Opinion ID: 175792
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Whether the District Court Could Consider the Mandatory Minimum Sentence When Resentencing Franklin for the Other Offenses

Text: Franklin basically is attempting to relitigate the arguments rejected by this Court in Franklin II that § 3553(a) factors do not apply to congressionally mandated sentences. Franklin II, 499 F.3d at 585. See also United States v. Cecil, 615 F.3d 678 (6th Cir.2010) (When a court and a mandatory minimum are in conflict, the minimum wins.). The first flaw with Franklin's claim is that he failed to raise it in the district court. Accordingly, plain-error review applies. Even if it had been raised below, however, Franklin's argument would fail. Determinations by a Court of Appeals become the law of the case and are binding on both the district court on remand and the Court of Appeals upon subsequent appeal. Under this law-of-the-case doctrine, a prior ruling may only be reconsidered where: (1) substantially different evidence is raised on subsequent trial; (2) where a subsequent contrary view of the law is decided by the controlling authority; or (3) where a decision is clearly erroneous and would work a manifest injustice. United States v. Haynes, 468 F.3d 422, 426 (6th Cir.2006) (quoting McKenzie v. Bell-South Telecomms., Inc., 219 F.3d 508, 513 n. 3 (6th Cir.2000)). The first exception to the law-of-the-case doctrine is not applicable here, and Franklin does not argue the third one. Instead, he contends that this Court's decision in Franklin II was overruled by Kimbrough v. United States, 552 U.S. 85, 128 S.Ct. 558, 169 L.Ed.2d 481 (2007). Franklin notes that mandatory minimum sentences can create sentencing cliffs that outweigh the differences between offenders. (Appellant's Brief, p. 14) (citing Kimbrough, 552 U.S. at 107, 128 S.Ct. 558). He argues that a trial court's discretion to impose a sentence that differs from the Guidelines based on a policy disagreement with the Guidelines also extends to policy disagreements with mandatory minimum sentences. (Appellant's Brief, pp. 15-20). The impact of Kimbrough on mandatory minimum sentences was first considered by this Court in United States v. Wimbley, 553 F.3d 455 (6th Cir.2009). The Court considered the constitutionality of a mandatory minimum sentence subsequent to Kimbrough and said: First, he claims that Kimbrough v. United States, 552 U.S. 85, 128 S.Ct. 558, 169 L.Ed.2d 481 (2007), which was decided after his sentence was imposed, entitles him to a shorter sentence. Kimbrough addresses a district court's discretion under the Sentencing Guidelines, and explicitly allows the sentencing court to take into account the Guidelines' disparate treatment of crack versus powder cocaine. Id. at 564. But Kimbrough is inapposite here because Wimbley's sentence was set by a statutory mandatory minimum, not the advisory Sentencing Guidelines. Id. at 462. See also United States v. Penney, 576 F.3d 297, 317 (6th Cir.2009) (holding that § 3553(a) factors do not apply to congressionally mandated sentences) (quoting Franklin II ); United States v. Simpson, 546 F.3d 394, 397 (6th Cir.2008) ([W]e have held that a sentencing court must determine an appropriate sentence for the underlying crimes without consideration of the mandatory sentences for firearm offenses.). In United States v. Lockett, 359 Fed. Appx. 598 (6th Cir.2009), this Court noted that Kimbrough itself recognized that courts were constrained by the mandatory minimums Congress prescribed: Moreover, Kimbrough itself held that when a district court is considering whether and to what extent it may impose a sentence different from that recommended by the Guidelines because it disagrees with the logic, fairness, or utility of the crack/powder ratio, it remains constrained by the mandatory minimums Congress prescribed. Kimbrough, 552 U.S. at 108, 128 S.Ct. 558. In other words, the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors do not give a district court discretion to disobey a statutory mandatory minimum, whether because the court disagrees with the powder/crack disparity or for some other reason. This is merely an application of our Circuit's general rule that § 3553(a) factors do not apply to congressionally mandated sentences. United States v. Penney, 576 F.3d 297, 317 (6th Cir.2009) (quoting United States v. Franklin, 499 F.3d 578, 585 (6th Cir.2007)). Id. at 611-12. Following the clarification of Kimbrough in Spears v. United States, ___ U.S. ___, 129 S.Ct. 840, 172 L.Ed.2d 596 (2009), this Court said: Contrary to Baker's assertion, United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 125 S.Ct. 738, 160 L.Ed.2d 621 (2005) (making guidelines advisory), and Kimbrough v. United States, 552 U.S. 85, 128 S.Ct. 558, 169 L.Ed.2d 481 (2007) (holding that district courts may deviate from sentences under the