Court Opinion

ID: 9601501
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:45:59.95558+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:36:28.159875
License: Public Domain

LUCERO, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
Because the panel majority fails to accord the district court the deference to which it is entitled under an abuse of discretion standard, as announced in Unit*1142ed States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 125 S.Ct. 738, 160 L.Ed.2d 621 (2005), and fails to follow the letter and spirit of the Court’s mandate in Rita v. United States, — U.S. -, 127 S.Ct. 2456, 168 L.Ed.2d 203 (2007), I respectfully dissent.
In my opinion, the decision announced today stands as exhibit A on two points: First, it shows that notwithstanding the repeated reaffirmation and clarification of an appellate abuse of discretion standard by the majority and concurrence in Rita, the Newtonian pull of the Guidelines toward a near-mandatory center remains. Second, it demonstrates that the “trust that those Judges who had treated the Guidelines as virtually mandatory during the post-Booker interregnum will now recognize the Guidelines are truly advisory,” id. at 2474 (Stevens, J., concurring), is misplaced.
I
In Rita, the Court addressed whether the Courts of Appeals may apply a presumption of reasonableness to review within-Guidelines sentences, as employed by our Circuit and many others. See, e.g., United States v. Kristl, 437 F.3d 1050, 1053-54 (10th Cir.2006) (adopting a presumption of reasonableness); United States v. Williams, 436 F.3d 706, 708 (6th Cir.2006) (same); United States v. Mykytiuk, 415 F.3d 606, 608 (7th Cir.2005) (same). In discussing the role of appellate courts in sentencing following Booker, the Court emphatically reaffirmed the proper standard of review applicable to sentencing challenges: We ask merely whether a district court has abused its discretion in applying the § 3553(a) factors.
While Booker itself implicitly equates reasonableness review of sentences with review for abuse of discretion, see 543 U.S. at 261-62, 125 S.Ct. 738, the Court made this equivalence explicit in Rita. “Given our explanation in Booker,” the Rita majority instructs, “appellate ‘reasonableness’ review merely asks whether the trial court abused its discretion.” Rita, 127 S.Ct. at 2465 (emphasis added). I disagree with the majority that in “mak[ing] that equivalence explicit,” the Court “says nothing new about the standard of review.” (Maj. Op. at 1136). Rather, the Court’s holding in Rita, while primarily addressed to the propriety of an appellate presumption of reasonableness when reviewing within-Guidelines sentences, nonetheless demands that we revisit our post -Booker sentencing jurisprudence.
Victor Rita argued that an appellate presumption of reasonableness for within-Guidelines sentences would impair the exercise of district court discretion and thus raise the same Sixth Amendment concerns that Booker sought to remedy — the use of judge-found facts to increase sentences beyond the range permitted by jury-found facts alone. See Rita, 127 S.Ct. at 2465. Justices Souter, Scalia, and Thomas espoused the view that the Sixth Amendment would indeed be violated either by the use of the presumption, id. at 2488 (Souter, J. dissenting), or by any form of substantive appellate review, id. at 2476 (Scalia, J. dissenting, joined by Thomas, J.).1 In rejecting Rita’s challenge and the *1143positions of those justices, the majority gave clear instruction that, notwithstanding an appellate presumption of reasonableness, district courts must have discretion to vary above or below the Guidelines range without being bound or even swayed by a similar presumption at sentencing. See id. at 2466 (“A nonbinding appellate presumption that a Guidelines sentence is reasonable does not require the sentencing judge to impose that sentence. Still less does it forbid the sentencing judge from imposing a sentence higher than the Guidelines provide for the jury-determined facts standing alone.”). Accordingly, circuit courts must review the individualized decisions of district courts with significant deference, allowing sentencing courts to exercise discretion in practice and not just in theory. As the Court implicitly acknowledges, imposing undue restrictions on the exercise of discretion would run the risk of undermining defendants’ Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial. See id. For this reason, among others, I read the Court’s statement that “appellate ‘reasonableness’ review merely asks whether the trial court abused its discretion,” id. at 2465, to require that we grant district courts greater discretion at sentencing than we have, in practice, provided over two eventful years of post-Booker review.
