Opinion ID: 3047059
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Governing Eighth Circuit law

Text: We have made clear that when a district court is ruling on a motion for downward departure pursuant to § 3553(e) and/or § 5K1.1, that court may consider only factors related to the defendant’s substantial assistance to the Government. United States v. Johnson, 517 F.3d 1020, 1023 (8th Cir. 2008); United States v. Williams, 474 F.3d 1130, 1130-32 (8th Cir. 2007); United States v. Pepper, 412 F.3d 995, 997-99 (8th Cir. 2005); see also United States v. Burns, 500 F.3d 756, 760 (8th Cir. 2007) (en banc), vacated and remanded, 128 S. Ct. 1091 (2008); United States v. Plaza, 471 F.3d 928, 930 (8th Cir. 2006); United States v. Saenz, 428 F.3d 1159, 1162 (8th Cir. 2005). Most crucial for our purposes here is that “[i]n reducing a sentence below the statutory minimum under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(e) for a defendant’s substantial assistance, a court . . . may not use the factors in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) to decrease the sentence further.” Johnson, 517 F.3d at 1023. We emphasize today that this body of caselaw means what it plainly says, and that this issue is clearly settled by Johnson, Williams and Pepper. In Williams, we pointed to the significance of § 3553(e)’s title, “Limited authority to impose a sentence below a statutory minimum.” 474 F.3d at 1132. Given that title, we reasoned, “Congress evidently wanted statutory minimum sentences to be firmly enforced, subject only to carefully ‘limited’ exceptions.” Id. We went on to stress that, consistent with this limited grant of authority, § 3553(e)’s first textual sentence permits district courts to “impose a sentence below the statutory minimum only ‘so as to reflect a defendant’s substantial assistance.’” Id. (quoting 18 U.S.C. § 3553(e) (emphasis added by Williams court)). As a result, if “a district court imposes a sentence below the statutory minimum in part so as to reflect the history and -7- characteristics of the defendant, then the court exceeds the limited authority granted by § 3553(e).” Id. (citation omitted). We went on to explain, in Williams, that the limited grant of authority in § 3553(e)’s title and first textual sentence extends to its mandate that a penal sentence imposed “so as to reflect a defendant’s substantial assistance” must simultaneously be imposed “in accordance with the guidelines and policy statements issued by the Sentencing Commission.” Id. (citing United States v. Ahlers, 305 F.3d 54, 61-62 (1st Cir. 2002)). Because the penal sentence at issue must reflect a defendant’s substantial assistance, we reasoned, the “guidelines and policy statements” to which the court may refer must be those “that bear directly upon the desirability and extent of a substantial assistance departure.” Id. (quotation omitted). In Pepper, we reasoned that although § 5K1.1 articulates a non-exclusive list of “reasons” that district courts may consider in ruling on motions for downward departure based on substantial assistance, the fact that the list names only assistancerelated considerations indicates that the Sentencing Commission intended to limit district courts to considerations of precisely that kind. 412 F.3d at 998. Invoking the familiar interpretive canon of noscitur a sociis,6 we explained that “[h]ad the Sentencing Commission wished to permit courts to consider factors unrelated to the quality of the defendant’s cooperation when departing because of that cooperation, it seems likely that it would have promulgated a list of examples encompassing factors unrelated to cooperation.” Id. (quotation omitted). Furthermore, “the finely reticulated structure of the guidelines indicates that the commission was neither careless in its selection of examples nor bent on giving courts the sort of discretion that follows from allowing them to extend or shorten departures for any reason under the sun.” Id. 6 This interpretive canon “holds that words ([such as] ‘but are not limited to’) are known by their companions, Gustafson v. Alloyd Co., 513 U.S. 561, 575 (1995).” Pepper, 412 F.3d at 998 (additional citation omitted). -8- Therefore, we held, “the extent of a downward departure made pursuant to § 5K1.1 can be based only on assistance-related considerations.” Id. Finally, we explained in Johnson and Williams that the Supreme Court’s holdings in Kimbrough v. United States, 128 S. Ct. 558 (2007), Gall v. United States, 128 S. Ct. 586 (2007), and United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005), did not “expand the district court’s authority to impose a sentence below a statutory minimum,” Williams, 474 F.3d at 1131. Johnson, 517 F.3d at 1024. District courts thus “properly limit[]” their § 3553(e) analysis “to the quality, nature, and significance of the assistance [the defendant] provided.” Id.