Opinion ID: 672030
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: imposing consecutive sentences

Text: 8 Appellant claims that U.S.S.G. Sec. 5G1.2 requires that he be sentenced to concurrent terms of imprisonment for the two carjackings. 4 We explore this claim. 9 Section 5G1.2 anticipates that, in the usual case, at least one count in a multiple-count indictment will be able to accommodate the total punishment for the offenses of conviction; in other words, one count (if not more) will have a statutory maximum steep enough to permit imposition of the total punishment for all counts as the sentence on that one count. And when that is so, [t]he sentence on each of the other counts will then be set at the lesser of the total punishment and the applicable statutory maximum, and be made to run concurrently with all or part of the longest sentence. U.S.S.G. Sec. 5G1.2, comment. 10 Here, the charges confronting appellant comprised two counts of carjacking, both having the same 15-year statutory maximum. Because this ceiling fell near the midpoint of the GSR, the court could have followed the usual praxis, imposed a sentence on each count that fit within both the statutory maximum and the GSR, and run those sentences concurrently. The issue in this case, however, is not whether concurrent sentences were feasible--clearly, they were--but whether the lower court possessed the power and authority to follow a different course and impose consecutive sentences. 11 In arming ourselves to undertake this mission, the guidelines are not our only ordnance. By statute, Congress empowered district courts to utilize either concurrent or consecutive sentences. See 18 U.S.C. Sec. 3584(a) (providing that if multiple terms of imprisonment are imposed on a defendant at the same time ... the terms may run concurrently or consecutively). In the same statute, Congress directed courts, in choosing between concurrent and consecutive sentences, to consider a specific set of factors, see 18 U.S.C. Sec. 3584(b) (directing consideration of factors specified in 18 U.S.C. Sec. 3553(a)). These factors include the kinds of sentence and sentencing ranges established for the offenses of conviction in the guidelines. See 18 U.S.C. Sec. 3553(a)(4). This medley harmonizes melodiously with 28 U.S.C. Sec. 994(a)(1)(D), a statute that instructs a sentencing court to employ the guidelines in determining whether multiple sentences to terms of imprisonment should be ordered to run concurrently or consecutively. 12 We start the task of integrating these various provisions by recalling United States v. Flowers, 995 F.2d 315 (1st Cir.1993), a case in which we confirmed that the guidelines do not entirely eradicate a district court's sentence-structuring power. See id. at 317. Rather, [a] sentencing court may depart from the Guidelines rule, provided it explains why the case before it is unusual and lies outside the Guidelines 'heartland.'  Id. Although Flowers is not directly on point--there, we were addressing a court's ability to deviate from the imperatives of U.S.S.G. Sec. 5G1.3, a guideline that deals with the sentencing of defendants who are already subject to undischarged terms of immurement--we think that the same logic applies to the closely related question of a district court's discretion vel non under U.S.S.G. Sec. 5G1.2. 13 Extrapolating from the Flowers rationale, we hold that a sentencing court possesses the power to impose either concurrent or consecutive sentences in a multiple-count case. We also hold, however, that this power, like so many other sentencing powers in modern federal criminal practice, only can be exercised consonant with the overall thrust of the sentencing guidelines. To be specific, a sentencing court's decision to abjure the standard concurrent sentence paradigm should be classified as, and must therefore meet the requirements of, a departure. It follows that a district court only possesses the power to deviate from the concurrent sentencing regime prescribed by section 5G1.2 if, and to the extent that, circumstances exist that warrant a departure, see, e.g., U.S.S.G. Sec. 5K2.0. 14 This interpretation has much to commend it. In the first place it meshes the operative statutes with the sentencing guidelines--a necessary integration inasmuch as the statutes, read as a unit, dictate that a sentencing court consider the guidelines and policy statements promulgated by the Sentencing Commission. See 18 U.S.C. Secs. 3584(a) & (b), 3553(a). In the second place, this interpretation makes explicit the rationale underlying our recent opinion in United States v. Hernandez-Coplin, 24 F.3d 312, 320 (1st Cir.1994) (indicating that, once a sentencing court appropriately determines to depart from the GSR in a multiple-count case, consecutive sentences comprise a permissible method of effectuating such decisions if the highest available statutory maximum for any single count is too confining). In the third place, this interpretation lands us in excellent company; the two other circuits to have addressed the issue have decided it in the same way. See United States v. Perez, 956 F.2d 1098, 1103 (11th Cir.1992); United States v. Pedrioli, 931 F.2d 31, 32 (9th Cir.1991). 15 To recapitulate, a district court retains discretion under 18 U.S.C. Sec. 3584(a) and the sentencing guidelines to order that sentences be served consecutively notwithstanding the dictates of U.S.S.G. Sec. 5G1.2. This discretion, however, is not sui generis; it is simply another manifestation of the district courts' departure power. Because this is so, a district court can only impose consecutive sentences in derogation of U.S.S.G. Sec. 5G1.2 if it follows the accepted protocol for guideline departures. See Perez, 956 F.2d at 1103; see also Pedrioli, 931 F.2d at 33 (explaining that [t]he statutory reference to the guidelines ... incorporates the guidelines' own procedures for departing from guideline recommendations). The short of it is that a court can impose consecutive sentences only by complying with the three-step procedure first formulated in United States v. Diaz-Villafane, 874 F.2d 43, 49 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 862, 110 S.Ct. 177, 107 L.Ed.2d 133 (1989), and later refined in United States v. Rivera, 994 F.2d 942, 950 (1st Cir.1993).