The panel’s discussion of Rita shrugs off the concurring opinion of Justices Stevens and Ginsburg, whose votes also underpin the majority holding.2 That concurrence traces the evolution of sentencing review, explaining in detail how the Court’s jurisprudence has evolved from de novo review to abuse of discretion, a standard that Booker “called ‘reasonableness’ review.” Id. at 2470-71 (Stevens, J., concurring). Justice Stevens notes that the bases for using an abuse of discretion standard-“a district judge [is] better positioned than an appellate judge to decide the issue,” “may have insights not conveyed by the record,” and may consider “special, narrow facts that utterly resist generalization” — apply in full force in the sentencing context. See id. at 2471-72 (Stevens, J., concurring) (citing Koon v. United States, 518 U.S. 81, 116 S.Ct. 2035, 135 L.Ed.2d 392 (1996); Cooter & Gell v. Hartmarx Corp., 496 U.S. 384, 403-05, 110 S.Ct. 2447, 110 L.Ed.2d 359 (1990); and Pierce v. Underwood, 487 U.S. 552, 558-560, 108 S.Ct. 2541, 101 L.Ed.2d 490 (1988)). By eliminating the de novo standard of review required under 18 U.S.C. § 3742(e), Booker “restored the abuse-of-discretion standard identified in [these] earlier cases.” Id. at 2471 (Stevens, J., concurring). Under that standard, “except to the extent specifically directed by statute, ‘it is not the role of an appellate court to substitute its judgment for that of the sentencing court as to the appropriateness of a particular sentence.’ ” Id. at 2472 (Stevens, J., concurring) (quoting Williams v. United States, 503 U.S. 193, 205, 112 S.Ct. 1112, 117 L.Ed.2d 341 (1992)) (emphasis added).
The concurrence accordingly instructs circuit courts: “It should also be clear that appellate courts must review sentences individually and deferentially whether they are inside the Guidelines range (and thus potentially subject to a formal ‘presumption’ of reasonableness) or outside that range.” Id. at 2474 (Stevens, J., concurring) (emphasis added). Yet, notwithstanding the direction of the Rita majority, *1144the clarification provided by the Stevens concurrence, and the fact that all three justices who declined to join Rita espouse an even more deferential view of appellate review than the majority, the panel dismissively insists on applying pre-i?iia case law in reversing the individualized and reasoned determination of the district court in this case.
II
The panel’s rejection of the district court’s particularized and reasoned determination is accomplished in part by a neat semantic tap dance over the nature of “reasonableness” review post-Booker. Contrary to the majority’s position, we have been anything but consistent about the amount of daylight, if any, between reasonableness and abuse of discretion review.3 For example, we frankly admitted in United States v. Rodriguez-Quintanilla that “the relationship between the abuse of discretion standard, the ‘plainly unreasonable’ standard and the post -Booker ‘reasonableness’ standard is less than crystal clear.” 442 F.3d 1254, 1258 (10th Cir.2006). Rather than address this question head-on, we have typically held that our determination would be the same under either standard. See, e.g., United States v. Cordova, 461 F.3d 1184, 1188 (10th Cir.2006) (“We need not explore the exact contours of our post-Booker standard of review, however, because we conclude that the District Court did not abuse its discretion and that the sentence was both procedurally and substantively reasonable.”).
Even if the majority were correct that we have, sotto voce, equated reasonableness review with review for abuse of discretion, it is the nature of our reasonableness review that must ultimately square with the Court’s mandate in Rita. And it is my view that the nature of our review has come off the rails by privileging certain elements of substantive reasonableness over others. Since the Court’s decision in Booker, we have woven a rich tapestry of case law assessing the propriety of district courts’ applications of various § 3553(a) factors to individual defendants. While some of that case law is new, much of it extends precedent that predates Booker. To take two examples, we have (1) reaffirmed our pre-Booker holding that, except in limited circumstances, co-defendant disparity does not warrant a variance under § 3553(6), see United States v. Davis, 437 F.3d 989, 997 (10th Cir.2006), and (2) sanctioned district courts’ consideration of the characteristics of a defendant’s prior offense conduct (as well as his arrest record) under § 3553(a)(2)(B) and (C), see United States v. Mateo, 471 F.3d 1162, 1170 (10th Cir.2006).
