Opinion ID: 1194668
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Appropriate Standard to Review Post-Booker Challenges to Supervised Release Revocation Sentences

Text: While not an issue of first impression, the question of which standard governs our post- Booker review of sentences imposed upon revocation of supervised release has not been previously answered by this Court. See, e.g., United States v. Lewis, 498 F.3d 393, 397 (6th Cir.2007) (The Sixth Circuit has not yet determined whether sentences for violation of supervised release are to be reviewed under the `plainly unreasonable' standard the Circuit employed for these sentences before the Supreme Court decided United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 125 S.Ct. 738, 160 L.Ed.2d 621 (2005), or the `unreasonableness' standard applicable to sentences under the Guidelines post- Booker. ). In every case in which we have previously confronted this issue, we have refused to decide which standard of review  unreasonableness or plainly unreasonable  applies, concluding instead that the particular sentence under review would survive under either standard or fail under both. See United States v. Brown, 501 F.3d 722, 724 (6th Cir.2007); Lewis, 498 F.3d at 397; United States v. Yopp, 453 F.3d 770, 773 (6th Cir.2006); United States v. Johnson, 403 F.3d 813, 817 (6th Cir.2005). See also United States v. Younger, 241 Fed.Appx. 308, 310 (6th Cir.2007) (unpublished); United States v. Jiles, 229 Fed.Appx. 401, 404 (6th Cir. 2007) (unpublished); United States v. Williams, 214 Fed.Appx. 552, 554 (6th Cir. 2007) (unpublished); United States v. Morrow, 207 Fed.Appx. 591, 592 (6th Cir. 2006) (unpublished); United States v. Reid, 206 Fed.Appx. 493, 497 (6th Cir. 2006) (unpublished); United States v. Soto, 189 Fed.Appx. 470, 471 n. 2 (6th Cir.2006) (unpublished); United States v. Brown, 163 Fed.Appx. 370, 372 n. 1 (6th Cir.2006) (unpublished); United States v. Tugen, 157 Fed.Appx. 838, 840 (6th Cir. 2005) (unpublished). But see United States v. Carr, 421 F.3d 425, 432 (6th Cir.2005) (applying unreasonableness review without discussion); United States v. Kirby, 418 F.3d 621, 628 (6th Cir.2005) (applying plainly unreasonable review without discussion). Today, however, in light of the recent guidance concerning our post- Booker appellate review of district courts' sentencing decisions provided by the Supreme Court in Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. ___, 128 S.Ct. 586, 2007 WL 4292116 (2007), and Kimbrough v. United States, 552 U.S. ___, 128 S.Ct. 558, 2007 WL 4292040 (2007), we take this opportunity to clarify the proper standard of review of supervised release revocation sentences. Prior to Booker, we review[ed] the district court's sentence upon revocation of a defendant's supervised release for abuse of discretion. United States v. Washington, 147 F.3d 490, 491 (6th Cir.1998) (citing United States v. Webb, 30 F.3d 687, 688 (6th Cir.1994)). See also Brown, 501 F.3d at 724 (citing Washington for the pre- Booker standard of review). Pursuant to this standard, we would affirm a district court's sentence of imprisonment upon revocation of supervised release if it show[ed] consideration of the relevant statutory factors and [was] not plainly unreasonable.  United States v. McClellan, 164 F.3d 308, 309 (6th Cir.1999) (emphasis added); accord Washington, 147 F.3d at 491. This plainly unreasonable standard of review was drawn directly from 18 U.S.C. § 3742, the appellate review provision in the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 (Sentencing Act), 18 U.S.C. § 3551, et seq. Sections 3742(a)(4) and 3742(b)(4), which remain intact post- Booker, provide, respectively, that the defendant or the government may appeal from a sentence for which there is no guideline, as are all supervised release revocation sentences, if it is plainly unreasonable. 18 U.S.C. §§ 3742(a)(4) and (b)(4) (2000). Likewise, § 3742(e)(4), which has now been excised by the Supreme Court in Booker, see 543 U.S. at 259, 125 S.Ct. 738, required the courts of appeals, when reviewing sentences, to determine whether the sentence . . . is plainly unreasonable. Id. § 3742(e)(4). In Justice Breyer's remedial opinion in Booker, the Supreme Court excised § 3742(e) from the Sentencing Act in order to render the entire act compatible with the Court's Sixth Amendment holding. 