Court Opinion

ID: 9568050
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:00:15.599034+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:24:17.885316
License: Public Domain

BOYCE F. MARTIN, JR., Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur in the majority with respect to everything but the reversal of Hunt’s sentence. Because I believe the majority is in conflict with the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Gall v. United States, — U.S. -, 128 S.Ct. 586, 169 L.Ed.2d 445 (2007), I respectfully dissent from its reversal of Hunt’s sentence.
I.
The majority holds that it was substantively unreasonable for the district court to *651rely on an impermissible factor in determining Hunt’s sentence. The impermissible factor the majority hangs its hat on is what it has termed Hunt’s “innocence.” This is the majority’s mis-labeling of the fact that the district court found Hunt to be less culpable than other defendants involved in the fraudulent scheme and that the evidence against him was objectively weaker than that against other defendants. The district court did not rely on his “innocence;” Hunt was found guilty by a jury and that conviction will stay with him for the rest of his life. Instead, after a thorough and thoughtful analysis of the § 3553(a) factors, the district court found Hunt less culpable and sentenced him accordingly. That is not impermissible, and tellingly, the majority is unable to point to a single sentencing case in support of its holding.
The majority’s mischaracterization of the district court’s reasoning avoids the Supreme Court’s holding in Gall, and this Court’s own recent decision in United States v. Grossman, 513 F.3d 592, 594 (6th Cir.2008), both of which mandate that we give due deference to reasoned and reasonable sentencing decisions of district courts even when we, as an appellate court, may have chosen a different sentence. Instead of abiding by this clear standard of review, the majority has concocted a new impermissible factor which renders Hunt’s sentence substantively unreasonable. But this mischaracterization of the district court’s reasoning does not stand up to careful scrutiny.
The Supreme Court recently laid out the proper manner in which a district court should sentence a defendant. Gall, 128 S.Ct. at 596-97. Procedurally, the district court must properly calculate the guidelines range, id. at 596, give “both parties the opportunity to argue for whatever sentence they deem appropriate,” id., and consider “all of the § 3553(a) factors to determine whether they support the sentence requested by the parties,” id. A district court must then “make an individualized assessment based on the facts presented,” id. at 596-97, regardless of whether the sentence is above, below, or within the guidelines, id. After Gall, the calculation and analysis of the correct guidelines range is merely one of the several factors to be considered, id.; see also 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), and is not controlling or determinative of the sentence given. Finally, after deciding on a sentence, a district court is required “to adequately explain the chosen sentence,” Gall, 128 S.Ct. at 597, “[rjegardless of whether the sentence imposed is inside or outside the Guidelines range ...,” id.
Because the majority has focused on the district court’s reliance of what it has termed an impermissible factor under § 3553(a), I will carefully lay out the analysis undertaken by the district court under the § 3553(a) factors in reaching its sentencing decision. After doing so, I believe it is patently obvious that the district court did not rely on an impermissible factor, but rather merely found Hunt less culpable than other defendants and sentenced him accordingly.
I begin with the first factor under § 3553(a), “the nature and circumstances of the offense and the history and characteristics of the defendant.” The district court found that Hunt’s prosecution and conviction was driven by his co-defendant who pled guilty and whose actions were far more egregious. The district court struggled with Hunt’s motive for the crime given the dearth of evidence regarding his criminal intent. He made very little money ($11,000) off of the scheme when compared to his overall practice which made several hundred thousand dollars a year. The district court found that Hunt was *652hoodwinked by his co-defendant Mark Noble, the ring-leader of the fraudulent scheme who the court termed “a snake-oil salesman, a medicine man.” The district court found Hunt to be naive, overly trusting, and unknowledgeable about the business part of the practice. The district court also found that the evidence was very weak regarding Hunt’s fraudulent intent. The district court also found that Hunt’s actions caused no harm to any patients, and in fact may have been beneficial to several patients. The district court took into account Hunt’s history and found he had a humble background, was the first person in his family to attend college, and that he had developed a successful practice. The district court took into account his character and found that his patients and other doctors have a very high opinion of him. The district court also found helpful several letters from members of the community written on Hunt’s behalf stating that he was a holistic preventive doctor who believed in the tests at issue and thought they were beneficial.