Armed with this precedent, we have then typically taken a divide and conquer approach on review, examining the district *1145court’s application of each relied-upon factor to the facts of the case. Correct as our legal constructions are, the net effect of this exercise is to require the district court to jump through a series of hoops, any one of which might require reversal as legal error — a reality which somewhat undermines the “sliding scale” approach we have taken to variance post-Booker. See Maj. Op. at 1138. Although we often plow through detailed factual histories related to the defendant’s background and offense conduct, we generally review for legal error-namely, the district court’s misapplication of a particular Guidelines factor. A typical example is our recent holding in United States v. Hildreth, 485 F.3d 1120 (10th Cir.2007), in which we reversed the district court’s substantial downward variance due to its misapplication of the Guidelines factors. Although the district court in that case carefully considered the § 3553(a) factors singularly and in concert, and articulated its rationale for varying downward at some length, we held that “the District Court essentially ignored the recommendation of the sentencing Guidelines.” Id. at 1129. We then went through each individual justification in some detail, explaining why none sufficiently “distinguishfed the defendant] from defendants with similar histories convicted of the same crime” to support a variance. Id.
This type of appellate review is grounded in reason and serves a not ignoble purpose — the elimination, or at least mitigation, of sentencing disparity between similarly situated offenders. See Rita, 127 S.Ct. at 2467 (“Congress sought to diminish unwarranted sentencing disparity. It sought a Guidelines system that would bring about greater fairness in sentencing through increased uniformity.”); Booker, 543 U.S. at 253, 125 S.Ct. 738 (“This point is critically important. Congress’ basic goal in passing the Sentencing Act was to move the sentencing system in the direction of increased uniformity.”); United States v. Gonzalez-Huerta, 403 F.3d 727, 738 (10th Cir.2005) (“[T]he purpose of the Guidelines was to promote uniformity in sentencing so as to prevent vastly divergent sentences for offenders with similar criminal histories and offenses. The federal courts have been striving towards this worthy goal since 1987.”). And so we have structured our substantive reasonableness review to hunt the white whale of disparity, a hunt which has required us to exercise a degree of scrutiny closer to de novo than abuse of discretion, to the exclusion of other elements that contribute to a substantively reasonable sentence.4
Notwithstanding its nobility of purpose, this type of review simply does not square with Rita’s mandate that we locate primary authority for sentencing at the retail level-the district court. See 127 S.Ct. at 2463 (“The upshot is that the sentencing statutes envision both the sentencing judge and Commission as carrying out the same basic § 3553(a) objectives, the one, at retail, the other at wholesale.”). More importantly, our focus on disparity has occasioned serious neglect of the procedural values of locating authority with the district court, values which were important to the Booker Court and have been reaffirmed in Rita. The Rita majority reemphasized the worth of the very process of *1146adversarial testing that is accomplished by the district court’s consideration of the presentence report, the arguments of the parties, and the § 3553(a) factors. See id. at 2465. There is independent value not just in the district court’s ability to consider sentencing facts itself, and to hear the arguments of the parties, but also to visibly play the role of setting a sentence within the statutory range and to state its reasons to the defendant face to face. See id. at 2468 (“Judicial decisions are reasoned decisions. Confidence in a judge’s use of reason underlies the public’s trust in the judicial institution. A public statement of those reasons helps provide the public with the assurance that creates that trust.”), 2469 (“By articulating reasons, even if brief, the sentencing judge not only assures reviewing courts (and the public) that the sentencing process is a reasoned process but also helps that process evolve.”).
Justices Stevens and Ginsburg firmly defend the primacy of this individualized, retail-level process:
While reviewing courts may presume that a sentence within the advisory Guidelines is reasonable, appellate judges must still always defer to the sentencing judge’s individualized sentencing determination. As we stated in Koon, ‘[i]t 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.’
