Opinion ID: 760180
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Appealability of the Sentence

Text: 15 The issue that constitutes the crux of this appeal, however, is whether, in light of the invalidity of the direct sentence credit, we should go further and vacate Montez-Gaviria's sentence entirely, thereby allowing the district court to revisit its decision to depart downward by only one level. The government asserts that our appellate review cannot reach the district court's departure decision. 16 It is true that a sentencing court's refusal to grant a downward departure is not normally reviewable on appeal. See United States v. Matthews, 106 F.3d 1092, 1095 (2d Cir.1997); United States v. Moore, 54 F.3d 92, 102 (2d Cir.1995); United States v. Harris, 38 F.3d 95, 97 (2d Cir.1994); United States v. Piervinanzi, 23 F.3d 670, 685 (2d Cir.1994). This rule, which finds its roots in 18 U.S.C. § 3742(a)(1), 2 reflects Congress' desire that appellate courts not infringe on the traditional sentencing discretion of district courts. See United States v. Colon, 884 F.2d 1550, 1554 (2d Cir.1989). 17 Appeals in which a defendant claims that a sentencing decision arose out of a district court's misconstruction of law, however, have no such effect on the sentencing court's discretion. Thus, in United States v. Sharpsteen, 913 F.2d 59 (2d Cir.1990), we contrasted the unappealability of decisions not to depart downward when the claim is that the district court unreasonably exercised its discretion with the appealability of refusals to depart downward when the appellant asserts an error of law. Id. at 63. Similarly, our recent decision in United States v. Labeille-Soto expressly held that errors of the type that the district court made in this case render the court's decision not to depart downward reviewable on appeal: 18 When the sentencing court has indicated its desire to impose a sentence outside the Guidelines range, we see no material difference between a mistaken view that it had no power to depart and a mistaken view that it could impose such a sentence in a way that the law does not permit. We conclude that a court's failure to depart, based on either type of mistake, is reviewable. 19 163 F.3d at 100. Thus, to the extent, if any, that the district court's mistaken belief that it could directly credit Montez-Gaviria's sentence for his uncredited time served in state custody influenced its departure decision, Montez-Gaviria is entitled to a reexamination of the district court's departure decision. 20