With regard to the second factor under § 3553(a), the district court stated the sentence must reflect the seriousness of the offense, must promote respect for the law, must provide a just punishment, must protect the public from further crimes, and it must provide the defendant with needed education or vocational training. The district court then took into account that Hunt would not be able to practice medicine in the foreseeable future. The district court found that losing his license alone provided a just punishment, promoted respect for the law, and protected the public from further crimes.
The district court also satisfied § 3553(a)(3)-(5) by correctly calculating the recommended guidelines range. The district court then stated that “[t]he court under the present system takes into account the sentencing guideline. The sentencing guideline in this case in the context of all the factors that I have said is not an appropriate sentence for Dr. Hunt.”
The district court also took into account § 3553(a)’s admonition that district court’s “avoid unwarranted sentence disparities among defendants,” finding that other doctors conducting the same activities as Hunt received pretrial diversion in one instance (Dr. Bartee) and received nothing in other instances (Dr. Moore and Dr. Adams). The district court noted that several other more culpable individuals were not prosecuted at all, including individuals who profited much more from the enterprise than Hunt.
The district court stated that it felt it was important that Dr. Hunt practice medicine again because he was an asset to the community and provided a valuable resource to his patients. The district court stated that while his twelve felony convictions may preclude him from ever practicing again, the probationary sentence may help.
I fail to see, in all of the above reasoning given by the district court in its analysis of the § 3553(a) factors, where the district court took into account Hunt’s “innocence.” In fact, the district court explicitly stated that despite Hunt’s “explanations for his behavior, ... there’s no excuse for the behavior.” The district court went further, stating that “[t]here were enough violations ... that the court cannot find that [Hunt] was totally innocent of any knowledge.” These statements indicate that the district court did not impermissibly consider Hunt’s “innocence.” What the district court did do was take into account several mitigating factors and settle upon an individualized sentence, something that has been done in sentencing for more than three centuries. See United States v. Phi*653nausee, 515 F.3d 511, 526 (6th Cir.2008) (Merritt, J., dissenting).
When the majority’s mis-labeling of the district court’s reasoning is set aside, I believe that the Supreme Court’s decision in Gall, and this Court’s recent holding in United States v. Grossman, 513 F.3d 592, 597 (6th Cir.2008), directly control and require that this Court affirm Hunt’s sentence. The similarities between Gall and the present case are striking. In both cases, a district court exercised its legal authority to sentence outside the recommended guidelines range, and in both cases, sentenced the defendant well below the guidelines range to probation. Gall v. United States, — U.S. -, 128 S.Ct. 586, 593, 169 L.Ed.2d 445 (2007). In both cases, the district court committed no significant procedural errors. Both correctly calculated the applicable guidelines range, allowed both parties to present arguments in support of what they believed to be appropriate sentences, considered all of the § 3553(a) factors, and thoroughly documented their reasoning behind the sentence imposed. Id. at 598.
In Gall, the district court sentenced the defendant to a term of probation after he pled guilty to being a part of a conspiracy to distribute ecstasy, cocaine, and marijuana. Gall’s plea agreement stipulated that he was “responsible for, but did not necessarily distribute himself, at least 2,500 grams of [ecstasy], or the equivalent of at least 87.5 kilograms of marijuana.” Id. at 592. The presentence report recommended a guidelines range of 30 to 37 months’ imprisonment. The district court decided to depart from the guidelines range and sentenced Gall to 36 months of probation. In support of this sentence, the district court stated that “considering all the factors under [§ 3553(a) ], the Defendant’s explicit withdrawal from the conspiracy almost four years before the filing of the indictment, the Defendant’s post-offense conduct, especially obtaining a college degree and the start of his own successful business, the support of family and friends, lack of criminal history, and his age at the time of the offense conduct, all warrant the sentence imposed,....” Id. at 593. The district court emphasized that Gall had voluntarily withdrawn from the conspiracy after seven months and that two of his co-conspirators, who had been sentenced 30 and 35 months’ imprisonment respectively, had not withdrawn from the conspiracy. The fact that he was less culpable than his co-conspirators, despite his guilty plea, coupled with the overwhelming evidence in support of mitigation, led the district court to sentence Gall to probation. I fail to see how the district court’s determination in Gall is any different than the district court’s decision in this case that Hunt be sentenced to a term of probation given his minor role in the fraudulent scheme and the similarly overwhelming evidence in support of mitigation.
