Opinion ID: 3031993
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the sentence was imposed in violation of law or

Text: imposed as a result of an incorrect application of the sentencing guidelines, the court shall remand the case for further sentencing proceedings with such instructions as the court considers appropriate. 18 U.S.C. § 3742(f)(1). This section mandates that “the court of appeals” make the determination that the sentence “was imposed in violation of the law.” Id. The majority instead invites the district courts—the very courts whose decisions are under review—to participate in the predicate finding of legal error. Sending the third and fourth prongs of the plain error determination to the district court abrogates the very obligation of appellate review that § 3742(f) mandates. Ordering a “limited remand” is not a lesser power inherent in § 3742(f); it is an entirely different remedy that conflicts with congressional directives as to the review and disposition of sentencing appeals. The Eleventh Circuit has also found illogic in the Second Circuit’s—and now our own—reasoning that, because § 3742(f) authorizes remands for resentencing to remedy a sentence imposed in error, appellate courts necessarily have the “lesser” power to remand for a determination of whether the original sentence was contrary to law: That conclusion does not follow at all. In cases of non-preserved error appellate courts lack the authority to remand for resentencing where the require- ments of the plain error rule have not been met. The remands being ordered are not, as Crosby suggests, for the purpose of determining “whether to resen- tence,” but for the purpose of determining whether the third prong of the plain error test has been met so that the unpreserved error may be noticed and the appealed sentence vacated. Neither § 3742(f) nor any UNITED STATES v. AMELINE 6383 other part of the Sentencing Reform Act purports to give appellate courts the authority to delegate the decision of whether there has been plain error to the very court whose judgment is being reviewed. Rodriguez, 398 F.3d at 1306 (emphasis added). By characterizing its approach as a “sure” and “certain” way to determine prejudice, the majority demonstrates its misapprehension of the correct standard for determining whether Booker error affected a defendant’s substantial rights. As the Supreme Court most recently stated in Dominguez Benitez, to meet the third prong of the plain error test, “[a] defendant must . . . satisfy the judgment of the reviewing court, informed by the entire record, that the probability of a different result is sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome of the proceeding.” Dominguez Benitez, 124 S. Ct. at 2340 (quotations and citations omitted). Applying this prejudice test to Booker error, the correct inquiry is whether a reasonable probability exists that, but for the Booker error, the outcome of the defendant’s sentencing proceeding would have been different so as to undermine our confidence in the sentence. Kotteakos, 328 U.S. at 764 (a reviewing court must determine “what effect the error had or reasonably may be taken to have had upon the outcome of the proceedings” (emphasis added)). The majority’s failure to grasp that the inquiry is objective, rather than subjective, leads to its notion that it is appropriate “to ask the sentencing judge.” The majority clings to its erro- neous view of the prejudice inquiry to defend the “limited remand” procedure as merely a last resort, after the appellate panel cannot find the answer to whether the district judge “would have imposed a materially different sentence” had the Guidelines been advisory. But that is an irrelevant question under the prejudice inquiry and invites the district judge him- self to speculate about what he would have done in a different world. It is doubtful that most judges will even recall the cir- 6384 UNITED STATES v. AMELINE cumstances of every sentencing hearing over which they have presided since Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000). As appellate judges, we can and should objectively determine, based on a review of the record, whether it is reasonably probable that the defendant’s sentence would have been different but for the Booker error. We do not need, nor is it appropriate to obtain, the subjective views of the sentencing judge. Because the inquiry is not subjective, the views of the sentencing judge are irrelevant. See United States v. Hughes, 401 F.3d 540, 551 (4th Cir. 2005) (“[T]he proper focus is on what actually happened as a result of the error, not what might happen in a subsequent proceeding on remand.”).