Opinion ID: 3009625
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Is the district court's refusal to grant Dowd a

Text: downward departure under the sentencing guidelines reviewable by this court, and if so, did the district court err in refusing to grant the departure? Dowd sought a downward departure from the sentence range calculated under the Sentencing Guidelines. Pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3553(b), Dowd argued that the court should depart downward because in his case, there exist[] . . . aggravating or mitigating circumstances of a kind, or to a degree, not adequately taken into consideration by the Sentencing Commission. Dowd argues that his false declarations prosecution was atypical because he had nothing whatsoever to do with the underlying ocean dumping offense, and his actual false statement itself is hopelessly technical in nature, arising as it does from the open-ended, ambiguous question 'You have no idea?' See D. br. at 40. Dowd also argues that a downward departure was warranted because his conviction may well result in the suspension and debarment from all future government contracts not 64 only of Dowd personally but also of the various businesses owned by his entire family. Id. at 41. In United States v. Denardi, 892 F.2d 269, 272 (3d Cir. 1989), we held that we have no jurisdiction to review a district court's discretionary decision not to depart from the Guidelines. United States v. Bierley, 922 F.2d 1061, 1066 (3d Cir. 1990) (citing United States v. Denardi, 892 F.2d at 272). However, we recognized in Denardi that when the district court's decision not to depart is predicated on the legally erroneous impression that it did not have the authority to do so, we may review that decision. Bierley, 922 F.2d at 1066. We believe that the district court denied Dowd a downward departure because it concluded that the Guidelines did not authorize it to depart. See D. app. at 505-06. Thus, we have jurisdiction to review the district court's decision, and based on our review, we conclude that its decision was correct. Even if it is true that Dowd had nothing whatsoever to do with the underlying ocean dumping offense, this fact alone does not establish that Dowd's false statement differs from the norm. See U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, Ch. 1, Pt. A, note 4(b), at 5-6 (1993). As the government points out, Application Note 3 to Guidelines § 2J1.3 specifically addresses the situation where the defendant is convicted both for perjury and the offense with respect to which he committed perjury, indicating that the Commission did not consider a conviction for perjury absent a conviction for an underlying offense to be atypical. Further, we do not believe that his false statement was particularly 65 technical in nature, or that it arose from an ambiguous question. Finally, the district court was correct in concluding that the conviction's potentially harmful financial consequences for Dowd, his family, and their businesses did not justify a downward departure from the Guidelines. The Sentencing Commission's policy statement regarding the propriety of granting a downward departure based on a defendant's vocational skills is controlling, Guidelines § 5H1.2,0 and this policy statement indicates that a sentencing court only should grant a downward departure on this basis in extraordinary circumstances. See United States v. Sharapan, 13 F.3d 781, 784 (3d Cir. 1994). Our application of this policy statement in Sharapan led us to conclude that the district court erred in granting a downward departure based on its determination that the defendant's incarceration would cause his business to fail. Id. at 785-86. We based our conclusion on our determination that there was nothing extraordinary in the fact that the incarceration of a company's principal might cause harm to the business and its employees, and that, even assuming that the business would fail as a result of the defendant's incarceration, there was no basis for concluding that this failure would cause any extraordinary harm to society as a whole. Id. at 785. 0 In Williams v. United States, 112 S.Ct. 1112, 1119 (1992), the Court held that where a policy statement prohibits a district court from taking a specified action, the statement is an authoritative guide to the meaning of the applicable guideline. See also United States v. Gaskill, 991 F.2d 82, 85 (3d Cir. 1993). 66 Dowd alleges that his sentence will harm both his business and that of his family members. Nevertheless, the Sentencing Commission's policy statement regarding downward departures based on a defendant's vocational skills is controlling because the principle underlying . . . [this policy statement is] that a sentencing judge may grant a downward departure based on a defendant's ability to make a work-related contribution to society only in extraordinary circumstances, id., and it follows from this principle that a court may grant a downward departure based on a defendant's relatives' abilities to make work-related contributions to society only in extraordinary circumstances. It is unfortunate that Dowd's family may suffer both personally and financially due to his conviction. However, we see nothing extraordinary in the fact that Dowd's conviction may harm not only his business interests but also those of his family members, and we are not convinced that the effects of Dowd's sentence on these businesses are of sufficient economic importance to society to justify a departure. Id.0