Court Opinion

ID: 9573307
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:52:15.393355+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:40:13.588141
License: Public Domain

KOZINSKI, Chief Judge,
dissenting:
Four months ago, in United States v. Mejia, 559 F.3d 1113 (9th Cir.2009), we explained that the Guidelines calculate *1112criminal history based on probation actually served, rather than the amount of probation originally pronounced. “Just as a ‘term of imprisonment’ means ‘a term of actual confinement,’ a term of probation means a term of actual probation.” Mejia, 559 F.3d at 1116 (citing United States v. Gonzales, 506 F.3d 940, 944 n. 2 (9th Cir.2007)). Alba-Flores served eleven months on probation for driving with a suspended license so, under Mejia, he didn’t serve a “term of probation of more than one year” and gets no criminal history points for this offense. U.S.S.G. § 4A1.2(c)(1)(A).
The majority refuses to follow Mejia, precipitating a conflict in the law of the circuit. My colleagues seek to justify themselves by claiming that Mejia didn’t “intend to hold that when a person was actually under a probation sentence of more than a year at the time he committed his federal offense, he was not under a criminal justice sentence if he had not yet completed over a year of that state probation term.” Maj. Op. at 1111. But neither of my colleagues was on the Mejia panel, so they couldn’t possibly know what Mejia “intended” beyond what its words say. And its words quite clearly say nothing like what the majority holds. If we were all free to ignore the language in opinions based on what we believe they secretly intended, the law of the circuit would be meaningless.
The majority holds that for ongoing sentences the Guidelines count expected length, but for completed sentences the Guidelines count actual length. This means that Alba-Flores’s probationary term was more than one year when he committed his federal crime, but was under one year when he was sentenced. Nothing in the Guidelines supports such a Janus-faced interpretation of the same phrase; they refer simply to a “term of probation of more than one year.” U.S.S.G. § 4A1.2(c)(1)(A). Nor does Mejia, which says only that “a term of probation means a term of actual probation.” 559 F.3d at 1116.
The majority compounds the problem by relying on two out-of-circuit cases featuring defendants who actually served over a year of probation. According to the majority, these cases “eschewed the notion that a state court could affect federal sentencing by issuing a nunc pro tunc order after the concrete facts pertinent to the federal sentencing were already in place.” Maj. Op. at 1110. But these cases aren’t on point as Alba-Flores served less than a year on probation and so did not need to shorten his sentence retroactively.
The majority nevertheless declares that the “same odor of gaming the federal sentencing system” emanating from those cases “emanates from this one.” Id. at 1111. Perhaps the out-of-circuit cases have a point when state courts try to retroactively call a fish a fowl, but what possible “gaming” can there be when the state court reduces a criminal defendant’s sentence prospectively so he actually serves less time? The federal system relies heavily on state courts in sentencing defendants and it’s wrong and pernicious to call these judgments into question because the state judges may have taken into account the effects on federal sentencing. State judges are often mindful of the federal implications of their sentences, as well they should be. The majority is wrong to cast aspersions on this salutary practice.
The majority spends five pages discussing its sniff test, only to explain that this “miasma” wouldn’t “itself be sufficient to lead us to a decision against Alba-Flores,” leaving us guessing about its importance in the majority’s analysis. Id. Surely an issue that gets such a lengthy discussion in an opinion must mean something. But we won’t know what it means until a future panel guesses at what the majority here “intended.”
*1113In addition to creating a conflict in the law of the circuit and injecting uncertainty into sentencing, the majority contravenes the general principles of modern sentencing jurisprudence: “One theme runs through the Supreme Court’s recent sentencing decisions: [United States u] Booker empowered district courts, not appellate courts .... [and] breathe[d] life into the authority of district court judges to engage in individualized sentencing....” United States v. Whitehead, 532 F.3d 991, 993 (9th Cir.2008) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted) (alterations in original). If a district court disagrees with the guidelines or feels that state courts are meddling, it has broad discretion to give an above-guidelines sentence. The majority stands this principle on its head by forcing district courts to give extremely harsh sentences against their better judgment.
Neither of the judges who actually sentenced Alba-Flores — a first-time, unarmed, hapless drug deliveryman who’s only prior was driving with a suspended license — thought he deserves to spend ten years in federal prison. The state court judge didn’t think so and terminated Alba-Flores’s probation early to avoid the harsh effects a longer period would have on his federal sentence. The federal judge agreed with the state judge but (wrongly) felt handcuffed by the pre-Mejia law. “[A]s I’ve said before, I’m not particularly keen about the idea of imposing minimum mandatory sentences in a case such as yours ... but I think I’m bound to by law.” We shouldn’t be so eager to override the hands-on judgment of two trial judges who have actually seen the defendant and are far more familiar with his need for punishment than we are.