advisory Guidelines based on policy disagreements), do not affect mandatory statutory minimum sentences. United States v. Baker, No. 08-3414, 2010 WL 2089541 at  (6th Cir.2010) (unpublished). See also United States v. Branch, 537 F.3d 582, 592 (6th Cir.2008) (Among the statutory provisions left intact after Booker were statutory mandatory minimum sentences.). Franklin's argument does not involve a disagreement with an advisory Sentencing Guideline on policy grounds, as in United States v. Camacho-Arellano, 614 F.3d 244 (6th Cir.2010); instead, he seeks to nullify the power of Congress to prescribe a consecutive, mandatory minimum sentence. Several of our sister courts have also rejected arguments that Kimbrough gives courts discretion over mandatory minimum sentences. In United States v. Samas, 561 F.3d 108 (2d Cir.2009), the court said: Thus Kimbrough bears upon the discretion of district judges to sentence within the maximum and minimum sentence `brackets.' Kimbrough does not disturb our precedents rejecting challenges to the constitutionality of the mandatory sentencing scheme in § 841(b). Id. at 110. With respect to the court's discretion under § 3553(a), Samas said: We recently rejected the argument that § 3553(a) conflicts with statutory minimum sentences in reviewing a sentence applying the firearms enhancement in 18 U.S.C. § 924(c). As we held in United States v. Chavez, a district court must impose a statutorily mandated sentence even if the court would reach a different determination if it considered only § 3553(a). 549 F.3d 119, 135 (2d Cir. 2008). We explained that statutory minimum sentences are in tension with section 3553(a), but that very general statute cannot be understood to authorize courts to sentence below minimums specifically prescribed by Congress.... Id. See also United States v. Cirilo-Munoz, 582 F.3d 54, 55 (1st Cir.2009) (Courts have uniformly rejected the claim that § 3553(a)'s `no greater than necessary' language authorizes a district court to sentence below the statutory minimum.); United States v. Howard, 369 Fed.Appx. 354, 356 (3rd Cir.2010) (unpublished) (Our enforcement of statutory minimum sentences as mandatory directives is entirely consistent with the decision of the Supreme Court in Kimbrough ....). In United States v. Williams, 599 F.3d 831 (8th Cir.2010), the court rejected a similar claim: Williams's principal contention on this pointthat the district court failed to give adequate weight to the severity of the statutory minimum sentences for the firearm countsis foreclosed by our decision in United States v. Hatcher, 501 F.3d 931 (8th Cir.2007). There, we held that the severity of a mandatory consecutive sentence for a § 924(c)(1)(A) offense is an improper factor that the district court may not consider when sentencing a defendant on related crimes of violence. Id. at 834. It continued: And the holding in Hatcher has not been cast into doubt by Gall, Kimbrough, Spears or any other intervening Supreme Court decision. Id. The Seventh Circuit recently reaffirmed its decision in United States v. Roberson, 474 F.3d 432, 434 (7th Cir.2007), in which the court said that the district judge is of course entitled to her view, but she is not entitled to override Congress's contrary view. In United States v. Calabrese, 572 F.3d 362 (7th Cir.2009), the court again rejected an argument that a § 924(c) mandatory sentence could be considered in determining the sentence for the underlying offenses. Even shaving off a single month from the sentence on the predicate crime thwarts Congress's will.... Courts don't have that power. Id. at 369. The Seventh Circuit also rejected an argument that Kimbrough demands a reevaluation of the court's decisions. United States v. Stewart, 333 Fed.Appx. 102, 104 (7th Cir. 2009) (unpublished) (The [ Kimbrough ] Court said nothing indicating that it was prepared to strike down as unconstitutional Congress's sentencing regime, under which there are disparate mandatory minimum sentences for crack and cocaine offenders.). See also United States v. Kellum, 356 F.3d 285, 289 (3d Cir.2004) (Moreover, it is clear that Congress intended that mandatory minimum sentences are not to be affected by the general considerations of § 3553(a)(2) because that statute provides the authority for the district court to depart below the statutorily mandated minimum sentence in only subsections (e) and (f).). Franklin's arguments that the district court had authority to consider his mandatory minimum sentence when determining his sentence for the underlying offenses and that Kimbrough overruled Franklin II are without merit. His sentence of 97 months' imprisonment is within the guidelines range and thus presumptively reasonable. Franklin has not provided any basis to overcome the presumption, and we conclude the district court's sentence is reasonable. Penney, 576 F.3d at 317.