543 U.S. at 259, 125 S.Ct. 738. While the Supreme Court appears to have been most concerned with the provisions of § 3742(e) which set forth a  de novo [standard of] review for departures from the applicable Guidelines range, Id.; see 18 U.S.C. § 3742(e)(1)-(3), its holding was that all of § 3742(e) be severed and excised. Booker, 543 U.S. at 245, 125 S.Ct. 738. Having excised the appellate review provision of the Sentencing Act, the Supreme Court proceeded to infer appropriate review standards from related statutory language, the structure of the statute, and the `sound administration of justice.' Id. at 260-61, 125 S.Ct. 738 (quoting Pierce v. Underwood, 487 U.S. 552, 559-60, 108 S.Ct. 2541, 101 L.Ed.2d 490 (1988)). The Supreme Court concluded that those factors implied a practical standard of review already familiar to appellate courts: review for `unreasonable[ness].' Id. at 261, 125 S.Ct. 738 (quoting 18 U.S.C. § 3742(e)(3) (1994 ed.)). Post- Booker, the courts of appeals have struggled with the question of whether to continue to review supervised release revocation sentences under the plainly unreasonable standard or to apply the Booker unreasonableness review standard to such cases. In considering this question, the courts have confronted two issues: (1) whether, by announcing a standard of unreasonableness review in Booker, the Supreme Court intended to displace the plainly unreasonable standard that the courts had used in reviewing supervised release revocation sentences; and (2) whether there is any practical difference between these two standards. From the twelve circuits, five different approaches have emerged. [2] The Fourth and Seventh Circuits have found that Booker did not displace the plainly unreasonable standard of review for supervised release revocation sentences and that review under this standard, while similar to review for unreasonableness, is not the same. See United States v. Kizeart, 505 F.3d 672, 674 (7th Cir.2007); United States v. Crudup, 461 F.3d 433, 436-439 (4th Cir.2006). The Tenth Circuit appears to agree with the Fourth and Seventh Circuits that Booker did not change the standard of review of supervised release revocation sentences, but concludes that review under this standard is the same as under the Booker -created standard  sentences will be upheld if they are reasoned and reasonable. United States v. Tedford, 405 F.3d 1159, 1161 (10th Cir.2005) (quoting United States v. Tsosie, 376 F.3d 1210, 1218 (10th Cir.2004)). The Second, Third, and Ninth Circuits, in contrast, have found that Booker did replace the plainly unreasonable standard found in § 3742(e)(4) with an unreasonableness standard and, accordingly, have not considered what differences, if any, exist between the two standards. See United States v. Bungar, 478 F.3d 540, 542 (3d Cir.2007); United States v. Miqbel, 444 F.3d 1173, 1176 (9th Cir.2006) (Reinhardt, J.); United States v. Fleming, 397 F.3d 95, 97-99 (2d Cir.2005). The Eighth and Eleventh Circuits have likewise held that Booker reasonableness review should apply to supervised release revocation sentences, but they have additionally indicated that the reasonableness standard of Booker is the essentially the same as the `plainly unreasonable' standard of § 3742(e)(4). United States v. Sweeting, 437 F.3d 1105, 1106 (11th Cir. 2006); accord United States v. Cotton, 399 F.3d 913, 916 (8th Cir.2005). Finally, our Circuit and the Fifth Circuit have consistently refused to decide either issue. See, e.g., United States v. Smith, No. 07-10041, 2007 WL 4166152, at  (5th Cir. Nov.21, 2007) (unpublished) (This court has yet to decide which standard of review is applicable to revocation sentences.); United States v. Jones, 484 F.3d 783, 792 (5th Cir.2007); United States v. Hinson, 429 F.3d 114, 120 (5th Cir.2005); see also supra p. 4. Having evaluated these various approaches, we find that, while the Supreme Court in Booker did not technically displace the plainly unreasonable standard contained in 18 U.S.C. §§ 3742(a)(4) and 3742(b)(4), there is no practical difference between Booker 's unreasonableness review and the plainly unreasonable standard in §§ 3742(a)(4) and 3742(b)(4). Rather than creating a new unreasonableness standard of review for supervised release revocation sentences, the Supreme Court in Booker was simply directing appellate courts to apply the same reasonableness standard that they use to review supervised release revocation sentences to their review of all sentences. Accordingly, for the reasons that follow, we hold that post- Booker, this Circuit will review supervised release revocation sentences in the same way that we review all other sentences `under a deferential abuse of discretion standard' for reasonableness. United States v. Lalonde, 509 F.3d 750, 2007 WL 4321998, at  17 (quoting Gall, 2007 WL 4292116, at ). The problem in determining whether the Supreme Court in Booker intended