Court Opinion

ID: 9453477
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 18:14:42.736527+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:40.576870
License: Public Domain

IRVING R. KAUFMAN, Circuit Judge
(concurring):
The issue before this court is not the propriety, wisdom or relevance of remarks made by appellant and his counsel at various stages of the instant proceedings. The question we must answer is whether the sentence imposed by the trial judge was based upon constitutionally permissible factors or otherwise conflicts with standards necessary for the proper administration of justice in the federal courts.
It is frequently and correctly asserted that it is not the function of appellate courts to review sentences that are within statutory limits. Blockburger v. United States, 284 U.S. 299, 305, 52 S.Ct. 180, 76 L.Ed. 306 (1932). And, trial judges must not be inhibited from articulating intelligible and rationally defensible explanations for particular sentencing decisions, see Note, Procedural Due Process at Judicial Sentencing for Felony, 81 Harv.L.Rev. 821, 843-845 (1968), or from making judicious use of available and relevant information, see Williams v. People of State of New York, 337 U.S. 241, 69 S.Ct. 1079, 93 L.Ed. 1337 (1949). But, it is not beyond the power of a federal appellate court to vacate a sentence based upon clearly erroneous criteria. See United States v. Wiley, 278 F.2d 500 (7th Cir. 1960).
The difficulty I perceive in the sentencing judge’s unfortunate statement concerning appellant’s lack of belief in a Supreme Being is not that it refers to religion (an area often appropriately discussed in presentence reports) but its apparent equation between moral well-being and the possession of certain religious beliefs. To infer that an individual because he is an agnostic is of doubtful virtue or morality seems to me to overlook that under our system of government all are guaranteed freedom of and from religion.
It may well be true that the sentencing judge did not indicate in imposing sentence that he was influenced by appellant’s agnosticism. But his remarks were made and they cannot now be ignored merely because the record does not explicitly disclose the specific factors relied upon.
I, nevertheless, am constrained to agree with the majority that on the particular facts of this case no useful purpose would be served by remanding to the sentencing judge for reconsideration of his decision — the remedy requested by counsel for appellant during oral argument.*218* Appellant has already received the benefits of the trial judge’s second thoughts at the hearing held pursuant to Rule 35 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. At that time the sentencing judge characterized his earlier remarks as “off the cuff,” asserted that he felt neither prejudice nor animus toward appellant and reiterated his belief that a five-year prison term was a fair and just sentence. I see no reason to compel the trial judge to do what he has already said he has done. I believe that it ill comports with the integrity of the judicial process to vacate a ruling below and remand for what will of necessity be a formalistic and meaningless imprimatur.

 In his brief, appellant suggested that we direct the trial judge to impose a sentence not in excess of the national average for the crime for which appellant was convicted. But it is clearly not the function of this court to determine the sentence appellant should serve. The national average is no more than that — an average— and bears no relationship to many of the factors that a trial judge must consider in imposing sentence.