Opinion ID: 2976798
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Failure to Calculate a Guidelines Range

Text: We first determine whether the district court committed procedural errors when it imposed Love’s sentence. Vonner, 516 F.3d at 407. Love rightly points out that the district court failed to calculate his Guidelines range before announcing a sentence, rendering his sentence procedurally unreasonable and requiring a remand. A properly calculated Guidelines range should be “the starting point and the initial benchmark” in sentencing. Gall, 128 S. Ct. at 596. The failure to calculate the Guidelines range is a “significant procedural error,” id. at 597, because appellate courts cannot be sure that the district judge did not “simply select[] what the judge deems an appropriate sentence without such required consideration.” United States v. Webb, 403 F.3d 373, 383 (6th Cir. 2005). -6- No. 06-1581 USA v. Love The court’s error here stems from its decision to deviate from the PSR’s recommended quantity calculation (advocated by the Government)—more than 150 kilograms of cocaine—in favor of a more lenient amount assessment, between 50 and 150 kilograms. The record reflects no new Guidelines-range calculation for the court’s quantity choice. After addressing Love and reviewing his history and characteristics, the court imposed a 240-month sentence. The court sentenced consistent with the PSR recommendation—a 240-month sentence—while rejecting the quantity upon which the 240-month sentence was based. It did not explain why it accepted the PSR’s result while rejecting its reasoning, and the PSR itself is silent as to why the United States Probation Office recommended a sentence below the applicable Guidelines range, other than to say that the recommended sentence reflected its consideration of the 28 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors. We do know that the PSR recommendation did not rest on the twenty-year statutory maximum sentence of 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(C) because it reported a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, see id. § 841(b)(1)(A) (providing a maximum life sentence for defendants responsible for more than five kilograms of cocaine). Suffice it to say, imposing a sentence without first calculating the proper Guidelines range flaws the procedure. See Gall, 128 S. Ct. at 596. The court not only failed to calculate the Guidelines range as a starting point, but also to evaluate the ending point, the statutory maximum. Love was subject to a 240-month statutory maximum sentence, see 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(C), yet the district court showed no awareness of its statutory constraints and seems only to have chanced upon a sentence equal to the statutory -7- No. 06-1581 USA v. Love maximum. We cannot say whether the district court would have imposed a 240-month sentence knowing that it was Love’s maximum permissible sentence. The district court accepted several mitigating factors, and it might have found Love did not deserve the highest sentence among drug offenders with unspecified-quantity verdicts. The Government argues that resentencing would be futile because 240 months was Love’s statutory mandatory-minimum sentence rather than his maximum sentence. In support of this statement, it points to Love’s prior Texas felony drug conviction. Under § 841(b)(1)(A), a defendant who has conspired to distribute more than five kilograms of cocaine is subject to a mandatory minimum sentence of ten years, but a prior felony drug conviction that has become final increases the mandatory minimum sentence to twenty years, or 240 months. As it was required to do, the Government introduced records of the conviction before trial and gave Love notice that it intended to seek an enhanced minimum sentence under 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(A). See 21 U.S.C. § 851(a)(1). Love objected to the notice, arguing that the Texas conviction, a deferred adjudication, had not become final, as required under the section to enhance his sentence. The record contains no evidence that the trial court acknowledged the dispute, let alone ruled on it, perhaps because Love soon absconded. On top of failing to seek a ruling from the trial court about whether Love’s Texas conviction had become final, the Government never drew the attention of the sentencing court to the statutory import of Love’s prior felony conviction. The record belies the Government’s contention that the -8- No. 06-1581 USA v. Love sentencing court simply imposed a mandatory minimum sentence relying on § 841(b)(1)(A). The sentencing transcript contains only one reference to the Texas conviction, when the court said, “[I]t appears that at the time Mr. Love was before this Court, he had a recent drug conviction from state court.” The context of the statement—just before discussing some of the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors, such as the “history . . . of the defendant”—suggests the court did not view 240 months as the mandatory minimum sentence. The Government’s argument that the court imposed a mandatory minimum sentence therefore fails to alter our conclusion that the district court imposed a procedurally unreasonable sentence.