Opinion ID: 553847
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Discretion under 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1111

Text: 11 Gonzalez contends the district court misread 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1111 as affording it no discretion and requiring it to impose a life sentence without parole. The district court's interpretation of its authority under the Sentencing Guidelines and Sec. 1111 presents a question of law that is reviewed de novo. See United States v. Lara, 905 F.2d 599, 602 (2d Cir.1990); United States v. Stroud, 893 F.2d 504, 506-07 (2d Cir.1990). 12 Section 1111 provides that, [w]hoever is guilty of murder in the first degree, shall suffer death unless the jury qualifies its verdict by adding thereto 'without capital punishment', in which event he shall be sentenced to imprisonment for life.... 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1111(b). Since the Supreme Court held the discretionary imposition of a death penalty unconstitutional in Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 33 L.Ed.2d 346 (1972), defendants convicted of first degree murder under Sec. 1111 have automatically been sentenced to life imprisonment. United States v. Donley, 878 F.2d 735, 739 n. 8 (3d Cir.1989), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 110 S.Ct. 1528, 108 L.Ed.2d 767 (1990). 13 The issue posed is whether the passage of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, as amended, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 3551 et seq. (1988) and 28 U.S.C. Secs. 991-998 (1988), and the Sentencing Guidelines promulgated under that Act supersede the express terms of Sec. 1111, and confer discretion on the sentencing court to impose a lesser sentence. In urging this proposition Gonzalez points to the Commentary to Sec. 2A1.1 of the Guidelines--for which Sec. 1111 is the underlying statute--as evidence that the Sentencing Reform Act's abolition of parole does not mean that the only sentence a judge may impose under Sec. 1111 is life without parole. The Commentary states that 14 1. The Commission has concluded that in the absence of capital punishment life imprisonment is the appropriate punishment for the willful, deliberate, malicious, and premeditated killing to which 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1111 applies. However, the same statute applies when death results from certain enumerated felonies--arson, escape, murder, kidnapping.... Life imprisonment is not necessarily appropriate in all such situations. 15 .... 16 Background: The maximum penalty authorized by 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1111 for first-degree murder is death or life imprisonment. Prior to the applicability of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, a defendant convicted under this statute and sentenced to life imprisonment could be paroled.... Because of the abolition of parole by that Act, the language of 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1111(b) (which was not amended by the Act) appears on its face to provide a mandatory minimum sentence of life imprisonment for this offense. Other provisions of the Act, however, classify this offense as a Class A felony ... for which a term of imprisonment of any period of time is authorized as an alternative to imprisonment for the duration of the defendant's life (see 18 U.S.C. Secs. 3559(b), 3581(b)(1), as amended ); hence, the relevance of the discussion in Application Note 1, supra, regarding circumstances in which a sentence less than life may be appropriate for a conviction under this statute. 17 Guidelines Sec. 2A1.1, comment. (n. 1) & backg'd (1989). 18 To make the following discussion more readily understandable we set forth the provisions of Secs. 1111, 3559 and Sec. 3581: Sec. 1111. Murder 19 (a) Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought. Every murder perpetrated by ... lying in wait, or any other kind of willful, deliberate, malicious, and premeditated killing; ... or perpetrated from a premeditated design unlawfully and maliciously to effect the death of any human being other than him who is killed, is murder in the first degree. 20 Any other murder is murder in the second degree. 21 (b) .... 22 Whoever is guilty of murder in the first degree, shall suffer death unless the jury qualifies its verdict by adding thereto without capital punishment, in which event he shall be sentenced to imprisonment for life; 23 Whoever is guilty of murder in the second degree, shall be imprisoned for any term of years or for life. 24 Sec. 3559. Sentencing classification of offenses 25 (a) Classification.--An offense that is not specifically classified by a letter grade in the section defining it, is classified if the maximum term of imprisonment authorized is-- 26 (1) life imprisonment, or if the maximum penalty is death, as a Class A felony; 27 (2) twenty-five years or more, as a Class B felony; 28 (3) less than twenty-five years but ten or more years, as a Class C felony; 29 (4) less than ten years but five or more years, as a Class D felony; 30 (5) less than five years but more than one year, as a Class E felony; 31 (6) one year or less but more than six months, as a Class A misdemeanor; 32 (7) six months or less but more than thirty days, as a Class B misdemeanor; 33 (8) thirty days or less but more than five days, as a Class C misdemeanor; or 34 (9) five days or less, or if no imprisonment is authorized, as an infraction. 35 (b) Effect of classification.--An offense classified under subsection (a) carries all the incidents assigned to the applicable letter designation, except that the maximum term of imprisonment is the term authorized by the law describing the offense. Sec. 3581. Sentence of imprisonment 36 (a) In general.--A defendant who has been found guilty of an offense may be sentenced to a term of imprisonment. 37 (b) Authorized terms.--The authorized terms of imprisonment are-- 38 (1) for a Class A felony, the duration of the defendant's life or any period of time; 39 (2) for a Class B felony, not more than twenty-five years; 40 (3) for a Class C felony, not more than twelve years; 41 (4) for a Class D felony, not more than six years; 42 (5) for a Class E felony, not more than three years; 43 (6) for a Class A misdemeanor, not more than one year; 44 (7) for a Class B misdemeanor, not more than six months; 45 (8) for a Class C misdemeanor, not more than thirty days; and 46 (9) for an infraction, not more than five days. 47 As the commentary to Guidelines Sec. 2A1.1 notes, Sec. 3559 classifies a conviction for murder in the first degree under Sec. 1111 as a Class A felony. The letter grades assigned under Sec. 3559 depend on the punishment to be imposed. Hence, the A felony status here is based on the maximum sentence of life imprisonment authorized under the statute: An offense that is not specifically classified by a letter grade in the section defining it, is classified if the maximum term of imprisonment authorized is--(1) life imprisonment, or if the maximum penalty is death, as a Class A felony. 