Id. at 2472-73 (Stevens, J., concurring) (citation omitted). This more process-minded view of federal sentencing, sensitive to the interplay between the trial judge, jury, prosecutor, and defendant, and skeptical of efforts to undermine that interplay by either legislative or appellate interference, recognizes that allocution plays an inherent role in sentencing and that the district court is not a mere abacus. Until this very opinion, we have not equated reasonableness with abuse of discretion, and the present semantic effort to do so is but a neat elision of the trial court’s Rita discretion. Our present practice substitutes that discretion with a supposed mathematical certitude that rejects trial court judgment regarding proportionality and repentance, thereby accommodating neither trial court discretion nor Rita.
My view is that we have lost sight of one of the broader instructions of Booker. While applying Booker's, mandate that the Guidelines henceforth play only an (important) advisory role in sentencing, we have paid too little attention to its implication that the benefits of placing primary authority for sentencing in district courts extend beyond their traditional role in fact-finding. For example, in this case the majority takes issue with the district court’s application of the § 3553(a) factors, but accords no weight to the thoroughness of its consideration. This lack of attention to the district court’s satisfaction of its procedural duties underweights the process values discussed supra.
Read in its entirety, the district court explained its choice of sentence in an expansive and well-reasoned statement:
The court believes that defendant’s criminal history category and the overall impact of the career offender adjustment overstates the seriousness of defendant’s criminal history and produces a sentence which is greater than necessary to accomplish the goals of 18 U.S.C. § 3553. The career offender adjustment places the defendant at a Category VI in criminal history. But, defendant has no conviction for a crime of violence, there is no indication that his prior convictions involved large quantities of *1147drugs, his last drug conviction was at the age of 22, and his longest term in prison has been about 2/á years. Although defendant has a serious criminal history, it does not merit a Category VI, and defendant’s next sentence should not escalate to 22 years.
Courts and commentators have noted that the career offender provisions of the Guidelines sometimes lead to extraordinary and inappropriate increases in sentences. See U.S. v. Phelps, 366 F.Supp.2d 580, 590 (E.D.Tenn.2005); U.S. v. Woodley, 844 F.Supp.2d 274, 277 (D.Mass.2004). The Guidelines, themselves, encourage departures where the criminal history category significantly over-represents the seriousness of a defendant’s criminal history or the likelihood that the defendant will commit future crimes. U.S.S.G. § 4A1.3(b)(l).
We believe this case is one where a departure under the Guidelines would be justified under the pre-Booker system or a non-Guidelines sentence is justified under the post-Booker system to produce a sentence less than the Guidelines range in this case....
We have examined the nature and circumstances of the offense and the history and characteristics of defendant. We find that the proposed guideline sentence of 262 months or more is greater than necessary to afford adequate deterrence and promote respect for the law. In order to reflect the seriousness of the offense, to provide just punishment, to protect the public from further crimes of the defendant, and to avoid unwarranted sentence disparities among defendants with similar records who have been found guilty of similar conduct, the court finds that a sentence of 140 months is proper and reasonable and no greater than necessary to comply with the purposes of 18 U.S.C. § 3553. We note with regard to the issue of disparity among defendants with similar records that a sentence of 140 months would be within the Guidelines range of a defendant under the same facts who was not treated as a career offender under the Guidelines.
Crediting the court’s finding that a sentence longer than set would be greater than necessary to accomplish the goals of § 3553(a), I fail to understand how the majority can insist that the defendant be resentenced. By “resentencing,” the majority assuredly does not mean a shorter or equal sentence. But in insisting on a longer sentence, we necessarily nullify the trial court’s § 3553(a) finding. I am hard-pressed to square today’s decision with our duty to treat the Guidelines as “truly advisory.” In particular, the panel’s treatment of the career offender provision of the Guidelines leaves little room for district courts to vary downward, and effectively, if not intentionally, treats the Guidelines as mandatory.
