Opinion ID: 201922
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Post-Booker Remand

Text: 23 Finally, Morrisette contends that we must vacate and remand for resentencing in light of Booker, because there is a reasonable probability that the district court would impose a more favorable sentence under the post- Booker sentencing regime, which treats the Sentencing Guidelines as advisory rather than mandatory. See Antonakopoulos, 399 F.3d at 75. Morrisette cites several factors which the district court might now consider grounds for imposing a sentence below the corresponding Guidelines sentence, including his troubled family history, 3 and his history of serious untreated mental illness. 24 The fatal flaw in these contentions is that the district court was presented with all of this evidence, yet decided that Morrisette's contentions bore no relevance in determining whether to grant a downward departure. Under the Sentencing Guidelines, family history and mental illness are merely discouraged grounds for departure, not forbidden grounds. See U.S.S.G. §§ 5H1.2, 5H1.3, 5H1.4. We ordinarily have refused to order post- Booker remands where — as here — the district court had before it all the evidence material to these factors, yet demonstrated no inclination to consider them grounds for departure. See, e.g., United States v. Martins, 413 F.3d 139, 154 (1st Cir.2005) (Nearly all the factors to which [defendant] alludes were limned in the PSI Report, yet the district court chose not to speak to them at sentencing. The inference is that the court was unimpressed.). For example, in denying the diminished capacity departure, the court stated: [T]he psychiatric report ... does not establish that [his] significantly reduced mental capacity contributed substantially to the commission of this offense. We therefore see no reasonable probability that the district court would reconsider the relevance of such evidence under the now-advisory Guidelines regime. 25 Affirmed.