Court Opinion

ID: 9497889
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:02:38.845153+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:58:28.859537
License: Public Domain

KENNEDY, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur in the panel’s opinion with the exception of footnote nine. We are not called upon to decide whether sentences within the Guidelines are per-se reasonable to affirm the sentence in this case. On that ground alone, I would decline to address the issue raised in the footnote. Because the majority addresses the issue, however, I feel compelled to address it as well.
*386First, I question whether a sentence within the Guidelines’ range can ever be anything other than reasonable in light of the Sentencing Commission’s eongressionally mandated mission to develop appropriate sentences based on all factors related to the conviction. 28 U.S.C. §§ 991(b), 994. As I understand the Commission’s approach to establishing Guidelines, it initially considered the sentences imposed by district courts throughout the United States for particular crimes, the factors that judges had considered in imposing those sentences, as well as its congressional mandate, and then sought to set the Guidelines accordingly. It selected factors such as amounts of drugs, amounts of money or losses, etc. While other approaches or amounts may be reasonable as well, it is hard to conclude that the amounts or factors the Commission selected were not reasonable.
Nor, do I agree with the last sentence of footnote nine, which indicates that holding all sentences within the Guidelines’ range per-se reasonable would effectively make the Guidelines mandatory. If this court were to hold that a sentence within the Guidelines’ range is per-se reasonable, it does not follow that a sentence outside the Guidelines’ range is per-se unreasonable, a necessary prerequisite to making the Guidelines effectively mandatory. Hypothetically, a sentence within the Guidelines’ range could be just as reasonable as a sentence outside the Guidelines’ range. Thus, even if this court were to hold that a sentence within the Guidelines’ range is per-se reasonable, the voluntariness of the Guidelines would still be maintained provided that the court did not also hold that sentences outside the Guidelines’ range are per-se unreasonable.