Opinion ID: 169936
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Appellate review after Rita

Text: Six Justices joined in a single majority opinion in Rita, [3] which now stands as the Court's latest word on the meaning of the Booker remedy. The principal issue addressed by the Court was whether it is permissible for appellate courts to afford a presumption of reasonableness to properly calculated within-Guidelines sentences. In upholding the legitimacy of this practice, the Court placed its seal of approval on that aspect of our Circuit's sentencing jurisprudence. In the course of deciding that issue, however, the Court offered several refinements or clarifications regarding the meaning of the Booker compromise. We must therefore consider whether other aspects of this Circuit's approach to the review of within-Guidelines sentences are consistent with the Court's decision in Rita.
In United States v. Kristl, 437 F.3d 1050, 1054 (10th Cir.2006) (per curiam), this Court adopted a rebuttable presumption that sentences within the recommended Guidelines range are reasonable. In Rita, the Supreme Court held that this presumption is permissible, though not required. The Court specifically cited our decision in Kristl as an example of the permissible presumption. Rita, 127 S.Ct. at 2462 (citing Kristl, 437 F.3d at 1053-54). The Court reasoned that the presumption of reasonableness is not a binding evidentiary presumption, but instead reflects the fact that by the time an appeals court is considering a within-Guidelines sentence on review, both the sentencing judge and the Sentencing Commission will have reached the same conclusion as to the proper sentence in the particular case. That double determination significantly increases the likelihood that the sentence is a reasonable one. Id. at 2463. As the Court explained, Congress instructed both the Sentencing Commission and the district courts to approach their sentencing responsibilities in light of the basic sentencing objectives set out in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). Id. The Commission's task is to collect and examine the results of the tens of thousands of sentences rendered nationwide, to obtain expert advice, and to produce and continually revise a set of Guidelines that seek to embody the § 3553(a) considerations, both in principle and in practice. Id. at 2464. The district judge's task is to examine the circumstances of the offense and the offender and to impose a sentence sufficient, but not greater than necessary, to comply with the same set of sentencing objectives. 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). The Court described the Commission's role as wholesale and the district court's as retail, 127 S.Ct. at 2463, suggesting that the Commission makes decisions at the level of general policy while the district court tailors the sentence to the particular circumstances of the defendant. The district judge need not agree with the Commission's conclusions, id. at 2466, but where judge and Commission both determine that the Guidelines sentence is an appropriate sentence for the case at hand, that sentence likely reflects the § 3553(a) factors. Id. at 2467. A sentencing formula produced by a deliberative, quasi-legislative body, applied to the specific facts of each case by a competent arbiter, will seldom require correcting. The principal argument in Rita against a presumption of reasonableness of within-Guidelines sentences was that it creates a substantial gravitational pull, tending to produce Guidelines sentences almost as regularly as mandatory Guidelines had done. Rita, 127 S.Ct. at 2487 (Souter, J., dissenting). Because district judges face a greater risk of reversal when they sentence outside the Guidelines, the argument goes, they will take the safe course and adhere to the Guidelines, just as they had to do before Booker. The strength of any such gravitational pull may reasonably be debated. Since Booker, and despite the presumption of reasonableness of within-Guidelines sentences, district courts have entered non-Guidelines sentences in nearly 14% of cases (not counting government-sponsored departures): a dramatic increase from the roughly 6% of non-Guidelines sentences rendered in the year prior to Booker. [4] The rate of sentences issued within the Guidelines has correspondingly fallen from 72.2% to 61.5%. In this Circuit-again, despite the presumptionthe rate of non-Guidelines sentences has soared from 5.1% in Fiscal Year 2004 to almost 13% in the years since Booker, and the rate of within-Guidelines sentences has slid from 73.9% to 61.0%. If there is a gravitational pull, escape velocity must be rather low. More significantly, as the Supreme Court observed, even if the reasonableness presumption does tend to encourage district judges to sentence within the Guidelines, this is not an objectionable result: Rita may be correct that the presumption will encourage sentencing judges to impose Guidelines sentences. But we do not see how that fact could change the constitutional calculus. Congress sought to diminish unwarranted sentencing disparity. It sought a Guidelines system that would bring about greater fairness in sentencing through increased uniformity. The fact that the presumption might help achieve these congressional goals does not provide cause for holding the presumption unlawful as long as the presumption remains constitutional. And, given our case law, we cannot conclude that the presumption itself violates the Sixth Amendment. Rita, 127 S.Ct. at 2467. In other words, gravitational pull that reduces sentencing disparityso long as it does not rise to the level of mandateis neither unconstitutional nor undesirable. See id. at 2466 (A nonbinding appellate presumption that a Guidelines sentence is reasonable does not require the sentencing judge to impose that sentence. (emphasis in original)). Nothing in the Court's description of the presumption, the effect of the presumption, the rationale for the presumption, or the arguments and counterarguments regarding it suggests any need for this Circuit to revise our understanding. We have defined the presumption as a deferential standard, which either the defendant or the government may rebut by demonstrating that the sentence is unreasonable when viewed against the other factors delineated in [18 U.S.C.] § 3553(a). Kristl, 437 F.3d at 1054. We have emphasized that the presumption of reasonableness accorded within-Guidelines sentences on appeal is not equivalent to a presumption of unreasonableness for variances. United States v. Begay, 470 F.3d 964, 975-76 (10th Cir.2006); cert. granted on other grounds, ___ S.Ct. ___, 128 S.Ct. 32, ___ L.Ed.2d ___ (2007). It is not the same as an evidentiary presumption, which shifts the burden of proof to the other party. Nor is it a traditional presumption of law, defined in Black's Law Dictionary as [a] legal assumption that a court is required to make if certain facts are established and no contradictory evidence is produced. Black's Law Dictionary 1204-05 (7th ed.1999). Rather, as this Court has employed it, the presumption of reasonableness is a commonsense reflection of the respective roles of district court, appellate court, and Sentencing Commission in the determination of the appropriate punishment in a particular case. The Rita decision confirms the legitimacy of that approach.