The most damning similarity between this case and Gall is the fact that a circuit court of appeals has substituted what it believes to be the appropriate sentence instead of giving “due deference to the District Court’s reasoned and reasonable decision that the § 3553(a) factors, on the whole, justified the sentence.” Id. at 602. The Eighth Circuit reversed the district court in Gall, holding, among other things, that the district court gave too much weight to Gall’s withdrawal from the conspiracy. Id. at 594. This sort of reasoning sounds eerily similar to that used by the majority in the present case: “A district court imposes a substantively unreasonable sentence, ... when it bases the sentence on impermissible factors, ... and the district court appears to have done just that in relying on indications that Hunt was not guilty as found by the jury.” The *654majority obviously disagrees with the weight the district court gave to the sparsity of evidence concerning Hunt’s intent to defraud. But it was exactly this type of appellate review that the Supreme Court attempted to stamp out in Gall. The Supreme Court explicitly stated that even where “[t]he Court of Appeals clearly disagree[s] with the District Judge’s conclusion that consideration of the § 3553(a) factors justified a sentence of probation, ... it is not for the Court of Appeals to decide de novo whether the justification for a variance is sufficient or the sentence reasonable.” Id. at 602. Our own Circuit has re-emphasized this deferential standard of review in Grossman, holding that we must give “due deference to the sentencing judge’s on-the-scene assessment of the competing considerations, which is to say, not just abuse-of-discretion review to the reasonableness of a sentence but abuse-of-discretion review to the district court’s determination that there is a legitimate correlation between the size of the variance and the reasons given for it....” 513 F.3d 592, 596.
The majority has ignored the proper deferential standard of review and invented a new impermissible factor, “innocence,” which will now allow appellate courts to reverse sentencing decisions regardless of whether an analysis of the § 3553(a) factors indicates that a defendant is less culpable than others and that a sentence outside the guidelines is more appropriate. On remand, I hope the district court makes clear that it was not relying on Hunt’s “innocence” when it sentenced him to probation, but was instead making a “reasoned and reasonable” decision that a term of probation was “sufficient, but not greater than necessary, to comply with the purposes” of § 3553(a), and imposes the same sentence, supported by the same detailed analysis.
II.
This ease is an example of the perfect storm developing over the sentencing judges in this Circuit. As I have pointed out repeatedly, the struggle we have in the review of sentencing is to determine what was intended by the district court. All too often insufficient explanation is given to allow us to adequately review a district court’s sentencing decision. In the present case, the sentencing judge gave us an extensive explanation of her reasoning, yet the majority not only rejects the district court’s reasonable explanation as unreasonable, but finds that the sentence in this case was an abuse of discretion. Such a holding completely disregards this Circuit’s decisions in Grossman and Vonner, and also disregards the Supreme Court’s decisions in Gall. I am unhappy to report that we have once again begun the slippery slope of agreeing with district court’s who depart upward on the basis that they were reasonable and did not abuse their discretion, but when a judge decides to sentence below the non-binding guidelines, then we reverse and remand. In my view, this not only does not make sense, but is unprincipled. I am haunted by the words of the 19th century poet Matthew Arnold which sums up so much of the problems we face today with sentencing:
“For the world which seems
to lie before us like a land of dreams,
so various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
*655while ignorant armies clash by night.”
Dover Beach, 1851.
Based on the foregoing reasons, I respectfully dissent from the majority’s reversal of Hunt’s sentence.