Court Opinion

ID: 9486365
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 11:46:14.831893+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:41.201930
License: Public Domain

CONTIE, Senior Circuit Judge.
I concur that the sentence imposed by the district court should be vacated and the case should be remanded for resentencing. On remand, I believe,, however, that the following steps should be taken: (1) because in the present case it is practicable to make the calculation specified in U.S.S.G. § 5G1.3(c), Application Note 3, the calculation should be made; and (2) that if the district court departs from the applicable analysis, it must explain its rationale for doing so. See United States v. Gullickson, 981 F.2d 344, 348-49 (8th Cir.1992); United States v. Jackson, 990 F.2d 251, 254-55 (6th Cir.1993). The Supreme Court has stated in Stinson v. United States, — U.S. -, 113 S.Ct. 1913, 1915, 123 L.Ed.2d 598 (1993) that the commentary to the United States Sentencing Guidelines is binding. I believe the commentary found in U.S.S.G. § 5G1.3(c), Application Note 3 directs the sentencing court to make the recommended calculation, to the extent practicable, in order to provide a benchmark for the length of a reasonable incremental consecutive penalty if one is to be imposed. It would be inequitable to impose a consecutive term of imprisonment on a prisoner who has committed separate state and federal offenses that is much longer than the sentence the prisoner would have received if he had committed two separate federal offenses. This potential inequity is addressed by Application Note 3, and the required methodology should be adhered to unless it is not practicable. I agree with the concurrence in United States v. Hunter, 993 F.2d 127, 131 (6th Cir.1993)1 that the guidelines do not give a district court unfettered discretion to ignore this analysis, and that a sentencing court has discretion to abandon the process dictated by *614Application Note 3 and use a simpler approach only if the required methodology is entirely impracticable or unduly complicating and prolonging of the sentencing process. As I previously stated, in the present case it is not impracticable or unduly complicating, and, therefore, on remand the calculation should be made.

. Although this court in United States v. Hunter, 993 F.2d 127 (6th Cir.1993) did not remand for the calculation to be made, in Hunter, the required methodology was impracticable, and the court believed that a remand would not have changed the sentencing outcome because the sentence imposed approximated the total punishment that would have been imposed under U.S.S.G. § 5G1.2. In the present case, defendant contends that the punishment imposed exceeds the total punishment that would have been imposed under U.S.S.G. § 5G1.2. I believe a remand is necessary to determine if this contention has merit.