Opinion ID: 150789
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: District Court's Ability to Impose a Variance Based on the Fast-Track Disparity

Text: In imposing punishment, a district judge must consider the sentencing factors listed in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), including the need to avoid unwarranted sentence disparities among defendants with similar records who have been found guilty of similar conduct. § 3553(a)(6). At sentencing, Camacho-Arellano sought a variance based on § 3553(a)(6), in light of the fact that defendants in his position routinely obtain four-level reductions in judicial districts that, unlike the Western District of Tennessee, have fast-track programs. This court has previously discussed the origin and nature of these programs: Fast-tracking arose initially in border areas with large illegal immigration caseloads. Prosecutors sought to clear their dockets through either charge-bargaining or agreements to move for downward departures in return for defendants' agreements not to file pretrial motions or contest issues. Congress approved and set standards for this process in the Prosecutorial Remedies and Tools Against the Exploitation of Children Today Act of 2003 (PROTECT Act), Pub.L. 108-21, 117 Stat. 650, which required the United States Sentencing Commission to promulgate ... a policy statement authorizing a downward departure of not more than 4 levels if the Government files a motion for such departure pursuant to an early disposition program authorized by the Attorney General and the United States Attorney. PROTECT Act, § 401(m)(2)(b), 117 Stat. 675. The Sentencing Commission responded by promulgating a new Guideline authorizing a four-level reduction. U.S.S.G. § 5K3.1. United States v. Hernandez-Cervantes, 161 Fed.Appx. 508, 510 (6th Cir.2005) (unpublished opinion) (citations omitted). Camacho-Arellano claims that the district court declined to reduce his sentence under § 3553(a)(6) on the basis of Sixth Circuit precedent that foreclosed his fast-track disparity argument. He now argues that the Supreme Court's decision in Kimbrough v. United States, 552 U.S. 85, 128 S.Ct. 558, 169 L.Ed.2d 481 (2007), which allowed sentencing judges to deviate from the Guidelines based on policy disagreements, throws that case law into doubt. We begin by clarifying the pre- Kimbrough state of the law in this circuit with respect to a district court's authority to premise a variance on disagreement with the policy of a guideline. The seminal case on point is United States v. Gaines, 122 F.3d 324 (6th Cir.1997). In that case, this court held that a district court lacks the authority to vary from a Guidelines sentence due to the court's disagreement with the 100:1 crack-cocaine ratio. Id. at 330-31. We specifically rejected the defendant's argument that a district court has the authority to vary from a guideline on the ground that it rejects a policy underlying it. See id. Subsequent cases reaffirmed Gaines and relied on similar reasoning. See United States v. Dunlap, 209 F.3d 472, 481 (6th Cir.2000); United States v. Watkins, 179 F.3d 489, 504 (6th Cir. 1999); United States v. Ratliff, No. 96-5334, 1998 WL 13406, at  (6th Cir. Jan.7, 1998) (unpublished opinion). After Gaines, we noted that district courts are still obligated to sentence defendants individually and to consider all of the factors listed in § 3553(a). See United States v. Coleman, 188 F.3d 354, 361-62 (6th Cir.1999) (en banc); United States v. Webb, 403 F.3d 373, 383 (6th Cir.2005). But although we urged courts to consider the unique circumstances of each case, we continued to forbid them from sentencing a defendant based on the court's disagreement with a Guidelines provision. See, e.g., United States v. Ferguson, 456 F.3d 660, 664 (6th Cir.2006) (quoting the Fourth Circuit's statement in United States v. Moreland, 437 F.3d 424, 434 (4th Cir. 2006), that [a] sentence may be substantively unreasonable if the court ... rejects policies articulated by ... the Sentencing Commission); United States v. Valentine, 70 Fed.Appx. 314, 327 (6th Cir.2003) (unpublished opinion) ([W]hatever the reasons that the [100:1 crack-cocaine sentencing] disparity exists, it is not a permissible basis for a downward departure.). That some fast-track precedents in our circuit did not foreclose district courts from considering sentencing disparities in individual cases, see, e.g., United States v. Hernandez-Fierros, 453 F.3d 309, 313-14 (6th Cir. 2006), does not mean that district courts had authority to reject the policy underlying a Guidelines provision, including the fast-track disparity. To the extent that Gaines and our other cases suggest that sentencing judges may not reduce sentences based on the fast-track disparity, we agree with Camacho-Arellano that any such rule does not survive the Supreme Court's decision in Kimbrough. In Kimbrough, the Supreme Court held that a district court may 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. Kimbrough, 552 U.S. at 110, 128 S.Ct. 558. The Court later clarified that the point of Kimbrough  was a recognition of district courts' authority to vary from the crack cocaine Guidelines based on policy disagreement with them, and not simply based on an individualized determination that they yield an excessive sentence in a particular case. Spears