Court Opinion

ID: 9490314
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:40:12.895729+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:54:02.064044
License: Public Domain

TASHIMA, Circuit Judge,
with whom HUG, Chief Judge, and BROWNING, SCHROEDER and REINHARDT, Circuit Judges, join, dissenting:
All 138 of the district judges in this circuit will applaud today’s majority opinion because, if a ground for departure can be found, it restores to them the unfettered discretion in sentencing which, until today, they believed Congress had closely cabined when it passed the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984. I dissent because the majority misreads the Court in Koon v. United States, — U.S.-, 116 S.Ct. 2035, 135 L.Ed.2d 392 (1996), and casts aside the mandate of the Sentencing Guidelines. This near-absolute, and virtually unreviewable, discretion in determining the extent of a departure will apply equally to downward departures, as well as to upward departures. See United States v. Lira-Barraza, 941 F.2d 745, 754 n. 2 (9th Cir.1991) (en banc) (Hall, J., concurring).
Relying on Koon, the majority holds that Lira-Barraza, 941 F.2d 745, has been overruled.1 We agree insofar as Lira-Barraza’s three-part standard of review is concerned. As the majority holds, Koon now imposes a unitary abuse of discretion standard. Koon, however, did not deal with the extent of *920departures, only the grounds. This is where the majority strays.
The Court could not have been clearer that in Koon it was reviewing only the grounds of departure-the decision to depart-not the extent of any departure:
•In this case we explore the appropriate standards of appellate review of a district court’s decision to depart from the Guidelines. — U.S. at-, 116 S.Ct. at 2040 (emphasis added).
•We granted certiorari to determine the standard of review governing appeals from a district court’s decision to depart from the sentencing ranges in the Guidelines.
Id. at -, 116 S.Ct. at 2043 (emphasis added).
Applying an abuse of discretion standard of review to review the extent of a departure for unreasonableness is not new. We have been doing so for some time. See United States v. Takai, 941 F.2d 738, 742 (9th Cir.1991). Thus, since this part of our standard of review of departures is unaffected by Koon, it is difficult to see how the majority can read Koon as overruling Lira-Barraza as to how we review the extent of a departure for abuse of discretion: by “requiring that departure sentences ... be determined in light of the structure, standards and policies of the Act and Guidelines____”2 941 F.2d at 751. By wiping out Lira-Barraza’s requirement that the extent of a departure be analogized to other Guideline categories, we have come to the place where “[t]he reasonableness of sentences determined without reference to identified standards ... [are no longer] susceptible to rational review.” Id. at 749 (footnote omitted).
The majority’s “review” of the extent of the departure in this case is, itself, proof that it is unguided by any rational standard. In sum, all that the majority’s review of the extent of the departure amounts to is that because two of the three grounds relied on by the district court are identified in the Guidelines as proper grounds for departure, and, in the majority’s view, the “district court carefully explained its reasons for departing upward,” the departure was not unreasonable. However, the explanation relied on by the majority is no more than a narrative statement that three persons sustained significant injury. As the three-judge panel observed, “[w]e have no way of knowing how the district court measured the degree of departure.” United States v. Sablan, 90 F.3d 362, 365 (9th Cir.1996) (Sablan I). Any justification for the extent of the 16-level departure is wholly unexplained, except in the vaguest, general terms.3
The majority also acknowledges that the district court relied, in part, on the need for deterrence, as a ground for departure.4 It attempts to justify this as a ground for de*921parture because of “the special circumstances of more live grenades known still to be in related criminal hands in the locality.”
First, I disagree that deterrence, or the need for greater deterrence, is a permissible ground for departure. Under U.S.S.G. § 5K2.0, a departure can be grounded only upon “an aggravating or mitigating circumstance of a kind, or to a degree, not adequately taken into consideration by the Sentencing Commission in formulating the guidelines (quoting 18 U.S.C. § 3553(b)).” The “circumstances” referred in § 5K2.0 are those identified with the offender or the offense. The general need for deterrence is not a “circumstance” of either kind. If a departure could be based on such a general circumstance, then there is no reason why a departure would not be justified because of the increase of drugs in the community, or a sudden outbreak of drug-related offenses, or the proliferation of handguns in the community. As the three-judge panel noted, deterrence is not a permissible ground for departure because deterrence permeates the whole of the Guidelines.
The Commission created all of the Guidelines with the purpose of “crime control” in mind. See U.S.S.G. Ch. 1, Pt. A23. Deterrence of the use of explosives to damage government buildings clearly lies within the “heartland” of 18 U.S.C. § 844(f), and its applicable Guideline, § 2K1.4.
Sablan I, 90 F.3d at 366.
