Opinion ID: 2977516
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Impact of Spears

Text: In Spears v. United States, — S. Ct. —, No. 08-5721, 2009 WL 129044 (Jan. 21, 2009), the Supreme Court held that “district courts are entitled to reject and vary categorically from the crack-cocaine Guidelines based on a policy disagreement with those Guidelines.” Id. at . The district court in Spears had concluded that the thenapplicable Guidelines’ 100:1 powder-to-crack-cocaine ratio yielded an excessive No. 07-2447 United States v. Johnson Page 7 sentence and therefore recalculated the defendant’s sentence based on a 20:1 powder-tocrack ratio. The Eighth Circuit reversed and remanded for resentencing, holding that district courts had no authority to substitute a different ratio for the then-applicable 100:1 powder-to-crack ratio of the Guidelines. The Supreme Court vacated the Eighth Circuit’s judgment and remanded for further consideration in light of Kimbrough v. United States, 552 U.S. —, 128 S. Ct. 558 (2007). Id. at . In Kimbrough, the Court held that “it would not be an abuse of discretion for a district court to conclude when sentencing a particular defendant that the crack/powder disparity yields a sentence ‘greater than necessary’ to achieve § 3553(a)’s purposes, even in a mine-run case.” 128 S. Ct. at 575. On remand, the Eighth Circuit again reversed and remanded for resentencing, holding that the district court impermissibly replaced the 100:1 ratio of the Guidelines with a 20:1 ratio. The Supreme Court granted certiorari and summarily reversed the judgment of the Eighth Circuit. Spears, 2009 WL 129044, at . The Spears Court recognized that district courts may reject and categorically vary from the crack-cocaine Guidelines even in a “mine-run case where there are no ‘particular circumstances’ that would otherwise justify a variance from the Guidelines’ sentencing range.” Id. at . The Court noted that the district court’s “replacement ratio was based upon two well-reasoned decisions by other courts, which themselves reflected the Sentencing Commission’s expert judgment that a 20:1 ratio would be appropriate in a mine-run case.” Id. at  (citing United States v. Perry, 389 F. Supp. 2d 278, 307-08 (D.R.I. 2005); United States v. Smith, 359 F. Supp. 2d 771, 781-82 (E.D. Wis. 2005)). The Court then explained that unless sentencing courts were given the authority to disagree categorically with the Guidelines on policy grounds, there were two possible outcomes: “Either district courts would treat the Guidelines’ policy embodied in the crack-to-powder ratio as mandatory, believing that they are not entitled to vary based on ‘categorical’ policy disagreements with the Guidelines, or they would continue to vary, masking their categorical policy disagreements as ‘individualized determinations.’” Id. Observing that the former outcome contradicted its holding in Kimbrough that district courts have the power to depart from the Guidelines based on policy disagreements, and that the latter represented “institutionalized subterfuge,” the Court concluded that No. 07-2447 United States v. Johnson Page 8 “[n]either is an acceptable sentencing practice.” Id. The Spears Court, therefore, preemptively halted the spread of the overly-restrictive view of Kimbrough taken by the Eighth Circuit and “other courts [that] followed [its] course.” Id. at  (“If the error of those opinions is, as we think, evident, they demonstrate the need to clarify at once the holding of Kimbrough.”). In light of Spears’s recognition that district courts have authority to develop categorical alternatives to the crack-to-powder ratios contained in the Guidelines based upon policy disagreements with the Guidelines, we vacate Johnson’s sentence and remand for resentencing so that the district court may impose a sentence with full awareness of this authority.1 We note that Johnson was sentenced pursuant to the November 1, 2007, amendments to the Guidelines, which retroactively reduced the baseoffense levels for crack cocaine. See U.S.S.G. § 2D1.1(c) (2007). However, it is clear that Spears applies with equal force to sentencing decisions under the new crack-cocaine Guidelines and that district courts may categorically reject and vary from the new Guidelines based on policy disagreements with those Guidelines. Finally, we express no opinion on whether the principles articulated in Spears may apply outside of the crack-cocaine context to allow district courts to develop categorical alternatives to other sentencing enhancements contained in the Guidelines that “do not exemplify the Commission’s exercise of its characteristic institutional role.” Spears, 2009 WL 129044, at  (quoting Kimbrough, 128 S. Ct. at 563). We note, however, that this Court has generally heeded the Supreme Court’s repeated instructions to afford sentencing judges wide latitude in imposing sentences outside the 1 On the record before us, we have no way of ascertaining whether the district judge would have imposed the same sentence if he had known of his discretion to vary categorically from the crack-cocaine Guidelines based on a policy disagreement. After noting that he was applying the amended crack-cocaine Guidelines which became effective on November 1, 2007, the district judge stated simply: So in the Court’s judgment, the Court must apply the guidelines as of November 1st, and obviously that benefits Mr. Johnson to the effect of two levels on the offense level. It does not change any of the other calculations in the Court’s judgment. J.A. at 102 (Sent. Tr. at 4-5) (emphasis added). These statements suggest that, although the disparity issue was before the court, the district judge was not aware of his power “to reject and vary categorically from the crack-cocaine Guidelines based on a policy disagreement with those Guidelines.” Spears, 2009 WL 129044, at ; cf. United States v. Medina Casteneda, 511 F.3d 1246, 1248-49 (9th Cir.) (remanding for resentencing in light of Kimbrough where the district court indicated that it could not consider the crack-topowder disparity in its consideration of the § 3553(a) factors), cert. denied, 128 S. Ct. 2946 (2008). No. 07-2447 United States v. Johnson Page 9 Guidelines—even in mine-run cases—so long as the explanation sufficiently articulates the sentence’s appropriateness in relation to the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) sentencing factors. See United States v. White, —F.3d—, No. 05-6596, 2008 WL 5396246, at  (6th Cir. Dec. 24, 2008) (en banc) (“[O]ne of the central points of Booker, highlighted by Kimbrough[,] is that a district court judge may disagree with the application of the Guidelines to a particular defendant because the Guidelines range is too high or too low to accomplish the purposes set forth in § 3553(a).”); Duncan v. United States, —F.3d—, No. 06-5021, 2009 WL 48190, at  (6th Cir. Jan. 9, 2009) (“‘[A]s a general matter, courts may vary from Guidelines ranges based solely on policy considerations, including disagreements with the Guidelines.’” (quoting Kimbrough, 128 S. Ct. at 578)).