At one point in its opinion, the Supreme Court stated that appellate `reasonableness' review merely asks whether the trial court abused its discretion. Rita, 127 S.Ct. at 2465. [5] This appears to be a new formulation; the term abuse of discretion did not appear in the Booker opinion. Justice Stevens' concurrence suggests that the essence of Booker was to repudiate the de novo standard of review imposed by Congress as part of the PROTECT Act, Pub.L. No. 108-21, § 401(d)(2), 117 Stat. 650, 670 (2003), and to restore the abuse of discretion standard applied to departures from the Sentencing Guidelines under Koon v. United States, 518 U.S. 81, 116 S.Ct. 2035, 135 L.Ed.2d 392 (1996). See Rita, 127 S.Ct. at 2470-71 (Stevens, J., concurring). It is not clear from the Rita opinion whether the Court regarded its use of the abuse of discretion standard as meaningfully different from the prior language of reasonableness. The new term appears in a single sentence in the opinion, and the context does not contain any indication that the Court was announcing a change. The idea of abuse of discretion is common in appellate practice, and covers a wide range of meanings. As Judge Friendly once observed, There are a half dozen different definitions of `abuse of discretion,' ranging from ones that would require the appellate court to come close to finding that the trial court had taken leave of its senses to others which differ from the definition of error by only the slightest nuance, with numerous variations between the extremes. Henry J. Friendly, Indiscretion About Discretion, 31 Emory L.J. 747, 763 (1982). All we can say with confidence is that the term is indicative of deferential review. See Cooter & Gell v. Hartmarx Corp., 496 U.S. 384, 399-405, 110 S.Ct. 2447, 110 L.Ed.2d 359 (1990). But deference does not imply abdication. Id. at 402, 405, 110 S.Ct. 2447. The Rita majority stressed that appellate review is not intended to be a rubber stamp: In sentencing, as in other areas, district judges at times make mistakes that are substantive. At times, they will impose sentences that are unreasonable. Circuit courts exist to correct such mistakes when they occur. Rita, 127 S.Ct. at 2466. We therefore do not believe that the Supreme Court's adoption of abuse of discretion nomenclature requires a change in this Circuit's approach. We have always regarded appellate review of sentencing decisions as deferential. Kristl, 437 F.3d at 1054. Indeed, a review of our cases makes apparent that reasonableness review has functionedin practice if not in nameas review for abuse of discretion. In United States v. Rodriguez-Quintanilla, 442 F.3d 1254, 1256-57 (10th Cir.2006), we noted that abuse of discretion, as employed in some of our pre- Booker cases, is so similar to reasonableness review that analysis under the two is often functionally equivalent. Although, prior to Rita, we were chary of formally equating the two standards, see, e.g., United States v. Cordova, 461 F.3d 1184, 1188 (10th Cir.2006), we noted in Rodriguez-Quintanilla a tendency to use the terms interchangeably, 442 F.3d at 1258. See also, e.g., United States v. Sanchez-Juarez, 446 F.3d 1109, 1117 (10th Cir.2006) ([T]he fact that there is inevitably a range of sentences that could be held reasonable means that our affirmance of a sentence will necessarily defer, in effect, to the district court's exercise of discretion in choosing a particular sentence within that range.); United States v. Contreras-Martinez, 409 F.3d 1236, 1241 (10th Cir.2005) (upholding a sentence as reasonable by stating that the district court was exercising its discretion and was well within its discretion). We therefore conclude that, with respect to within-Guidelines sentences, Rita does nothing to change the appellate reasonableness standard this Circuit has applied since Booker.  Garcia-Lara, 499 F.3d at 1135.