Opinion ID: 202348
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Whether remand for resentencing is merited based on errors in departure grounds

Text: 131 After carefully reviewing the district court's application of the departure provisions in the advisory guidelines in this case, we have concluded that it has articulated both valid and invalid grounds for its departure from an offense level 29, Criminal History Category I (resulting in an advisory guidelines range of 87-108 months), to an offense level 34, Criminal History Category III (resulting in an advisory guidelines range of 188-235 months). Specifically, we conclude that the district court validly relied on the use of weapons and dangerous instrumentalities and the disruption of a government function to upwardly depart from the initial guidelines range. However, we also conclude that the court improperly relied on grounds of obstruction of justice, extreme psychological injury, and facilitation of a criminal purpose to increase the offense level, and did not adequately explain its reasons for upwardly departing on the criminal history category from I to III. 132 In this case, we may only remand if the district court's decision to depart upwardly based on these valid and invalid grounds was plain error. 14 We have already identified the errors in the district court's departure analysis. The question is whether the errors are plain, affected Wallace's substantial rights, and seriously impaired the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings. Medina-Martinez, 396 F.3d at 8. The defendant, of course, has the burden of establishing plain error. Id. 133 First, we conclude that the errors are plain. It is clear and obvious that a sentencing court must have sufficient evidence to support the application of a departure provision in the guidelines and must adequately explain its departure. See United States v. Cadavid 192 F.3d 230, 238 (1st Cir.1999) (noting the rule that grounds for departure must have adequate factual support in the record); Pratt, 73 F.3d at 453-54 (noting the rule that a sentencing court must adequately explain its decision to depart and its reasons for the extent of the departure). Yet here the application of three of the six grounds of departure lacked factual support in the record, and the departure in a fourth ground, based on the defendant's criminal history, was not adequately explained. 134 Second, we find that the errors affected Wallace's substantial rights. We have previously explicated the test for determining whether a departure based on both valid and invalid grounds has prejudiced the defendant: 135 [A] departure which rests on a combination of valid and invalid grounds may be affirmed so long as (1) the direction and degree of the departure are reasonable in relation to the remaining (valid) ground, (2) excision of the improper ground does not obscure or defeat the expressed reasoning of the district court, and (3) the reviewing court is left, on the record as a whole, with the definite and firm conviction that removal of the inappropriate ground would not be likely to alter the district court's view of the sentence rightfully to be imposed. 136 United States v. Sanchez, 354 F.3d 70, 79 (1st Cir.2004) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). Following this analysis, we cannot conclude that the direction and degree of the departure — an additional nine years, double the sentence recommended for Counts I and II in the PSR — is reasonable in relation to the two remaining valid grounds for departure in this case. With four of the six grounds for departure excised, it seems self-evident that the expressed reasoning of the district court has been obscured. While we recognize the district court's careful explanation of why a high sentence was generally justified in this case, we believe that the court — now knowing that four of the grounds upon which it expressly relied in determining the specific upward departure were invalid — might (although by no means must) calculate a sentence upon remand different than the precise sentence it chose through its initial, erroneous departure analysis. We therefore lack the definite and firm conviction that removal of the inappropriate grounds would not be likely to alter the district court's view of the sentence rightfully to be imposed. See United States v. Diaz, 285 F.3d 92, 102 (1st Cir.2002)(remanding where two of three provisions on which the court based an upward departure were utilized improperly); United States v. Diaz-Bastardo, 929 F.2d 798, 800 (1st Cir.1991) (remanding where one of the two grounds for departure was invalid, noting that, [o]n this scumbled record, we do not believe that we should attempt to review the propriety and extent of a one-legged departure). Wallace thus has established that the errors in the departure analysis affected his substantial rights. 137 Finally, we conclude that the last prong of the plain error test has been met as well. Having identified several legal errors, which were the pillars for a substantial increase in the sentence imposed, it would certainly impair[] the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of the judicial proceedings if we ignored them despite the absence of a firm conviction that the removal of the inappropriate grounds might not alter the sentence. Medina-Martinez, 396 F.3d at 8. The overall length of the sentence at stake, the difference between the sentence imposed and the one proposed in the PSR and by the government, and the fact that the defendant was not notified that the court was considering an upward departure on the grounds invoked by the court, see supra text at 58 n. 14, provide further support for our conclusion. 138 Thus, we remand for resentencing. Because we remand based on errors in the application of the advisory guidelines, we do not reach the defendant's other argument that the sentence as a whole was substantially longer than necessary to meet the factors underlying 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), hence unreasonable. We express no views as to the appropriate sentence on remand.