Opinion ID: 1354953
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: The District Court's Reliance on an Improper Guideline Range and Failure to Calculate the Appropriate Guideline Range Constituted Plain Error

Text: The district court's failure to calculate the appropriate guideline range and its reliance on an incorrect Criminal History Category calculation also constituted plain error. All sentencing proceedings are to begin by determining the applicable Guidelines range. Carty, 520 F.3d at 991. The range must be calculated correctly and [i]t would be procedural error for a district court to fail to calculateor to calculate incorrectlythe Guidelines range. Id. at 991, 993. Here, it is undisputed that the district court did not calculate the guideline range and that the Probation Office's Violation Report contained the wrong Criminal History Category. Although both of these errors clearly satisfy the first two prongs of the plain error analysis, whether these two errors affect[ ] substantial rights is a closer question. The government argues that the district court's failure to calculate the appropriate guideline range does not constitute plain error and did not affect substantial rights because the ultimate sentence (ten months) was within the correct guideline range (four to ten months). This argument fails. While it is true that the ultimate sentence fell within the appropriate range, it is unclear whether the district court intended to sentence Hammons to the high-end of the guideline range, or one month below the high-end of the guideline range. Without discussing the appropriate guideline range on the record, as required by Ninth Circuit precedent, it is difficult to discern the district court's intentions. The incorrect Criminal History Category could easily have affected Hammons's substantial rights and led the district court to impose an additional one month of imprisonment. Accordingly, we hold that these errors affected substantial rights and constituted plain error. Moreover, when viewed in combination with the district court's complete failure to address the appropriate sentencing factors set forth in § 3553 and § 3583, it is clear that these errors `seriously affect the ... public reputation of judicial proceedings.' Waknine, 543 F.3d at 555 (quoting Johnson, 520 U.S. at 467, 117 S.Ct. 1544).