Opinion ID: 552186
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Rehabilitative Potential of Defendant

Text: 33 Lara-Velasquez contends that the district court erroneously concluded that the rehabilitative potential of a criminal defendant is irrelevant to the determination of the defendant's sentence within the applicable range of the Sentencing Guidelines. When a defendant challenges the district court's factual findings under the Sentencing Guidelines, this Court applies the clearly erroneous standard of review. United States v. Paden, 908 F.2d 1229, 1233 (5th Cir.1990). Conversely, when a defendant challenges the district court's interpretation of the requirements of the Sentencing Guidelines, this Court applies a less deferential de novo standard of review. United States v. Reyes-Ruiz, 868 F.2d 698, 701 (5th Cir.1989). In the instant case, the district court interpreted the Guidelines to preclude consideration of the rehabilitative potential of the defendant. Accordingly, we review Lara-Velasquez's appeal of his sentence de novo. 9 34 At Lara-Velasquez's sentencing hearing, the district court asserted that it was unable to consider the defendant's rehabilitative potential as a basis for imposing the lightest sentence within the applicable Guideline range, because Guidelines are there for one thing according to the policy and that's to punish. Record Vol. III at 8. The Government maintains that the district court properly relied upon several passages from a recent opinion of this Court: 35 The sentencing guidelines do not merely change the procedures used to impose sentences, they initiate an historic shift in modern penology.... Congress abandoned the rehabilitation model that shaped penology in the Twentieth Century.... By enacting the sentencing guidelines Congress returned federal sentencing to an earlier philosophy that the punishment should fit the crime and that the main purpose of imprisonment is punishment. 36 United States v. Mejia-Orosco, 867 F.2d 216, 218 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 109 S.Ct. 3257, 106 L.Ed.2d 602 (1989). However, these quotations from Mejia-Orosco do not support the district court's conclusion that it was unable to consider rehabilitative potential as a mitigating factor within the applicable Sentencing Guideline range. 37 In Mejia-Orosco, the defendant challenged the district court's imposition of a ten month term of imprisonment, arguing that the Sentencing Guidelines permitted a maximum sentence of only seven months. This Court affirmed the defendant's sentence. We noted that a sentence imposed 'outside the range of the applicable sentencing guideline' will be reversed only if it is unreasonable. Id. After analyzing the statutory policies of the Sentencing Guidelines, we were unable to conclude that the enhancement of the defendant's sentence was unreasonable. 38 This Court commented in Mejia-Orosco that, prior to the adoption of the Sentencing Guidelines, the district courts' reliance on various penological paradigms had created an unacceptable sentencing disparity. We recognized that Congress had rejected in the Sentencing Guidelines the prevailing view that courts should sentence criminal offenders according to their potential for rehabilitation and instead had asserted the fundamental premise that sentences should be based upon the crime committed, not the offender. Id. By adoption of the Guidelines, Congress hoped that sentences might become more uniform. Similar crimes should be punished similarly. Id. Nonetheless, we recognized in Mejia-Orosco that the Sentencing Guidelines could not foresee every eventuality. Id. The Guidelines therefore vest considerable authority in district courts to determine an appropriate sentence--even sometimes a sentence outside the applicable Guideline range. 10 In essence, the Sentencing Guidelines authorize district courts to examine every permissible factor--both enhancing and mitigating--that might affect a particular term of punishment. The sentencing judge has an obligation to consider all the relevant factors in a case and to impose a sentence outside the guidelines in an appropriate case. Id. at 219 (quoting S.Rep. No. 225, reprinted in 1984 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 3182, 3235) (emphasis added). 39 Not every relevant factor is a permissible factor on which a district court may base a departure from an applicable Guideline range. In United States v. Burch, 873 F.2d 765 (5th Cir.1989), for example, this Court determined that nothing in the Sentencing Guidelines justified departure from the applicable Guideline range on the basis that the defendant is a gifted, talented individual. Id. at 768. Similarly, in United States v. Reed, 882 F.2d 147 (5th Cir.1989), we determined that nothing in the Sentencing Guidelines justified departure from the applicable Guideline range on the basis that there is something good in [the defendant]. Id. at 151. In each case, we relied upon Mejia-Orosco's explanation of the policy rationales of the Guidelines to conclude that certain individual characteristics of a criminal defendant would not support a downward departure in the defendant's sentence. 