Court Opinion

ID: 9483981
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:37:12.526494+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:49:57.045729
License: Public Domain

FERGUSON, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I join the majority opinion in its conclusions 1) that the district court applied the wrong legal standard in determining whether Martinez-Guerrero suffered from an extraordinary physical impairment within the meaning of guidelines section 5H1.4, and 2) that the sentence should be affirmed because Martinez-Guerrero failed to meet his burden for justifying downward departure on the basis of his potential for becoming blind in prison. I write separately to highlight the breadth of the appropriate inquiry under section 5H1.4 and the narrowness of our decision in this case.
As the majority opinion indicates, the district court applied the wrong legal standard by limiting its inquiry concerning extraordinary physical impairment under section 5H1.4 to whether the Bureau of Prisons can accommodate a defendant’s impairment. Instead,, a district court properly engages in a two-step analysis, the first of which is to make a factual finding as to whether a defendant’s physical and mental disabilities constitute an extraordinary physical impairment under section 5H1.4. If the district court finds that an extraordinary physical impairment exists, it then exercises its discretion concerning whether downward departure is warranted, either through a shorter term of imprisonment or an alternative to confinement.
The threshold factual finding of extraordinary physical impairment is not to be made in the abstract; the question is whether the defendant’s impairment is extraordinary under section 5H14- In other words, the proper finding involves a determination of whether the defendant’s impairment is sufficiently extraordinary to permit downward departure from the otherwise applicable guidelines sentencing range. Thus, conditions that might be entirely ordinary or widespread in the world outside of prison may still constitute extraordinary physical impairments under section 5H1.4. See, e.g., United States v. Lara, 905 F.2d 599, 603 (2d Cir.1990) (upholding a finding of extraordinary physical impairment “because of the defendant’s particular vulnerability [to victimization in prison] due to his immature appearance, sexual orientation, and fragility.”)
Furthermore, the permissibility of downward departure is informed by the language in section 5H1.4 that calls for a determination of the efficiency and cost of departing below the applicable guideline range. A determination of efficiency, by definition, requires a preliminary determination of the relevant goal to be achieved without waste. The relevant goal is not imposition of a full term of incarceration; instead, the relevant goals to be achieved are framed by 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), and in particular subsection (a)(2), which “set[s] forth the basic purposes of sentencing— deterrence, incapacitation, just punishment, and rehabilitation.” S.Rep. No. 225, 98th Cong., 2d Sess., reprinted in 1984 U.S.Code, Cong. & Admin.News 3182, 3250-51. These sentencing goals provide the backdrop for the determination of efficiency called for in the text of section 5H1.4.
Thus, the proper inquiry under section 5H1.4 calls for a comparison between the efficiency and cost of a full term of incar*622ceration, as opposed to a lesser or alternative sentence, in achieving deterrence, incapacitation, just punishment, and rehabilitation.
The sole justification that Martinez-Guerrero offers for reducing his sentence under section 5H1.4 is the “uniquely tragic circumstance[ ] of a defendant who is not yet blind but may be blind by the time he is released from prison,” Appellant’s Opening Brief at 8-9, and the “unique hardship of potentially losing one’s sight in prison,” id. at 11. Martinez-Guerrero did not argue, and we thus do not pass judgment on, any of a number of potential justifications for finding blindness an extraordinary physical impairment under section 5H1.4. For example, Martinez-Guerrero did not argue that his need for incapacitation is lessened because he is in imminent danger of becoming blind.
Martinez-Guerrero bears the burden of proving the appropriateness of a downward departure. United States v. Anders, 956 F.2d 907, 911 (9th Cir.1992). I join the majority in holding that the district court did not commit clear error in finding that Martinez-Guerrero failed to meet his burden for demonstrating that the potential for becoming blind in prison constitutes an extraordinary physical impairment under section 5H1.4.