Opinion ID: 3048259
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Padilla’s sentence (cross-appeal)

Text: The government contends that the district court erred procedurally and substantively in imposing a sentence below the Guidelines range for Padilla. The district court calculated Padilla’s advisory range, applying the 2001 Guidelines, and placed him at offense level 40 and criminal history category VI, corresponding to a 360 months–to–life sentence. The district court also imposed the terrorism sentencing enhancement. After hearing arguments on the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors, the district court lowered Padilla’s offense level to 33, which produced a guideline range of 235–293 months’ imprisonment, then selected 250 months as the possible term of imprisonment. The district court then varied downward an 64 additional 42 months to reflect Padilla’s prior detention and imposed a 208 months sentence. The government argues that the district court committed numerous sentencing errors: first, it improperly relied on the fact that Padilla’s actions did not involve an act of terrorism directed to the United States; second, it improperly relied on the fact that the defendants did not personally kill, maim, or kidnap anyone; third, it erred by finding that a variance was necessary to avoid unwarranted sentencing disparity; fourth, it erred by finding that Padilla did not complete his al-Qaeda training; and fifth, the district court did not provide sufficient detailed explanation for why it deviated from the Guidelines range. The government also asserts that the district court committed a substantive error in imposing Padilla’s sentence because it did not fully acknowledge Padilla’s extensive criminal history. The government stated that Padilla was a career offender based on over 17 arrests, his participation in a murder while he was a juvenile, his offense for battery on law enforcement, and his weapons possession offense. [PSI para. 160–82.] Because the district court did not sufficiently consider Padilla’s criminal record, the government posits that it substantively erred in imposing his sentence. 65 We review the district court’s sentencing decision for reasonableness, imposing a deferential abuse of discretion standard of review. Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 41, 128 S. Ct. 586, 591 (2007). The Supreme Court created a two-step process for review to ensure that district courts do not commit either procedural or substantive errors in imposing sentences. The appellate courts “must first ensure that the district court committed no significant procedural error, such as failing to calculate (or improperly calculating) the Guidelines range, treating the Guidelines as mandatory, failing to consider the § 3553(a) factors, selecting a sentence based on clearly erroneous facts, or failing to adequately explain the chosen sentence—including an explanation for any deviation from the Guidelines range.” Id. at 51, 128 S. Ct. at 597. The first step, aimed at addressing procedural errors, highlights the continued importance of the Guidelines, and the Supreme Court’s intention that the “continued use of the Guidelines in an advisory fashion would further the purposes of Congress in creating the sentencing system to be honest, fair, and rational.” United States v. Talley, 431 F.3d 784, 787 (11th Cir. 2005). The second step concerns the substantive reasonableness of the sentence. “When conducting this review, the court will, of course, take into account the totality of the circumstances, including the extent of any variance from the Guidelines range.” Gall, 552 U.S. at 51, 128 S. Ct. at 597. If the sentence 66 imposed is outside the Guidelines range, the appellate court must determine that the district court’s consideration of the 3553(a) factors justified the variance. Id. The district court did not commit procedural error. Neither party contends that the district court failed to properly calculate the Guidelines range or treated the Guidelines as mandatory. The district court considered the 3553(a) factors, and we do not require “the district court to state on the record that it has explicitly considered each of the § 3553(a) factors or to discuss each of the § 3553 factors.” United States v. Scott, 426 F.3d 1324, 1329 (11th Cir. 2005). Although a district court errs when it relies on clearly erroneous findings of fact and the government argues that the district court erroneously found that Padilla did not complete his al-Qaeda training, the record does not support a conclusion that this finding was clearly erroneous. Padilla’s Arabic alias was listed only on the second translation of the al-Qaeda training graduation list. [Doc. 1371, p. 19.] The original translation listed a similar name that was referenced several times in the blue binder. [Id. at 19–20.] Furthermore, the district court adequately explained that it gave Padilla a sentence that was below the Guidelines range for several reasons: the conditions of Padilla’s prior confinement, his allegedly low risk of recidivism due to his age at the time of his anticipated release, the comparable sentences 67 imposed on other terrorists, and the fact that Padilla did not personally injure anyone or target Americans in his conspiracy. However, Padilla’s sentence is substantively unreasonable because it does not adequately reflect his criminal history, does not adequately account for his risk of recidivism, was based partly on an impermissible comparison to sentences imposed in other terrorism cases, and was based in part on inappropriate factors. First, the district court acknowledged that Padilla had a criminal history but then unreasonably discounted this criminal history when it imposed a sentence. The presentence investigation report classified Padilla as a career offender, pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1, because of his extensive criminal history, which included 17 arrests and a murder conviction. Congress has expressed a desire that career offenders receive sentences “of imprisonment at or near the maximum term authorized,” 28 U.S.C. § 994(h), and Padilla’s Guidelines sentence reflected this policy, but the district court deviated from this policy. The Guidelines are not mandatory and a district court is often free to give a below-Guidelines sentence, but the discretion of a district court to sentence a criminal is not unbounded. Padilla’s sentence of 12 years below the low end of the Guidelines range reflects a clear error of judgment about the sentencing of this career offender. Hassoun had 68 no prior criminal history but received a sentence that is only 20 months less than Padilla’s sentence. Second, Padilla’s sentence unreasonably fails “to protect the public from further crimes of the defendant.” 