levels by using 42 as the offense level starting point instead of 43, which was the offense level calculated by the PSR. It appears that the district court used 42 as the starting point because it was already barred from giving Mr. Farley the life sentence that corresponded to his offense level of 43 due to the mandatory maximums, and any sentence less than life would correspond with a lower offense level on the table. But the variance from 43 to 42 should have been included in any tally of how many levels the district court ultimately varied downward, even if the variance from 43 to 42 was made for a different reason than any additional variance. That said, Mr. Farley maintains the same arguments “[r]egardless of whether the proper starting point is level 43 or level 42,” Aplt. Br. at 13, n. 4, and so we will not focus on the 43/42 distinction in our analysis of the district court’s methodology. 6 The starting point is 43 because that is the highest offense level contemplated by the sentencing table. For accuracy, however, we note that the various enhancements applied to Mr. Farley’s offense level by the PSR actually led to an off-the-chart offense level of 49. Regardless, the district court did not indicate that it was accounting for the 49 offense level when trying to ascertain how many offense levels it was varying, nor does any party contend that it did. We thus proceed based only on the offense levels that appear on the sentencing table. 10 Appellate Case: 21-8013 Document: 010110697264 Date Filed: 06/15/2022 Page: 11 years) to life on the guidelines table when paired with Mr. Farley’s criminal history category of II. U.S.S.G. § 5A. In contrast, an offense level of 43 corresponds only to a life sentence. Id. The sentencing table is designed to produce a “total punishment”—that is, the “combined length of the sentences,” as opposed to a range for each individual count. U.S.S.G. § 5G1.2, commentary; see also U.S.S.G § 3D1.5. Thus, relying solely on the guidelines table, the court could have imposed a 40-year sentence by varying down only one level and running 40-year sentences on each count concurrently. Likewise, the ultimate cumulative sentence of 630 months required a downward variance of only one level, as it falls within the range of 360 months to life. Id. The district court’s statement that it had to vary down six levels to impose its chosen sentence and that it would have had to vary even more levels to impose the 40-year sentence was therefore an error—and a plain one at that, because it is unambiguously contradicted by the guidelines table. See United States v. Brown, 316 F.3d 1151, 1158 (10th Cir. 2003) (“An error is plain if it is clear or obvious under current law.” (internal quotations omitted)). The government comes up with a formula by which the district court could have applied a six-level variance without relying on a plainly erroneous view of the guidelines, but this too is flawed. According to the government, the court could have been doing something much more complicated than simply reducing the overall offense level: it could have looked at each count individually, then applied a “six level variance per 11 Appellate Case: 21-8013 Document: 010110697264 Date Filed: 06/15/2022 Page: 12 count” to reduce the offense level from 42 to 36,7 which “yielded a range of 210-262 . . . arriv[ing] at a final sentence of 630 months by treating those consecutively.” Aple. Br. at 16 (emphasis in original). But that approach would have been error as well. The sentencing table is not designed for that purpose. The guidelines determine an offense level and corresponding sentencing range “based on the defendant’s overall conduct, even if there are multiple counts of conviction.” U.S.S.G. § 1B1.11, background note. See also U.S.S.G. § 3D, introductory commentary (providing “rules for determining a single offense level that encompasses all the counts of which the defendant is convicted”).8 The table results in a recommended total punishment; the question of whether that punishment runs concurrently or consecutively in cases with multiple counts of conviction is based on a different set of guidelines provisions. See U.S.S.G. § 5G1.2. Consequently, that approach would not have been proper under the guidelines either.9 7 We again note that the appropriate starting point would have been the PSR offense level of 43, not 42. See supra note 5. 8 Mr. Farley’s own PSR exemplifies this standard functioning of the guidelines. It calculated an offense level for each of Mr. Farley’s respective counts—42 for Count One, 44 for Count Two, and 40 for Count Five—based on the characteristics of each specific offense, such as the victim’s age and the victim’s relationship to Mr. Farley. The PSR then determined a combined adjusted offense level “by taking the offense level applicable to the Group with the highest offense level and increasing the offense level by the amount indicted in the table at U.S.S.G. § 3D1.4.” ROA Vol. II at 39. This calculation, plus an enhancement under U.S.S.G. § 4B1.5(b)(1) and decreases for acceptance of responsibility and cooperation, led to an offense level of 49, which had to be treated as 43 (the highest possible offense level under U.S.S.G. § 5GA). Thus, the 43 offense level encompassed the underlying conduct of all three counts. 9 The government asserts that this approach, while unorthodox, was reasonable partly because it was “tethered to the Guidelines.” United States v. Bishop, 469 F.3d 896, 907 (10th Cir. 2006), abrogated on other grounds by Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 12 Appellate Case: 21-8013 Document: 010110697264 Date Filed: 06/15/2022 Page: 13 Given plain error, Mr. Farley must still demonstrate that the district court’s misunderstanding about the offense level variance affected his substantial rights. Wolfname, 835 F.3d at 1217. An error affects substantial rights if there is “a reasonable probability that, but for the error, the outcome of the proceeding would have been different.” Molina-Martinez v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 1388, 1339 (2016) (internal quotation marks omitted). We find that condition met here. From the district court’s explanation, we glean only three parameters that it used to find a sentence it was comfortable with: (1) it wanted to vary downward at least some degree from the PSRrecommended 1080 months’ sentence due to Mr. Farley’s mitigating factors, (2) it wanted to run the sentences consecutively so as to respect each individual victim and the seriousness of the offenses, and (3) it did not want to vary down more than six offense levels (or really, seven offense levels, if using 43 as the starting point). This third parameter resulted from district court’s plain error in interpreting the extent of its variance and applying the sentencing table. Because one of the district court’s three key considerations was predicated on an error, we find that the error was integral in the district court’s reasoning and acted as a limiting factor in how low it was willing to go with Mr. Farley’s sentence. Thus, a reasonable probability exists that the district court would have opted for a sentence below 630 months, had it used a reasonable methodology to determine the variance, and the third requirement of plain-error review is met. We simply cannot guess what sentence the district court may have imposed had it 38 (2007). But linking the sentence to the guidelines is not probative of procedural reasonableness if the link distorts the way the guidelines actually work. 13 Appellate Case: 21-8013 Document: 010110697264 Date Filed: 06/15/2022 Page: 14 used a correct analysis; we will allow the court to tell us itself. The final question is whether the procedural unreasonableness of Mr. Farley’s sentence seriously affects the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings. Wolfname, 835 F.3d at 1217. A court’s excusal of “obvious errors . . . that threaten to require individuals to linger longer in federal prison than the law demands” is likely to diminish the public’s “view of the judicial process and its integrity.” RosalesMireles v. United States, 138 S. Ct. 1897, 1908 (2018) (quoting United States v. Sabillon–Umana, 772 F.3d 1328, 1333–1334 (10th Cir. 2014)). Plain errors in the calculation of a defendant’s sentencing guidelines range generally merit relief under plain-error review. Id. at 1907. While the district court here did not err in calculating the initial guidelines range, its errors derived from a misunderstanding of the guidelines’ proper application in these particular circumstances. The errors were then deeply embedded in the sentence Mr. Farley ultimately received. Letting those errors stand uncorrected, when Mr. Farley has a reasonably likely chance at a lower sentence if a proper method were used to determine the extent of the downward variance, would surely diminish the fairness and integrity of these proceedings. Thus, we find each prong of the plain-error test met and must reverse Mr. Farley’s sentence.