40 Both Burch and Reed limit the district courts' authority to justify a downward departure from an applicable Guideline range on a defendant's admirable character traits. Downward departures are permissible only if the circumstances on which they are based were not adequately taken into consideration by the Sentencing Commission in formulating the guidelines. 18 U.S.C. Sec. 3553(b) (1988). The Sentencing Commission has already taken into consideration a defendant's individual characteristics as a basis for downward departure; it rejected the relevance of this factor. Reed, 882 F.2d at 151; Burch, 873 F.2d at 769; Mejia-Orosco, 867 F.2d at 218. Neither Burch nor Reed, however, have specific application in cases involving the district court's authority to assess a defendant's sentence within the applicable Guideline range. Because the determination of a sentence within the Guideline range does not require deviation from the Guidelines, the information a district court may consider in assessing sentence is necessarily quite broad: the court may consider any relevant information that the Sentencing Guidelines do not expressly exclude from consideration. 11 See United States v. Duarte, 901 F.2d 1498, 1499 (9th Cir.1990) (the district court may, but need not, consider the defendant's character ... as a basis for finding a sentence within the Guideline range.). 41 The authors of the Guidelines determined that criminal sentences should be punitive in nature and prescribed sentencing ranges that would effectively punish convicted defendants for specific criminal acts. The district courts have little authority to deviate from these prescribed ranges of punishment because such deviation would endanger the Guidelines' purpose of sentencing uniformity. Within a particular range of punishment, however, the district court has wide discretion in assessing a criminal sentence. This discretion allows the court to consider any circumstances of the offense and the offender that might justify a longer or shorter sentence within the applicable range of punishment. Thus, the specified ranges of the Sentencing Guidelines effectively accomplish Congress' stated goal that the punishment should fit the crime; however, within each specified range, the district court may tailor a sentence to reflect other significant factors besides punishment. 42 The Government argues that a district court's consideration of a defendant's individual characteristics in assessing a sentence within the applicable Guideline range breaches the Guidelines' policy that sentencing be based upon the crime committed and not the offender. This policy, however, states only a general proposition. 12 The policy that sentencing is based on the crime and not the offender operates to isolate the range of punishment; it has little effect on the district court's assessment of a sentence within an applicable range. Section 1B1.4 of the Sentencing Guidelines specifically states that in determining the sentence to impose within the Guideline range, the court may consider, without limitation, any information concerning the background, character and conduct of the defendant, unless otherwise prohibited by law. Sentencing Guidelines Sec. 1B1.4 (emphasis added). 13 This provision affords the district court latitude in adjusting a criminal sentence within a Guideline range to reflect particular circumstances. In the instant case, this provision would permit the district court to consider a significant aspect of Lara-Velasquez's character--his rehabilitative potential. The court ultimately may conclude that Lara-Velasquez's rehabilitative potential does--or does not--warrant a lesser sentence within the applicable Guideline range. To date, however, the district court has not reached this question, concluding instead that it had no authority to consider rehabilitative potential. 43 In sum, the Sentencing Guidelines reject the rehabilitation model as a valid penological paradigm. The Guidelines recognize that the principal purpose of sentencing is punishment, creating sentencing ranges to effect this purpose. Even so, the Guidelines do not preclude consideration of a defendant's rehabilitative potential as a mitigating factor within an applicable range of punishment. Indeed, the Sentencing Guidelines expressly permit the district court to consider all relevant and permissible character traits of the defendant in assessing a sentence within a particular range. Since this Court cannot conclude that the district court's interpretation of its authority under the Sentencing Guidelines was correct, we must vacate the sentence imposed by the district court and remand for resentencing.