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(2)(C). The district court explained that given Padilla’s age when he is eligible to leave the criminal system, he will unlikely engage in new criminal conduct. [Doc. 1373, p. 14.] The government argues to the contrary that “the risk of recidivism upon release is very real. That risk is greater because Padilla has literally learned to kill like a terrorist.” [Gov’t Br., p. 75.] We agree that the district court failed to consider the nature of Padilla’s crimes and his terrorism training. Although recidivism ordinarily decreases with age, we have rejected this reasoning as a basis for a sentencing departure for certain classes of criminals, namely sex offenders. See United States v. Irey, 612 F.3d 1160, 1213–14 (11th Cir. 2010) (en banc), cert. denied, .131 S. Ct. 1813 (2011). We also reject this reasoning here. “[T]errorists[,] [even those] with no prior criminal behavior[,] are unique among criminals in the likelihood of recidivism, the difficulty of rehabilitation, and the need for incapacitation.” United States v. Meskini, 319 F.3d 88, 92 (2d Cir. 2003). Padilla poses a heightened risk of future dangerousness due to his al-Qaeda 69 training. He is far more sophisticated than an individual convicted of an ordinary street crime. Third, in considering “the need to avoid unwarranted sentence disparities among defendants with similar records who have been found guilty of similar conduct,” 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(6), the district court unreasonably failed to consider the significant distinctions between Padilla’s circumstances and the sentences of other offenders the district court referenced at the sentencing hearing. [Doc. 1373, p. 15–16.] In comparing Padilla to criminals like David Hicks, Yahya Goba, and Imran Mandhai who had either been convicted of less serious offenses, lacked extensive criminal histories, or had pleaded guilty, the district court erred. See United States v. Docampo, 573 F.3d 1091, 1101 (11th Cir. 2009). The district court also improperly relied on the Terry Nichols and Zacarias Moussaoui prosecutions as examples of the types of behavior that warrant a life sentence because the government sought the death penalty in those cases. On remand, we admonish the district court to avoid imposition of a sentence inconsistent with those of similarly situated defendants. It should not draw comparisons to cases involving defendants who were convicted of less serious offenses, pleaded guilty, or who lacked extensive criminal histories, nor should it draw comparisons to cases where the government sought the imposition of the death penalty. See 70 United States v. Abu Ali, 528 F.3d 210, 265 (4th Cir. 2008) (“[T]o require a similar infliction of harm before imposing a similar sentence would effectively raise the bar too high. We should not require that a defendant do what . . . Nichols did in order to receive a life sentence.”). Next, the district court substantively erred in reducing Padilla’s sentence based on the fact that Padilla did not personally harm anyone and his crimes did not target the United States. The jury convicted Padilla of violating a statute that prohibits any conspiracy to murder, kidnap, or maim outside the United States. We held in a pre-Booker case that a district court may not reduce a sentence of a terrorist because the terrorist committed an inchoate crime. United States v. Mandhai, 375 F.3d 1243, 1249 (11th Cir. 2004). Post-Booker, the Fourth Circuit held that “[t]o deviate [a sentence downward] on the basis of unrealized harm is to require an act of completion for an offense that clearly contemplates incomplete conduct.” Abu Ali, 528 F.3d at 264 . Furthermore, the Guidelines account for the distinction between a murder offense and a conspiracy to murder offense. See U.S.S.G. § 2A1.5. Lastly, we have held that a district court may reduce a sentence to account for the harsh conditions of pretrial confinement, United States v. Presley, 345 F.3d 1205 (11th Cir. 2003), but that decision does not justify a downward departure as 71 extensive as the one the district court gave Padilla. In Presley, we held that a district court had discretion to lower a 30 year sentence by two and one-half years when the defendant had been confined for six years prior to trial, five of which were spent in a 23 hour a day “lockdown.” Id. at 1219. Here, the district court reduced Padilla’s sentence by 110 months largely based on the harsh conditions of his prior confinement and then lowered his sentence by another 42 months to account for the time Padilla spent in pre-trial confinement, for a total of 152 months’ departure. Although some downward variance is allowed in this circumstance, the district court abused its discretion when it varied Padilla’s minimum Guidelines sentence downward by 42 percent, a period more than three and one-half times his period of actual pretrial confinement.6 Accordingly, the district court substantively erred in imposing Padilla’s sentence, and we vacate and remand his sentence to the district court for re-sentencing. The dissent argues that by vacating Padilla’s sentence we have usurped the authority of the trial judge, but “[l]ooking at sentencing decisions through the 6 Although the government does not challenge the district court’s decision to reduce Padilla’s sentence by 42 months to reflect his time of pretrial confinement, we note that the Attorney General must already give Padilla credit for his time served in pretrial confinement. 18 U.S.C. § 3585(b); United States v. Wilson, 503 U.S. 329, 334, 112 S. Ct. 1351, 1354 (1992). On remand, we remind the district court that we “have determined that custody or official detention time is not credited toward a sentence until the convict is imprisoned.” Dawson v. Scott, 50 F.3d 884, 888 (11th Cir. 1995). 72 prism of discretion is not the same thing as turning a blind eye to unreasonable ones.” Irey, 612 F.3d at 1160. The dissent emphasizes that the district court considered all the factors it was required to consider, but the district court “commit[ted] a clear error of judgment in considering the proper factors.” Id. at 1189. The district court attached little weight to Padilla’s extensive criminal history, gave no weight to his future dangerousness, compared him to criminals who were not similarly situated, and gave unreasonable weight to the conditions of his pre-trial confinement.