Court Opinion

ID: 9484466
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:54:27.613353+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:50:15.945299
License: Public Domain

SENTELLE, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I join Chief Judge Mikva in dissenting from the Court’s decision in this case, and am in accord with most of Chief Judge Mikva’s opinion supporting his dissent. I cannot, *1489however, agree with the statement expressed in his penultimate paragraph and intimated earlier in his opinion that “it probably does not matter whether the judge was enhancing Mr. Jones’ punishment or denying him leniency. The judge was not permitted to do either if he did so explicitly and exclusively because of Mr. Jones’ refusal to plead guilty.” Dissenting opinion of Chief Judge Mikva at 1483. I find this statement too sweeping, as well as unnecessary to the disposition of this case.
I agree with the majority that “ ‘it is within proper bounds for the court to preserve some leeway so that it is able to extend leniency in consideration of the cooperation and at least superficial penitence evidence[d] by one who pleads guilty.’ ” Maj. op. at 1478, quoting United States v. Wilson, 506 F.2d 1252, 1259-60 (7th Cir.1974). However, I cannot join the majority’s result, because I share Chief Judge Mikva’s conclusion that the trial court in this case was not withholding a reward it would have given to a guilty pleader, but was rather extending a punishment to one who pleaded not guilty. I further agree with Judge Mikva that this was the plain import of the record and the panel opinion.
It was on this assumption, as I understood it at the time, that we granted en banc review to what would have been a much less remarkable ease had the transcript reflected what the majority now finds in it. Indeed, it would seem to me that if the majority reads the records as differently from the panel’s reading as it appears to, rather than affirming the District Court, we should vacate and remand for clarification of which of those readings is correct.
Aside from this single reservation, I join Chief Judge Mikva in dissent.