18 U.S.C. Sec. 3559(a)(1). Section 3581 establishes the sentence for Class A felonies at the duration of the defendant's life or any period of time. Defendant's principal argument therefore is that the sentencing court could sentence him for any period of time less than life. 48 Analysis of the statutory argument begins with the observation that Congress would not logically leave in place its statutory scheme that assigned a penalty to the commission of an offense, classify the offense according to that penalty, and then use the same classification to assign a different penalty. If Congress desired to assign another or different penalty for first degree murder, it could readily have amended Sec. 1111. 49 More logical is the conclusion that the Class A felonies to which Sec. 3559 refers and those to which Sec. 3581 refers are not identical categories. Legislative history indicates that Sec. 3581 addresses only the maximum periods for which a judge is authorized to sentence an offender in each ... category; they represent the [Judiciary] Committee's judgment as to the greatest period the Congress should allow a judge to impose for an offense committed under the most egregious of circumstances. S.Rep. No. 225, 98th Cong., 2d Sess. 114, reprinted in 1984 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 3182, 3297. 50 Section 3559, on the other hand, was enacted because many statutes, after describing the offense, already provided for a specific sentence. The Judiciary Committee did not believe amending each and every statute that provided for a specific sentence in order to achieve conformity with the letter grade scheme of the Act was feasible at the time the Act was passed. Further, the Committee did not want to convey the misleading impression that it had been able to give individualized consideration to grading existing offenses. It therefore settled on a general provision such as section 3559 [as] preferable at this time. Id. at 3270. Nothing in the legislative history suggests it was Congress' plan that the mere letter grade designation of existing offenses would amend the minimum sentences provided for in those statutes. The Committee stated in fact, that it postponed the restructuring of Federal offenses according to their relative seriousness. Id. 51 From this legislative history, it may be seen that Sec. 3559 applies only to pre-existing statutes that already set forth specific sentences. Left to another day was the reconsideration of those sentences. It follows that Sec. 3581 is meant to assign terms of imprisonment to all other offenses, i.e., those statutes that did not set forth specific sentences, but only classified the offense as one or another type of felony or a misdemeanor. See Donley, 878 F.2d at 740 (the terms of imprisonment in Sec. 3581(b) were meant to apply only to those offenses that were assigned letter classifications in the statutes describing the offenses). 52 In Donley, the Third Circuit, relying on its conclusion that the two statutes do not group offenses into precisely the same categories, held that Congress did not aim to give courts discretion to reduce the sentence for first degree murder under Sec. 1111 when it passed these statutes. The court noted that the two statutes do not address identical categories, using as an example the fact that the two sections authorize different maximum penalties for the same [Class C] letter grade classification. Id. It thus reasoned that the statutes were meant to apply to two different sets of Class C offenses. Id. As the Third Circuit's exploration of this complex statutory issue makes clear, the designation of an offense by a letter grade under Sec. 3559 does not lead necessarily to the imposition of the sentence set forth in Sec. 3581 for that letter grade. 53 The Guidelines themselves support our conclusion that the sentencing court has no discretion under Sec. 1111 to impose a sentence other than life in prison for first-degree murder. Guidelines Sec. 5G1.1 expressly adopts the minimum and maximum sentences authorized in a particular statute as the Guidelines minimum or maximum in any case where the Guidelines sentence exceeds or falls below the statutory sentence. United States v. Sharp, 883 F.2d 829, 831 (9th Cir.1989). Although the commentary to Guideline Sec. 2A1.1 speaks of death or life imprisonment as the maximum penalty available under the statute, those comments are used because the statute sets forth a (lesser) term of imprisonment than life for second degree murder, in addition to a term of life imprisonment for first degree murder. The Guidelines' reference to a maximum of life imprisonment does not imply a negative of the minimum set by statute. The language of the statute is clear--life imprisonment is the minimum sentence available for first degree murder under Sec. 1111. Life imprisonment is therefore necessarily the Guidelines sentence as well. See Mistretta v. United States, 488 U.S. 361, 368, 109 S.Ct. 647, 652, 102 L.Ed.2d 714 (1989); 28 U.S.C. Sec. 994(a). 54 Gonzalez further contends that the abolition of parole changes the calculus. It is true that a life sentence under the Sentencing Reform Act in almost every case will be a much harsher sentence than was a life sentence prior to the Act when the possibility of parole existed. But Congress did not inadvertently eliminate parole; it was an integral part of the Sentencing Reform Act's scheme. See S.Rep. No. 225, reprinted in 1984 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News at 3229-39. Congress could foresee its action would translate every life sentence into life imprisonment without possibility of parole, so that the term life sentence would be the reality. 55 To the extent that the commentary to Sec. 2A1.1 indicates a result contrary to the one we reach, we read that commentary as only opening a door to the possibility that unpremeditated murders may incur a penalty less than life imprisonment. When the commentary speaks of the relevance of the discussion in Application Note 1, supra, regarding circumstances in which a sentence less than life may be appropriate for a conviction under this statute, it refers to the example in which a felon indirectly and accidentally causes a death during the commission of a felony. We need not now decide whether life imprisonment is the minimum penalty for that sort of act for this case does not present it. The question before us implicates only the penalty for a premeditated murder in the first degree. As a consequence, there is no basis to conclude that the Sentencing Reform Act or the Guidelines granted any discretion to a sentencing court in a case of first degree murder under Sec. 1111. 56