Court Opinion

ID: 9573978
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:01:09.728841+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:43:53.359213
License: Public Domain

BRIGHT, Circuit Judge,
with whom
Judge Bye joins in Part I only, concurring.
I concur in the result, but write separately to further explain my views.
I.
Today, the court definitively concludes that the days of “extraordinary/ exceptional circumstances, departure percentages, proportionality review, and the like,” ante, at 894, have ended. This result, commanded by the Supreme Court’s decisions in a line of cases that culminated in Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 128 S.Ct. 586, 169 L.Ed.2d 445 (2007), puts the discretion at sentencing in the district court, just where it should be, with due regard for the guidelines and the statutes relating to the goals of sentencing. Appellate courts are not sentencing courts.
The dissent makes essentially two arguments. First, that Gall does not apply to sentencing reductions under § 3553(e) because there are no Sixth Amendment concerns with such reductions. Second, the dissent repeatedly asserts that this court, in Bums II, adopted the same proportional review that the court rejects today. Both arguments miss the point.
First, the dissent’s focus on the perceived distinctions between § 3553(a) (providing a list of relevant sentencing factors) and § 3553(e) (providing that a district court has authority to sentence below the mandatory minimum) lead it to overlook the point of Gall altogether. As I read Gall, the opinion is at least as much about district-court discretion as it is about the Sixth Amendment. The high court could not have been more clear: “the abuse-of-discretion standard of review applies to appellate review of all sentencing decisions.” Gall, 128 S.Ct. at 596 (emphasis added). I am unaware of any Supreme Court authority to the contrary. Gall, therefore, applies with equal force to sentencing proceedings under both § 3553(a) and § 3553(e).
The dissent also contends that Gall “does not justify wholesale abandonment of the approach endorsed by the en banc court in Bums II,” post, at 898. But the circumstance that this court may have endorsed an improper standard is of no mo*897ment. For example, the Supreme Court has reversed, vacated, or abrogated decisions of this court and those of other circuit courts in a series of recent cases relating to sentencing and criminal law. I have the highest regard for my distinguished colleagues who joined Bums II. Bums II represented the rule in this circuit until the judgment was vacated by the Supreme Court and remanded for reconsideration in light of Gall. When the high court vacated the judgment and remanded Bums II, its message seems clear: the discretion belongs with the district court.
A mandatory Sentencing Guidelines scheme ended with Booker. Today, this court recognizes that the role of federal appellate review of sentences has drastically changed with Gall. Thus begins a new era in sentencing, hopefully creating fairer sentences than many meted out under the mandatory guidelines regime. But let me add a word to district judges. Discretion is not unfettered and must be supported by good reasons for sentencing either above or below the now advisory guidelines or in determining the proper sentence below the statutory minimum for an offender’s “substantial assistance.”
II.
Although I agree with the majority’s application of the Gall standard to our review of § 3553(e) reductions, I reject the ruling that the government is “under no obligation to apprise the district court with respect to the bases underlying its recommendation of a particular downward departure under § 3553(e) in absence of a showing that its recommendation was based upon an unconstitutional motivation such as the defendant’s race or religion,” ante, at 893.
I stand by my dissent on this point in Bums II, when I wrote that the government is obliged to explain the basis for its recommendation to the district court, and I will not repeat that extensive explanation of my views here. See United States v. Burns, 500 F.3d 756, 770-77 (8th Cir.2007) (Bright, J., dissenting). I will, however, add two brief responses to the majority’s analysis of this issue.
First, the cases cited by the court for the proposition that the prosecutor has no duty to explain the basis for the departure recommendation are not directly on point. See United States v. Armstrong, 517 U.S. 456, 463-64, 116 S.Ct. 1480, 134 L.Ed.2d 687 (1996); Wade v. United States, 504 U.S. 181, 185-86, 112 S.Ct. 1840, 118 L.Ed.2d 524 (1992); United States v. Moeller, 383 F.3d 710, 712 (8th Cir.2004). They stand merely for - the unassailable premise that prosecutors, in contexts other than the one here, have “broad discretion” to enforce our Nation’s criminal laws. Armstrong, 517 U.S. at 464, 116 S.Ct. 1480 (internal quotation marks omitted). This premise leads the majority to conclude, by way of analogy, that the instant prosecutor had no obligation to make the district court aware of the government’s justification for the recommended reduction.
The analogy is flawed. Enforcement of the criminal statutes is not the issue; the question is which office, the prosecutor or the district court, should play the primary role at sentencing. After a period of upheaval and change in the area of sentencing, the answer is crystal clear: sentencing is for district courts and the discretion is to be exercised by them.
Second, the rule stated today suffers from another, potentially more serious, fault. Information and experience are the strongest bulwarks against discretion’s slide into caprice. I have no doubt that our district courts are experienced. The question is whether they will have adequate information to properly exercise their discretion. This is why I strongly disagree with a process that inherently *898restricts the efficacy of judicial discretion by encouraging the government to withhold crucial information from the district courts.
For these reasons, and those explained in my dissent in Bums II, I reject the majority’s conclusion that the prosecutor has no obligation to inform the district court of the rationale behind a reduction recommendation.
III.
The majority adheres to the panel decision in United States v. Williams, which held that when a district court has authority to sentence below a statutory minimum only by virtue of a government motion under § 3553(e), “the reduction below the statutory minimum must be based exclusively on assistance-related considerations.” 474 F.3d 1130, 1131 (8th Cir.2007).
I recognize that there is nothing in Gall that directly overrules or otherwise abrogates Williams, meaning that Williams remains good law in this circuit. But if I were writing on a clean slate, I would permit a district court to consider all factors, including those in § 3553(a), when determining whether, and to what extent, a sentence below the applicable statutory minimum is necessary.