Opinion ID: 222147
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Re-sentencing Hearing

Text: On July 22, 2010, the court heard further testimony and argument by the parties. The government said it did not want to rehash all of the argument that both sides have already presented, but it did want to provide [the court] with some additional points and . . . tools [to] use in crafting the appropriate decision in this case. R. Vol. 3 at 91. It started by highlighting the § 3553(a)(6) sentencing-disparity issue, noting that it was one particular factor that [the court] must consider, and asserting that the cases presented by Ms. Lente were distinguishable because they were pre- Booker  [3] cases. Id. at 91-92. The government compared Ms. Lente's case to Pettigrew, a post- Booker  case in which the district court departed upward from the Guidelines range of 70 to 87 months to impose a sentence of 126 months for one count of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of assault resulting in serious bodily injury, and one count of misdemeanor assault. [4] The government argued that the discrepancy between the ten years in Pettigrew and the eighteen years it was requesting in this case doesn't seem like much when here we have two additional people who lost their lives due to Ms. Lente's conduct. Id. at 94. Ms. Lente also opened her argument with the sentencing-disparity issue. Counsel began by reading a letter from the director of the Office of Policy and Legislation for the U.S. Department of Justice, Criminal Division to Judge Sessions, the head of the United States Sentencing Commission: In our consideration of federal sentencing policy, we begin from the principle that offenders who commit similar offenses and have similar criminal histories should be sentenced similarly. This was the foundational principle of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984. We are concerned that our sentencing system may be meeting this principle of sentencing reform less and less. Id. at 168-69. Counsel explained that this principle is what the debate today is all about. Id. at 169. He claimed that, in this case, the government was inviting the district court to move away from Congress's goal of sentencing uniformitythat goal being avoiding unwarranted disparities among defendants with similar records found guilty of similar conduct. Id. at 172. Ms. Lente argued that the government was ignoring the facts of comparable cases Wolfe, Jones, and Whiteskunk. [5] She asserted that other similarly situated defendants did not receive sentences significantly outside the Guidelines for their offenses, yet the government was asking the court to impose a sentence that was almost twice what the defendant in Pettigrew received, noting that he got the highest sentence of all, and he had almost the worst criminal history of all. Id. at 193. She concluded by arguing that under all the circumstances, a sentence of 57 months in this case is sufficient but not greater than necessary, and it is not in disparity with people who have committed similar crimes like this who have similar criminal histories and backgrounds. Id. at 194.