Second, in concluding that its own identified “need for greater deterrence” was an acceptable ground for a departure, the majority does so in disregard of the analysis mandated by Koon, — U.S. at -, 116 S.Ct. at 2045. Since “deterrence” is not an “encouraged” departure factor, it is, at best, “a factor [ ] unmentioned in the Guidelines.” Id. Before a departure can be based on such a factor, however, “the court must, after considering the ‘structure and theory of both relevant individual guidelines and the Guidelines taken as a whole,’ decide whether it is sufficient to take the case out of the Guideline’s heartland.” Id. Here, neither the district court nor the majority has made this necessary analysis. Thus, it was an abuse of discretion for the district court to rely on this as a ground for departure.5
Quite apart from deterrence as a ground for departure, the district court’s limited statements about “deterrence” do not explain, at all, the extent of the departure based on this ground. They certainly do not explain why a 16-level departure was justified, rather than a far lower or higher one. And, in its “review” of the reasonableness of the extent of the departure based on this ground, the majority does not even attempt to articulate a justification for the extent of the departure.
The district court identified three discrete grounds as the bases for its 16-level departure. At least one of these grounds, deterrence, is not a permissible ground for departure.6 In these circumstances, “a remand is required unless [the court of appeals] determines the district court would have imposed the same sentence absent reliance on the invalid factors.” Koon, — U.S. at-- -, 116 S.Ct. at 2053-54. See also Williams v. United States, 503 U.S. 193, 203, 112 S.Ct. 1112, 1120-21, 117 L.Ed.2d 341 (1992).
In this case, however, we cannot make that determination [required by Koon of whether the district court would have imposed the same sentence absent reliance on the invalid ground] given the district court’s apparent reliance on several factors jointly as its basis for departure and its failure to provide any justification for the extent of its departure in this case.
United States v. Barajas-Nunez, 91 F.3d 826, 834 (6th Cir.1996) (emphasis in original).
Finally, we note that our position on the continued vitality of Lira-Barraza, after *922Koon, is shared by the other circuits that have reached the issue.7 In a case that did involve review of the extent of a departure, the Sixth Circuit held:
Although Koon has changed the standard of review to an abuse of discretion standard, the rationale for requiring an explanation of reasons for departure and the extent thereof still remains.
Barajas-Nunez, 91 F.3d at 834. Similarly, the Seventh Circuit has held:
Although Koon changed the standard of review with respect to the latter issue [of whether to depart at all], [— U.S. at ---], 116 S.Ct. at 2046-48, and adopted a unitary abuse of discretion standard for the review of departure decisions, id. at 2047-48, we do not believe that it subverted our rationale for requiring a district court to explain its reasons for assigning a departure of a particular magnitude in a manner that is susceptible to rational review. See, e.g., [United States v.] Ferra, 900 F.2d at 1061-62 [ (7th Cir.1990) ]. Indeed, we view this requirement as indispensable to furthering the “fundamental goal of the Sentencing Reform Act, which is to place federal sentencing on an objective, uniform, and rational (or at least articulable, nonintuitive) basis,” United States v. Pullen, 89 F.3d 368, 371 (7th Cir.1996) (emphasis added), a goal that is not jettisoned merely because a particular offense merits a departure from the Guidelines. Because this requirement does not deprive the district judge of -the deference to which he is due, we do not believe it to be inconsistent with Koon, — U.S. at ---, 116 S.Ct. at 2047-48; see, e.g., Sablan, 90 F.3d at 365 (district court abuses discretion by not adequately linking extent of departure to structure of Guidelines).
United States v. Horton, 98 F.3d 313, 319 (7th Cir.1996).
In short, the majority has not cited a single case to support its conclusion that Koon should be read to overrule Lira-Barraza, and similar cases, which require district courts to rationalize the extent of sentencing departures by analogy to the Guidelines or otherwise. The three-judge panel in Sabían I had it right. Koon did not overrule LiraBarraza on review of the extent of departures.
We do not, however, read Koon as freeing the district court from the general framework of the Guidelines in determining the extent of a departure. Indeed, Koon stated that the decision whether departure is justified by a factor not adequately considered by the Commission, or by the presence of a discouraged factor in an unusual or exceptional way, “are matters determined in large part by comparison with the facts of other Guideline cases.” Koon, — U.S. at-, 116 S.Ct. at 2047. Similarly, we conclude that the extent of an upward departure must still be governed by analogy to other Guidelines categories, as we held in [ ] Lira-Barraza, 941 F.2d at 748-51[ ]. As we said there, “[t]he reasonableness of sentences determined without reference to identified standards would not be susceptible to rational review.” Id. at 749. The district court retains discretion, but it is not free to divest itself entirely of the structure of the Guidelines. Id. at 748.
Sablan I, 90 F.3d at 365.
Because, like the three-judge panel, I would vacate the sentence and remand for resentencing in accordance with Lira-Barraza, I respectfully dissent.