to replace the plainly unreasonable standard of review for supervised release revocation sentences with a reasonableness standard is that the Court excised 18 U.S.C. § 3742(e)(4), which provides for the plainly unreasonable standard of appellate review for supervised release revocation sentences, but left intact §§ 3742(a)(4) and 3742(b)(4) which permit a party to appeal such a sentence only on the grounds that it is plainly unreasonable. On the one hand, the excision of § 3742(e) suggests that the Court meant to replace all previous standards of sentencing review with its reasonableness standard. Indeed, the Second Circuit has found such a conclusion to be compelled by Booker: We recognize that subsections 3742(a)(4) and 3742(b)(4), which have not been excised, allow a defendant and the Government, respectively, to appeal a sentence for which there is no sentencing guideline on the ground that the sentence is plainly unreasonable. However, once the Court in its Remedy Opinion excised section 3742(e), which included subsection 3742(e)(4)'s standard of plainly unreasonable for review of a sentence for which there is no guideline, the Court is fairly understood as requiring that its announced standard of reasonableness now be applied not only to review of sentences for which there are applicable guidelines but also to review of sentences for which there are no applicable guidelines. Fleming, 397 F.3d at 99. On the other hand, the failure to excise §§ 3742(a)(4) and 3742(b)(4) indicates that the Court was not particularly troubled with the plainly unreasonable standard that had been used to review supervised release revocation sentences. As we have noted previously: While the Second Circuit's interpretation properly attempts to account for the excision of § 3742(e), it fails to account for the fact that Booker left sections 3742(a), 3742(b), and 3742(f) on the books, and it fails to account for the fact that (at least as far as our Circuit is concerned) our cases have relied upon both sections 3742(a)(4) and 3742(e)(4) in applying a plainly unreasonable standard. See Washington, 147 F.3d at 491. While section 3742(e), the standard of review section of the statute, may be gone, sections 3742(a) and 3742(b) which remain, still say that an appeal may not be brought unless the sentence is plainly unreasonable and section 3742(f) directs a court to invalidate a sentence . . . imposed for an offense for which there is no applicable sentencing guideline and [if the sentence] is plainly unreasonable. These sections, by themselves, give us pause about accepting the Second Circuit's approach, as does the fact that we are not dealing with the traditional Booker problem (mandatory Sentencing Guidelines), but with a form of sentencing (resentencing after violations of supervised release) that was discretionary before Booker and is discretionary after it. Johnson, 403 F.3d at 816-17. Our hesitation in Johnson about finding that Booker displaced the standard of review for supervised release revocation sentences is supported by a careful reading of the Court's opinions in Booker. As Judge Posner has aptly noted: Nothing in either of the Court's majority opinions in Booker suggests that limiting appellate review of sentences not based on the guidelines is needed to avoid the constitutional problem that required the invalidation of parts of the Sentencing Reform Act in order to save the rest of it. The constitutional problem was that judges were basing sentences on facts that they found  not a jury  and by a preponderance of the evidence rather than by proof beyond a reasonable doubt. The Court held that for sentencing grounded in such a factfinding process to be mandatory violated the Sixth Amendment. Changing the standard of appellate review of guidelines sentences was necessary because the standard made the guidelines mandatory in appellate proceedings, complementing 18 U.S.C. § 3553(b), which made them mandatory at the sentencing stage. Since there are no guidelines sentences for violating a condition of supervised release, there was no occasion for the Court in Booker to change the standard of appellate review of such sentences. The Court did not mention subsection [3742](e)(4), which governs the appellate review of nonguidelines sentences, because its decision was concerned only with guidelines sentences. Kizeart, 505 F.3d at 674. Indeed, rather than critiquing the plainly unreasonable standard of § 3742(e)(4) as it had critiqued the de novo standard of review in §§ 3742(e)(1)-(3), the Court in Booker, used the plainly unreasonable standard as justification for its inference of a general reasonableness standard of review: `Reasonableness' standards are not foreign to sentencing law. The Act has long required their use in important sentencing circumstances  both on review of departures, and on review of sentences imposed where there was no applicable Guideline. 