Although the reasons given by the district court for its variance-that Gareia-Lara “has no conviction for a crime of violence, there is no indication that his prior convictions involved large quantities of drugs, his last drug conviction was at the age of 22, and his longest term in prison has been about 2% years” — would not warrant a departure under the Guidelines, they reflect the history and characteristics of the defendant and are properly considered under § 3553(a)(1). See Rita, 127 S.Ct. at 2473 (Stevens, J., concurring) (listing numerous examples of factors “not ordinarily considered under the Guidelines” that “ § 3553(a) authorizes the sentencing judge to consider”).
In my opinion, the district court exercised its discretion precisely in the manner directed by Rita: It “beg[a]n by considering the presentence report and its interpretation of the Guidelines,” “subjected] the defendant’s sentence to the thorough *1148adversarial testing contemplated by federal sentencing procedure,” and selected a reasonable sentence without “enjoy[ing] the benefit of a legal presumption that the Guidelines sentence should apply.” Id. at 2465. Garcia-Lara’s 140-month sentence reasonably addresses the need to protect the public and rehabilitate the defendant and reflects the seriousness of his crime. § 3553(a). On those findings, I cannot say that the trial court’s selection of an eleven and one half year sentence was an abuse of discretion.
Ill
Instead of according substantial weight to evidence that the district court’s sentencing determination was thorough and reasoned, we have instituted a baroquely complicated “sliding scale” approach to substantive reasonableness review, which subjects the district court’s justifications to ever higher hurdles depending on the degree of the variance. Born in this court’s holding in United States v. Cage, 451 F.3d 585, 594 (10th Cir.2006), that involved an imposed sentence of 6 days compared to an advisory Guidelines minimum of 46 months, the “sliding scale” has now evolved by such repeated rococo refinement of species as to do Charles Darwin and Louis XIV proud. See Hildreth, 485 F.3d at 1127-28 (detailing the standards applied to different degrees of variance). It seems that every problem has led to a new mutation with different, sometimes conflicting, rhetoric and outcome resulting in a sliding scale that is primarily notable for its preference for scaling and aversion to sliding. By the majority’s auto de fe, this system is preserved, rendering the Guidelines virtually mandatory. Thus, we have assumed a role in which we imper-missibly substitute our judgment as to the appropriateness of a particular sentence for that of the sentencing court.
Not only does this system impermissibly intrude upon the authority of the district court, but it also produces inconsistent results. Our case law dictates that we treat Garcia-Lara’s 47%, 122-month variance as “substantial” and uphold it if the facts of his case provide compelling justification. See Hildreth, 485 F.3d at 1128. When assessing the magnitude of a variance, we look to the discrepancy between the sentence imposed and the advisory Guidelines range in both percentage terms and absolute number of months. United States v. Valtierra-Rojas, 468 F.3d 1235, 1240 (10th Cir.2006). Although “there is no formula into which we input the degree of divergence,” “comparison with other cases is a useful tool.” Id. In United States v. Allen, 488 F.3d 1244, 1253 (10th Cir.2007), we required only “compelling justification” for a 167%, 225-month upward variance.5 Accordingly, under our pre-Rita jurisprudence, I would consider Garcia-Lara’s 47%, 122-month downward variance as “substantial,” requiring no more than a “compelling justification.”
In United States v. Mateo, we approved a district court’s use of the armed career criminal enhancement as a “guidepost” in sentencing a defendant who did not meet the criteria for that enhancement. 471 F.3d 1162, 1170 (10th Cir.2006); see also U.S.S.G. § 4B1.4. Although Mateo’s PSR properly calculated a Guidelines range of 15 to 21 months’ imprisonment, the district court determined that this range underrepresented Mateo’s criminal history. 471 F.3d at 1166. The court referred to the *1149armed career criminal enhancement to account for the discrepancy, and imposed a sentence of 120 months’ incarceration.6 In reviewing this variance, we held that “whether the rationale provided by the sentencing court for a non-Guidelines sentence is sufficiently compelling is determined by considering whether the particular characteristics of the defendant the court relied upon in fashioning the sentence are commonplace ... or are sufficiently uncommon to justify a divergence from the presumptively reasonable Guidelines sentence.” Id. at 1169. Although we termed the 471% increase in Mateo’s sentence “extreme,” we concluded that his “significant contact with the criminal justice systems in three different states over a relatively short period of time” were dramatic facts that justified the variance. Id.7 “Based on [Mateo’s] specific circumstances and the District Court’s use of the armed career criminal provision as a guidepost to gauge the length of the sentence, the District Court imposed a reasonable sentence.” Id.
