Court Opinion

ID: 9465329
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 00:43:25.380934+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:07.336199
License: Public Domain

*1133GOLDBERG, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I fully agree with the authenticated analysis of Parts I, II, IIIA and IIIB of the majority opinion. The majority convincingly shows that the trial court had no power to place these defendants on probation, and that mandamus is the proper remedy for such an illegal sentence.
Having gone that far I would not balk at issuing the writ. The heart1 of the majority’s “discretionary” refusal to issue the writ is its fear that the District Judge, on resentencing, will be even more lenient2 thus causing our writ to be “rendered a futile gesture.” P. 1131 supra. I do not agree. I cannot believe that this District Judge would turn this proceeding into a charade. I would be loathe to attribute to this District Judge any insensitivity to Congress’s mandate — recently expressed by increasing the penalty for this offense3 — that the crime committed by the defendants is to be treated most severely. I am unwilling to speculate about the possibility that the District Judge, upon being told that he has given an illegally lenient sentence, will respond by imposing an even more lenient, albeit technically legal, sentence.4 Such speculation, such encroachment on the District Judge’s sentencing prerogative, is emphatically not our task. I do not think it is proper for this Court to deprive the District Court of an opportunity to exercise its discretion in a lawful manner, or to relieve it of its judicial duty to do so, on the basis of some unsubstantiated speculations about how that Court may act. Our duty is only to issue the writ of mandamus where a statutorily illegal sentence was imposed. Such a sentence has been imposed here, for a crime that is singularly offensive to a free society — a flagrant and violent breach of the law by those charged with enforcing it. I would grant the writ.

. The majority says that the “most important” reason for excusing the District Court from its duty to impose a legal sentence is “that granting the petition will work a substantial hardship on the Defendants.” This is precisely the sort of factor that the District Court might consider at resentencing; just for the reasons given by the majority at pp. 1129-1131, I would say that it is not our task to assess this supposed hardship, the allegedly “impeccable” records of these defendants, the “vigor” of various prosecutions, and the like.
The majority’s other reasons for refusing the writ are puzzling. The majority says that because the government cannot have the sentence reviewed on direct appeal, it is also not entitled to a writ of mandamus. This is exactly backward. The lack of direct review is precisely what makes mandamus appropriate. The majority itself quotes our rule that mandamus “comes into play when there is a want of [other] remedies” [p. 1128]. In addition, when the majority says, “It is well-settled that the Government may properly seek a writ of mandamus to correct an illegal sentence imposed by a District Court,” p. 1127 supra, and cites nine cases, it refutes its own argument.
The majority also says, at length, that mandamus is inappropriate because “we deal here with an area in which the District Court should be afforded great deference by the reviewing court.” When a district court is acting in a lawful discretionary fashion mandamus should indeed be refused; that is axiomatic. But a district judge has no discretion to impose a sentence that is not authorized by law, and the majority thoroughly demonstrated that the sentence in this case was not authorized by law.
Mandamus in this case would have nothing to do with the sentencing judge’s discretion. It would require only that he not violate explicit statutory commands.

. The majority speculates, p. 1131 supra, that “the District Court could simply sentence these Defendants to one year’s imprisonment on Count One to run concurrently with a one year’s sentence on Count Two. The five year probation would be eliminated.”

. See pp. 1118-1120 of majority opinion.'

. Indeed, this sort of speculation seems to me to trench on the district judge’s sentencing discretion — the very thing that the majority, see pp. 1129-1131 supra, properly wants to avoid doing.