Court Opinion

ID: 9489344
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:13:08.704584+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:28.480692
License: Public Domain

JOHN R. GIBSON, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
While I concur with the decision of the court today rejecting Weise’s claims on appeal, I respectfully dissent from the decision reversing the downward departure under U.S.S.G. § 5K2.0.
The court today states Weise makes no showing that he struggled in a difficult environment or otherwise overcame some significant hardship. It elevates our language in United States v. Haversat, 22 F.3d 790 (8th Cir.1994), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 116 S.Ct. 671, 133 L.Ed.2d 521(1995), to create a more stringent burden for a Big Crow1 departure'. It then holds Weise offered only some evidence, but did not provide the connecting link of showing how the conditions on the reservation affected him so as to make his case extraordinary. In doing so, the court fails to give proper consideration to the statute prohibiting limitation of the information district courts may use in sentencing, *508and fails to give the district court’s ruling the deference it is entitled to.
The Supreme Court has in recent days clarified the deference that is due a decision of a district judge to depart downward from a guideline sentence. Koon v. United States, — U.S. -, 116 S.Ct. 2035, 135 L.Ed.2d 392 (1996). After stating that such a decision may be owed no deference when there has been a mathematical error in applying the guidelines, the Court said:
A district court’s decision to depart from the Guidelines, by contrast, will in most cases be due substantial deference, for it embodies the traditional exercise of discretion by a sentencing court.
Id. at-, 116 S.Ct. at 2046. In considering whether the case falls outside the heartland of cases in the guidelines, the Court continued:
Whether a given factor is present to a degree not adequately considered by the Commission, or whether a discouraged factor nonetheless justifies departure because it is present in some unusual or exceptional way, are matters determined in large part by comparison with the facts of other Guidelines cases. District courts have an institutional advantage over appellate courts in making these sorts of determinations, especially as they see so many more Guidelines cases than appellate courts do.
Id. The Court continued:
“To ignore the district court’s special competence — -about the ‘ordinariness’ or ‘un-usualness’ of a particular case — would risk depriving the Sentencing Commission of an important source of information, namely, the reactions of the trial judge to the fact-specific circumstances of the ease....”
Id. (quoting United States v. Rivera, 994 F.2d 942, 951 (1st Cir.1993)).
The district court specifically enumerated examples of Weise’s efforts: that he had maintained employment over the last five and a half years, and that he was a good parent to his own children and the children of his companion. The district court stated that while these facts may not appear striking, “considering the difficult conditions on the Red Lake Reservation, defendant’s record of steady employment and his maintenance of family ties and responsibilities are sufficiently unique in degree to constitute grounds for departure.”
The court’s decisive point is that, while it finds some support for the district court’s understanding of living conditions on the Red Lake Indian Reservation, it cannot tell what there was about this that makes the impact of reservation life on Weise different from the ordinary case, and argues that it does not have enough information to review the district court’s exercise of its discretion. In doing so, the court simply fails to accord the deference Koon requires, or to consider the information before the district judge upon which he made his findings.
The presentence investigation report adopted by the district court stated that when Weise was growing up, “alcohol abuse and solid employment were issues [Weise’s] family constantly struggled with as do many families on the reservation today.” Weise filed a position paper before the sentencing, which makes factual assertions about high unemployment and other “adverse” living conditions on the Red Lake Reservation. Weise’s counsel also attached copies of judgments in the cases of other Red Lake Reservation inhabitants who committed homicides; significantly, the district judge in this case was the judge in two of those other Red Lake homicide cases. Counsel also submitted the report of Dr. Cronin, a psychologist, who stated that Weise was fearful because of violence on the reservation. At sentencing, counsel made a formal proffer of the testimony of Chief Judge Graves, who was familiar with Weise’s case and with crimes on the Red Lake Reservation, and who would have stated that within the spectrum of homicide defendants and homicide incidents in that violent community, Weise falls at the low end, both of the individuals convicted of the offenses and taking into account the circumstances of the offense itself. At trial, Weise introduced testimony of community members of his peaceable character.
