Court Opinion

ID: 9499024
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:35:40.317042+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:59:14.209086
License: Public Domain

EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I join the court’s opinion and offer a few additional observations about the cross-appeal.
The prosecutor’s brief chides the district court for departing too many levels without an explanation linked to the structure of the Guidelines. United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 125 S.Ct. 738, 160 L.Ed.2d 621 (2005), rendered the departure apparatus and terminology archaic. See United States v. Johnson, 427 F.3d 423, 426 (7th Cir.2005). A sentence within the Guideline range is presumptively reasonable, but other sentences may be reasonable too, and appellate review is deferential. Reasonableness is a range, not a point. See United States v. Cunningham, 429 F.3d 673, 679 (7th Cir.2005). The prosecutor recommended what would have been a 9-level downward departure in preBooker terminology; the district judge could determine, without abusing his discretion, that a further 4-level reduction was reasonable. But was it a lawful reduction?
The United States did not file an information under 21 U.S.C. § 851 specifying all of Hewlett’s prior convictions, which would have made a life sentence mandatory. (The prosecutor’s brief concedes that this was an oversight rather than a deliberate choice.) Even after that gaffe the United States could have relied on the fact that Hewlett is a career offender — that’s why his criminal history category is VI and the Guidelines call for life imprisonment, neither more nor less. Life also is the statutory maximum.
Congress has directed that career offenders be sentenced at or near the statutory maximum for a serious drug offense or crime of violence. 28 U.S.C. § 994(h). Like other rules of law that prescribe appropriate sentences, this survives Booker. See United States v. Woodard, 408 F.3d 396 (7th Cir.2005). It survives because Booker concerns who finds facts (and under what burden of persuasion) but not what consequences the law attaches to facts that have been authoritatively determined. (For other illustrations of Booker’ s irrelevance to legal rules, see, e.g., United States v. Miller, 450 F.3d 270 (7th *882Cir.2006) (ratio of crack to powder cocaine); United States v. Duncan, 413 F.3d 680, 683 (7th Cir.2005) (recidivist sentences); United States v. Rivera, 411 F.3d 864, 866-67 (7th Cir.2005) (mandatory minimum sentences); United States v. Lee, 399 F.3d 864, 866 (7th Cir.2005); McReynolds v. United States, 397 F.3d 479, 481 (7th Cir.2005).) Hewlett’s current conviction is for a serious drug offense, so he should have been sentenced to life in prison or something “near” it.
A sentence of 20 years, the mandatory minimum, is not by any stretch of the imagination “at or near” life in prison. Yet the United States did not rely on § 994(h) in the district court or mention it here. Likewise the United States has forfeited the benefit of United States v. Boscarino, 437 F.3d 634, 638 (7th Cir.2006), which shows that the district judge erred by using concern about “sentence disparity” as justification for a below-Guideline prison term.
When the United States proposes a sentence well below the Guideline range it is poorly situated to complain when the district judge is slightly more lenient. Discounted to present value, the deterrent force of a 20-year sentence is only a little less than that of 30 years (for years 21 to 30 are so far in the future that they have little effect on today’s behavior). The main difference between 20- and 30-year sentences lies in the longer term’s power to protect the public by incapacitation. Yet when recommending 30 years, as opposed to life, the United States espoused the view that because Hewlett is intelligent he will abandon his criminal career. That strikes me as topsy-turvy — a high IQ makes a person more dangerous (if only because a clever criminal is less likely to be caught and convicted), and to date Hewlett has employed his talents as a criminal entrepreneur and predator. Criminal propensity falls with age, but even at 47 (which Hewlett will be after serving the district court’s sentence, if he behaves himself in prison and receives the 15% discount) the mastermind of a criminal syndicate remains dangerous. Leaders of organized crime often stay at their posts well after becoming eligible for Social Security benefits. Still, if the prosecutor is right, incapacitation is unnecessary.
Where this 20-year sentence falls short is on general deterrence and desert, which underlie § 851 and § 994(h). Perhaps that’s why the Solicitor General authorized this appeal despite the prosecutor’s optimistic estimate of Hewlett’s likely conduct following his release. But arguments based on these statutes have been forfeited.