v. United States, ___ U.S. ___, 129 S.Ct. 840, 843, 172 L.Ed.2d 596 (2009) (internal quotation marks omitted). Since Kimbrough was decided, defendants like Camacho-Arellano have argued that its logic allows district courts to disagree with the Guidelines' policy that the disparity created by the availability of fast-track reductions in other districts is not unwarranted. Five circuits have addressed this argument. The First and the Third Circuits have credited the argument, overruling their contrary precedents in light of Kimbrough. United States v. Rodríguez, 527 F.3d 221, 231 (1st Cir.2008); United States v. Arrelucea-Zamudio, 581 F.3d 142, 149 (3d Cir.2009). The Fifth, Ninth, and Eleventh Circuits, by contrast, have rejected the argument and reaffirmed their precedents. United States v. Gomez-Herrera, 523 F.3d 554, 563 (5th Cir. 2008); United States v. Gonzalez-Zotelo, 556 F.3d 736, 740 (9th Cir.2009); United States v. Vega-Castillo, 540 F.3d 1235, 1238-39 (11th Cir.2008) (split panel). The latter three circuits distinguished Kimbrough by reading it as authorizing district courts to vary based on disagreements with Guidelines policy, not based on disagreements with congressional policy. Gomez-Herrera, 523 F.3d at 559; Gonzalez-Zotelo, 556 F.3d at 740-41; Vega-Castillo, 540 F.3d at 1239. We find this distinction unpersuasive. First, the idea that Congress believes the disparity is warranted derives from the PROTECT Act, but the Act neither forbids nor discourages the use of a particular sentencing rationale, and it says nothing about a district court's discretion to deviate from the guidelines based on fast-track disparity. Rodríguez, 527 F.3d at 229; accord Arrelucea-Zamudio, 581 F.3d at 151. [2] In effect, while Congress intended to create room for courts in fast-track jurisdictions to treat defendants in a certain manner, it did nothing to prohibit judges in non-fast-track districts from treating defendants the same way. Second, to the extent that Congress impliedly communicated that the disparity was warranted, see, e.g., Gomez-Herrera, 523 F.3d at 562, that fact does not distinguish this case from Kimbrough. There, the government had argued that by enshrining the 100-to-1 ratio in the mandatory minimum sentences of the Anti Drug Abuse Act of 1986, Congress had implicitly endorsed the disparity in the Guidelines. The Court responded that [t]he statute says nothing about the appropriate sentence within [the specified sentencing range], and we decline to read any implicit directive into that congressional silence. Kimbrough, 552 U.S. at 103, 128 S.Ct. 558. The Court also rejected the contention that Congress had endorsed the Guidelines' disparity by rebuffing a 1995 proposal by the Sentencing Commission to replace the 100-to-1 ratio with a 1-to-1 ratio. Id. at 105-06, 128 S.Ct. 558. In rejecting these arguments,  Kimbrough made pellucid that when Congress exercises its power to bar district courts from using a particular sentencing rationale, it does so by the use of unequivocal terminology. Rodríguez, 527 F.3d at 230. Third, even if Congress could be said to have endorsed some disparity between defendants in fast-track and non-fast-track districts, it has not endorsed the further disparity that is created by charge bargaining. In some districts, instead of (or in addition to) moving for a downward departure of up to four offense levels, prosecutors will dismiss certain charges in exchange for a guilty plea. See Arrelucea-Zamudio, 581 F.3d at 152 (describing these alternative district-wide, early-disposition programs [that] operate outside the bounds of not only the Protect Act, but also Guidelines § 5K3.1). Surely, judges in districts in which such charge bargaining is not routine for illegal-reentry defendants would be justified in imposing reduced sentences based on the disparity created by this prosecutorial practice. In sum, Kimbrough requires that we repudiate any prior hint that district judges could not grant variances based on the fast-track disparity. Kimbrough and its follow-up case Spears made clear that district judges could vary from the Guidelines based on policy disagreements. And as we have held, that authority is not limited to the crack/powder cocaine context. Herrera-Zuniga, 571 F.3d at 585. Because our precedents at the time of sentencing prohibited district court judges from granting a variance based on a disagreement with a guidelines policy, and because Kimbrough put that theory to rest, we remand the case to the district court for resentencing. Camacho-Arellano sufficiently preserved a Kimbrough -like argument with respect to the fast-track guidelines. See Doc. 27 (Def.'s Sent. Mem. at 3-4). But the district court could not have been aware of its discretion to sentence Camacho-Arellano based on its disagreement with fast-track policies or the disparities a fast-track sentencing regime creates. The court sentenced Camacho-Arellano before the Supreme Court decided Kimbrough and Spears, and in several cases this court had held that district courts lack the power to vary from guidelines provisions when they disagree with the applicable guidelines. See Watkins, 179 F.3d at 504; Dunlap, 209 F.3d at 481; Gaines, 122 F.3d at 330-31. In light of those precedents, the district court could not have envisioned the discretion Kimbrough and Spears give it.