543 U.S. at 262, 125 S.Ct. 738 (internal citation omitted). The Court also cited to several cases which had reviewed sentences imposed upon revocation of parole or of supervised release. See id. (citing United States v. White Face, 383 F.3d 733, 737-40 (8th Cir.2004); United States v. Tsosie, 376 F.3d 1210, 1218-19 (10th Cir. 2004); United States v. Salinas, 365 F.3d 582, 588-90 (7th Cir.2004); United States v. Cook, 291 F.3d 1297, 1300-02 (11th Cir. 2002); United States v. Olabanji, 268 F.3d 636, 637-39 (9th Cir.2001); United States v. Ramirez-Rivera, 241 F.3d 37, 40-41 (1st Cir.2001)). This favorable citation to cases applying the plainly unreasonable standard indicates that the Court did not intend to displace such a standard. On the contrary, the Supreme Court's favorable references to appellate courts' use of this standard when inferring a post-§ 3742(e) review standard suggests that the Court was not attempting to articulate a new standard distinct from the plainly unreasonable standard, but rather that the Court understood its reasonableness review to be the same as that required by the plainly unreasonable standard. Two of our sister circuits have been understandably hesitant in reaching this conclusion because the statutory placement of the modifier plainly in front of unreasonable in §§ 3742(a), 3742(b), and 3742(e) suggests that there is a difference between a sentence being unreasonable and a sentence being plainly unreasonable. See, e.g., Crudup, 461 F.3d at 438 (Because there is no indication that Congress intended the word `plainly' to be surplusage, the best interpretation of these two terms in their context is that they are not coterminous. Congress clearly intended the word `plainly' to modify `unreasonable' in some way.). However, as a practical matter it is hard to conceive of what the difference might be, let alone how to articulate such a difference in a meaningful way. See Kizeart, 505 F.3d at 674 (Realism, however, requires acknowledgment that the practical difference between `unreasonable' and `plainly unreasonable' is slight, perhaps even nil . . .). Indeed, the majority of our sister circuits to have considered the issue have found that there is no difference between the two standards, see Sweeting, 437 F.3d at 1106; Tedford, 405 F.3d at 1161; Cotton, 399 F.3d at 916, and the two circuits which have found a difference have failed to convincingly explain it. See Kizeart, 505 F.3d at 675 ([W]hile appellate courts understand and can implement the difference between deferential and nondeferential review, the making of finer gradations within the category of deferential review strains judicial competence. . . . So while we must do our best to mark any gradations prescribed by Congress, we cannot promise great success in the endeavor.); Crudup, 461 F.3d at 439 ([F]or purposes of determining whether an unreasonable sentence is plainly unreasonable, `plain is synonymous with clear or, equivalently, obvious.'). Likewise, in nearly twenty cases, we have been unable to find any outcome determinative difference between the two standards of review and have instead applied the same type of reasonableness analysis used in other post- Booker sentencing cases in our discussions of supervised release revocation sentences. [3] See e.g., Lewis, 498 F.3d at 397-98. Finally, the Supreme Court's most recent sentencing jurisprudence suggests that the Court does not consider appellate sentencing review to consist of two different standards. See Gall, 128 S.Ct. 586, 2007 WL 4292116 at . Indeed, the Supreme Court has not instructed us to review supervised release revocation sentences under a different or more deferential standard, but rather directs us to review all sentences  whether inside, just outside, or significantly outside the Guidelines range  under a deferential abuse-of-discretion standard. Id. (emphasis added). Accordingly, we hold that there is no practical difference between the pre- Booker plainly unreasonable standard of review of supervised release revocation sentences and our post- Booker review of sentences for unreasonableness. Sentences imposed following revocation of supervised release are to be reviewed under the same abuse of discretion standard that we apply to sentences imposed following conviction. It is this standard which we now clarify in light of the Supreme Court's recent guidance in Gall.