. Although this holding is announced in Part I of the majority opinion, which discusses the standard of review, with which we do not quarrel, the discussion in Part III clearly indicates that the holding applies as well to how we review the extent of a departure.

. Even on the question of whether to depart at all, Koon recognizes the appropriateness of analogizing to the Guidelines.
If a factor is unmentioned in the Guidelines, the court must, after considering the "structure and theory of both relevant individual guidelines and the Guidelines taken as a whole,” id., at 949, decide whether it is sufficient to take the case out of the Guideline’s heartland.
- U.S. at -, 116 S.Ct. at 2045 (quoting United States v. Rivera, 994 F.2d 942, 949 (1st Cir.1993)).

. The district court also relied, in part, on U.S.S.G. § 5K2.5, p.s. (property damage), to justify its upward departure. However, there is no explanation of how, or to what extent, the property damage here took the offense out of the heartland of U.S.S.G. § 2K1.4.

. The majority, post hoc, characterizes this ground as "the need for greater deterrence than usual." However, that is not what the district court said. The totality of its comments on this subject at sentencing were:
I know that, but one of the other things here that the court is concerned about also is deterrence. There are still some grenades out there, and those are some of the things that primarily, the primary concern of the court is the physical injury inflicted here, there’s just too much suffering endured by these people.
Accordingly, the court will depart to level 37, as it stated before.
The court also settled on this point in the Sentencing Guidelines mainly because of the physical injury involved; and secondarily, because of the property damage, and also because it is hoped that there be some deterrence that will be gained, that will be derived as a result of this case.
However, whether it be characterized as "deterrence,” as the district court did, or as “the need for greater deterrence than usual,” as the majority does, there is no reasoned justification for the extent of the departure based on this ground.

. As the Court has noted, "[a] district court by definition abuses its discretion when it makes an error of law.” Koon,-U.S. at-, 116 S.Ct. at 2047.

. It is impossible to tell whether “property damage” was a permissible ground for departure because the district court never articulated its reasons for believing why the property damage in this case took the case out of the heartland of U.S.S.G. § 2K1.4. See U.S.S.G. § 5K2.5.

. The majority cites, in Part I of its opinion, the expected slew of cases confirming that Koon now mandates a unitary abuse of discretion standard of review in departure cases. To repeat, we have no quarrel with these cases. None of these cases, however, save one, including United States v. Beasley, 90 F.3d 400 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, — U.S.-, 117 S.Ct. 533, 136 L.Ed.2d 418 (1996), involved or addressed the issue of how the extent of a departure should be reviewed. The one exception concluded that Koon did not affect that circuit’s prior caselaw on the manner in which the extent of a departure is reviewed. See United States v. Cali, 87 F.3d 571, 580-81 (1st Cir.1996).