It is significant that counsel for the United States made no objections to these statements of Weise’s counsel at sentencing. *509Further, the United States’s responses to Weise’s position paper on sentencing, while expressing generalized opposition to a downward departure and arguing that no atypical factor or combination of factors had been shown that would justify the departure, made no objection to any of the specific statements in Weise’s position paper. The government failed to object to the statements in Weise’s position paper on sentencing, to statements made by counsel at sentencing, or to the district court’s factual findings. See United States v. Sneath, 557 F.2d 149, 150 (8th Cir.1977) (because defendant did not deny statements in the presentenee reports that he had lied to the FBI, he could not assert that he was deprived of an opportunity to rebut them). The government’s failure to object should preclude it from raising this issue.
The district court’s statement that it recognized the difficult conditions on the reservation and that it was a violent place considering its small population are statements of the court’s acquaintance with the conditions on the reservation. We have in the past affirmed a downward departure based, in part, on a similar assessment of the hardships of reservation life and a defendant’s unusual efforts to lead a productive life there. The district court in United States v. Big Crow, 898 F.2d 1326, 1381 (8th Cir.1990), departed downward on the grounds that the defendant had consistently struggled to overcome the “difficult conditions which the court knows exist[] in Indian country,” a finding not unlike that before us in this case. Accord United States v. One Star, 9 F.3d 60, 61 (8th Cir.1993). Where the findings of the district judge demonstrate knowledge of the conditions on the reservation, we should not require production of evidence on this issue absent objection by one of the parties.
This court in United States v. White Buffalo, 10 F.3d 575 (8th Cir.1993), distinguished Big Crow and One Star. In White Buffalo, the court stated that a downward departure could not be justified under U.S.S.G. § 5K2.0, pointing to the distinction that White Buffalo supported no dependents and presented no evidence of his standing in the community. Id. at 577. Similarly, in Haver-sat, 22 F.3d at 795-96, the defendant, a corporate president, was awarded a downward departure based on his assistance to the court, his good character and otherwise ex-, emplary life, and the coercive economic influence of his business competitor. We reversed, distinguishing Big Crow. While we stated in Haversat that the district court failed to point to any evidence in the record to show how Haversat struggled in a difficult environment or otherwise overcame some hardship, this statement has significance primarily in pointing to the factual distinction, rather than an insufficiency in the evidence. The factual distinctions between this case on the one hand, and White Buffalo and Haver-sat on the other, render White Buffalo and Haversat inapposite here.
Moreover, it is most significant that Koon requires a greater degree of deference than evidently was employed in Haversat and White Buffalo.
The record in this ease is adequate to support the district court’s findings. See generally United States v. Wise, 976 F.2d 393 (8th Cir.1992) (en banc) (in sentencing proceedings district court may consider a wider array of evidence than would be admissible at trial), cert. denied, 507 U.S. 989, 113 S.Ct. 1592, 123 L.Ed.2d 157 (1993).
Congress has made clear in 18 U.S.C. § 3661 (1994):
No limitation shall be placed on the information concerning the background, character, and conduct of a person convicted of an offense which a court of the United States may receive and consider for the purpose of imposing an appropriate sentence.
This language is paraphrased in U.S.S.G. § IB 1.4, which states that, in determining whether a departure from the guideline range is warranted, “the court may consider, without limitation, any information concerning the background, character and conduct of the defendant, unless otherwise prohibited by law.” It was just this kind of information the district court considered in making its findings in this case.
The court, in commenting on Weise’s upbringing, simply does not address the sub*510stance of the district court’s findings. Certainly, its discussion fails to accord the district court’s findings the substantial deference to which they are entitled, due to the institutional advantage the district courts possess in dealing with such issues. See Koon, — U.S. at -, 116 S.Ct. at 2046.
It suffices to say that the court today departs from the closing words of the Supreme Court in Koon where, after pointing to the goal of reducing disparities in sentencing, the Court states:
This too must be remembered, however. It has been uniform and constant in the federal judicial tradition for the sentencing judge to consider every convicted person as an individual and every case as a unique study in the human failings that sometimes mitigate, sometimes magnify, the crime and the punishment to ensue. We do not understand it to have been the congressional purpose to withdraw all sentencing discretion from the United States District Judge. Discretion is reserved within the Sentencing Guidelines, and reflected by the standard of appellate review we adopt.
Id. at-, 116 S.Ct. at 2053.
I would affirm the sentence as well as the conviction.

. United States v. Big Crow, 898 F.2d 1326 (8th Cir.1990).