Garcia-Lara’s case presents a comparable scenario. Here, the district court properly calculated a Guidelines range that reflected the career offender enhancement. Having concluded that such a sentence would over-represent Garcia-Lara’s criminal history, considering the § 3553(a) factors, the court imposed a lesser sentence after again consulting the Guidelines to determine what Garcia-Lara’s advisory range would be absent the career criminal enhancement. The court’s reasons were not as “dramatic” as those in Mateo, but under our pre-Rita jurisprudence we do not require “dramatic facts” when the vari-anee at issue is not “extreme.” Cf. Mateo, 471 F.3d at 1170. Instead, Garcia-Lara’s substantial variance represents a proper exercise of district court discretion if the individualized factors of his case — with reference to § 3553(a) — provide compelling reasons that distinguish him from other career offenders.
As the district court persuasively explained, Garcia-Lara’s criminal history meets the bare minimum for application of the career offender enhancement; he has only two prior drug-related convictions, neither of which resulted in long prison terms or were shown to involve large quantities of drugs. Given these facts, and Garcia-Lara’s relatively young age at the time he committed his prior drug crimes, the district court’s decision to vary downward to offset the impact of the career offender enhancement was within the court’s discretion. Like the sentencing court in Mateo, the court carefully considered the defendant’s specific circumstances and used an alternative Guidelines range as a “guidepost” to gauge the length of a reasonable sentence.
In imposing Garcia-Lara’s sentence, the court did not show “express disregard” for § 3553(a)(6), which requires a sentencing court to consider “the need to avoid unwarranted sentencing disparities among [similar] defendants.” Cf. Hildreth, 485 F.3d at 1130. Instead, the court sentenced Garcia-Lara only after reasoning “that a sentence of 140 months would be within the Guidelines range of a defendant under the same facts who was not treated as a career offender under the Guidelines.” In faulting the district court for having incor*1150rectly applied § 3553(a)(6), Maj. Op. 1140, the panel majority fails to credit our prior case law on point.
In United States v. Shaw, 471 F.3d 1136, 1141 (10th Cir.2006), we held:
The district court concluded that Shaw’s conduct was more serious than his code-fendant’s because Shaw was the one who actually assaulted the bank manager. See § 3553(a)(1) (“the nature and circumstances of the offense”). The Guidelines do not explicitly distinguish between principals and accessories for purposes of the “serious bodily injury” enhancement at issue here. USSG § lB1.3(a)(l)(A). But § 3553(a)(2)(A) does authorize a sentencing court to impose a nonguideline sentence if the court concludes the guideline range does not adequately “reflect the seriousness of the offense.” While an adjustment based on a factor that was already built into the guideline calculation may challenge the overall uniformity of sentences under § 3556(a)(6), any tension between subsection (a)(2)(A) and subsection (a)(6) can be resolved by the district court in light of all the facts before it, as long as it does so reasonably. See Cage, 451 F.3d at 595 (“The problem with the sentencing decision, however, is not in the consideration of these factors; it is in the weight the district court placed on them.”).
Shaw’s reasoning applies equally to this case. Section 3553(a)(1) permits a sentencing court to impose a non-Guidelines sentence if the Guidelines range does not adequately reflect “the history and characteristics of the defendant.” The court’s sentencing decision, made after careful consideration of the facts before it, reasonably resolved any tension between subsections (a)(1) and (a)(6). And, as the district court pointed out, “[t]he Guidelines, themselves, encourage departures where the criminal history category significantly over-represents the seriousness of a defendant’s criminal history or the likelihood that the defendant will commit future crimes.”
We recently recognized, “In any given case there could be a range of reasonable sentences that includes sentences both within and outside the Guidelines range- [C]ourt[s] may impose a non-Guidelines sentence if the sentencing factors set forth in § 3553(a) warrant it, even if a Guidelines sentence might also be reasonable.” United States v. Begay, 470 F.3d 964, 975-76 (10th Cir.2006). Accordingly, I And ample support for the district court’s variance even under our pre-Rita case law. This is not to say that there may not also be support in our case law for a reversal on these facts, as argued by the majority, but to emphasize that our existing precedent neither gives clear direction to district courts nor allows the discretion afforded to them by Rita.
IV
The United States Supreme Court unambiguously pronounces the advisory nature of the Guidelines and reemphasizes district court discretion and deferential review solely for abuse of discretion. Given today’s rejection of this clear mandate, it is evident that if the Court is to move the universe of sentencing review away from the status quo of micro-management at the appellate level, the Court is going to need a longer Archimedean lever than Rita to accomplish the task.

. All three of those justices would adopt an even more deferential approach to sentencing review than the majority. Justice Scalia, joined by Justice Thomas, would give district courts unfettered discretion to sentence anywhere in the statutory range and would eliminate substantive appellate review of sentences altogether. Id. at 2476 (Scalia, J., concurring). Justice Souter would reject an appellate presumption of reasonableness because in his view, it strongly encourages district courts to choose sentences within the Guidelines range. Id. at 2488 (Souter, J. dissenting) ("Only if sentencing decisions are reviewed according to the same standard of reasonableness whether or not they fall within the Guidelines range will district courts be *1143assured that the entire sentencing range set by statute is available to them.”). Thus, while the members of the Court differ on the exact method and scope, a unanimous Court subscribes to markedly circumscribed circuit review.

. It bears mention that it was Justice Ginsburg who cast the deciding vote in Part III of Booker, from which Justice Stevens dissented. See Booker, 543 U.S. at 258, 272, 125 S.Ct. 738.

. In arriving at the conclusion that we have consistently equated reasonableness review with review for abuse of discretion, the majority cites to United States v. Valtierra-Rojas, a case in which we said nothing with respect to abuse of discretion, but instead held that “where ... a defendant argues that the district court unreasonably departed from the advisory Guidelines range based on erroneous findings of fact, we will review those findings for clear error.” 468 F.3d 1235, 1241 n. 8 (10th Cir.2006). Valtieira-Rojas reached that holding only by characterizing the question posed on review as a purely factual one-whether the district court erred in finding that Valtierra-Rojas posed a present or future risk on account of his alcoholism. See id. at 1241. Our review of the district court’s application of the § 3553(a) factors, however, spans factual and legal determinations, as we recognized in Kristi. See Kristl. 437 F.3d at 1054 ("We note that this new standard of review-that of reasonableness-does not displace the oft-cited principle that in considering the district court’s application of the Guidelines, we review factual findings for clear error and legal determinations de novo.”).

. This, despite the fact that "disparity” is easily the most contested term in our sentencing law and literature, and that those justices who dissented from the remedial portion of Booker took strong issue with the notion that an advisory Guidelines could ever provide meaningful uniformity in sentencing. See 543 U.S. at 300, 125 S.Ct. 738 ("[DJisparities will undoubtedly increase in a discretionary system in which the Guidelines are but one factor a judge must consider in sentencing a defendant within a broad statutory range.") (Stevens, J., dissenting).

. Although we termed the variance in Alien "sufficiently extreme" rather than calling it "substantial,” we treated it as "substantial” by requiring "compelling justification” and not "dramatic facts.” See Hildreth, 485 F.3d at 1128 (explaining that our circuit precedent requires "dramatic facts” for "extreme” variances, "compelling reasons” for “substantial” variances, and "sufficient explanation” for "significant variances”).

. The court did not formally apply the enhancement, which would have resulted in a minimum sentence of 180 months. Mateo, 471 F.3d at 1168.

. In addition to listing five convictions-one of which was not charged as a crime of violence but was based on uncontested facts that involved violence-Mateo’s PSR noted seven additional prior arrests that did not lead to convictions, and one additional pending charge. Mateo did not contest the facts in the PSR concerning these arrests.