Court Opinion

ID: 9489645
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:20:29.858563+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:38.293588
License: Public Domain

WALD, Circuit Judge,
concurring specially:
Although the jury convicted Baylor only on the charges of conspiracy and the two distribution charges based on the May 19 transaction, the sentencing court, following the mandate of United States Sentencing Guidelines § lB1.3(a)(2),1 ruled that Baylor’s participation in the April transactions of which the jury acquitted him had been shown by a preponderance of the evidence, and accordingly adjusted Baylor’s offense level under § 2Dl.l(c)(2) to reflect the quantity of drugs involved in these transactions as well. As a result, Baylor’s base offense level and his ultimate sentence were exactly the same as they would have been had the jury found him guilty, instead of acquitting him, on the April transactions. There is something fundamentally wrong with such a result.
Guideline “law,” I am well aware, runs overwhelmingly against Baylor’s claim that a sentencing court should not use the core conduct underlying an acquittal to increase an offender’s base offense level for the crimes of which he was convicted. This circuit has gone along with most other circuits in ruling that the guidelines and the law authorizing their creation permit such use, and that this practice is constitutional. See United States v. Boney, 977 F.2d 624, 635-36 (D.C.Cir.1992) (citing cases from all circuits except the Ninth). Only the Ninth Circuit has held to the contrary, claiming that “[w]e would pervert our system of justice if we allowed a defendant to suffer punishment for a criminal charge for which he or she was acquitted.” United States v. Brady, 928 F.2d 844, 851 (9th Cir.1991).
But this consensual surface is eroded by a growing body of resistance to what commentators and scholars recognize as a blatant injustice. Despite the near unanimity of the circuit holdings, many individual judges have expressed in concurrences and dissents the strongest concerns, bordering on outrage, about the compatibility of such a practice with the basic principles underlying our system of criminal justice.2
*550Although I fully recognize that Boney requires affirmance on this issue, to my mind the use of acquitted conduct in an identical fashion with convicted conduct in computing an offender’s sentence leaves such a jagged scar on our constitutional complexion that periodically its presence must be highlighted and reevaluated in the hopes that someone will eventually pay attention, either through a grant of certiorari to resolve the circuit split, or a revision of the guidelines by the Sentencing Commission, or legislation to bar such a result; in Chief Judge Newman’s words “the law must be modified.”3 Time and experience show us increasingly that the assumptions underlying the decisions upholding the use of acquitted conduct to enhance sentencing are not sound.
The practice of sentencing defendants on the basis of crimes for which the defendant has been acquitted has been plausibly attacked along many jurisprudential fronts, including double jeopardy,4 failure to honor the right to a jury trial,5 failure to satisfy the “notice” requirement of a grand jury indictment,6 and due process.7 The explanation offered to defendants who object that they are being punished for crimes of which they have not been convicted is invariably that they “misperceive[ ] the distinction between a sentence and a sentence enhancement,” and that by adding the full measure of punishment specified in the guidelines for crimes of which they are not convicted, the court is merely “enhancing” the penalty for the crime of which they are convicted, not imposing liability for a separate crime. Boney, 977 F.2d at 636 (quoting United States v. Mocciola, 891 F.2d 13, 17 (1st Cir.1989)).8 The *551“enhanced” sentence, after all, still must fall within the statutory range set out for the crime of conviction. See Boney, 977 F.2d at 636.
Some of our own judges have recognized that this justification could not pass the test of fairness or even common sense from the vantage point of an ordinary citizen.9 The “law,” however, has retreated from that standard into its own black hole of abstractions. The fact remains that when the conduct which serves as the basis for a sentence “enhancement” is in fact treated by the criminal statutes and the sentencing guidelines as a discrete crime, separately charged in the indictment, and subjected to a separate determination of guilt or innocence by a jury, treating it subsequently at the sentencing stage as just another “factor” to be considered in “enhancing” the sentence for the crime of conviction introduces an artificiality into the process that violates time honored constitutional principles designed to protect criminal defendants.
The fact that the ultimate sentence based on both convicted and acquitted conduct falls below the statutory maximum for the crime of conviction does little, if anything, to counteract the basic unfairness of counting acquitted conduct. The statutory maxima for many felonies, which can run as high as 30 or 60 years, were originally set in an era of indeterminate sentencing and parole; the prevailing ideology of punishment was rehabilitation, and the system was designed to provide that offenders would remain in prison only until they had been “rehabilitated,” meaning prisoners often would be released after serving as little as one-third of their original sentences.10 The concept of guideline sentencing, on the other hand, was motivated by Congress’ determination that indeterminate sentencing and parole discretion resulted in unwarranted sentence disparities, and must be replaced by more rigid formulas allowing little or no discretion on the part of the judge.11 Thus the escape valves attached to the long sentences originally prescribed by statute have been slammed shut, and statutory maxima that were designed to cover the most egregious conceivable manifestations of particular crimes, and thus to far exceed the appropriate sentence in the average case,12 cannot be relied on to cabin within reasonable limits the cumulative penalties for convicted and acquitted charges.
Some courts have felt themselves constrained by the Supreme Court’s decision in McMillan ¶. Pennsylvania13 to respect the “punishment/enhaneement” fiction that underlies the authorization for counting acquitted conduct in § lB1.3(a)(2).14 A close reading of that opinion, and of the Specht v. Patterson15 decision to which it refers, however, suggests that even that fiction has boundaries which this portion of the guidelines has crossed over.
The statute reviewed in Specht authorized a sentencing court to determine that a person convicted of enumerated sex offenses constituted a threat to the public, or was an habitual offender and mentally ill, and on this basis to increase the sentence from the term specified in the crime of conviction to an indeterminate term between one day and life imprisonment.16 The statute made no provision for notice or hearing preceding this determination. The Court held that the statute *552was “deficient in due process” as it provided for “the making of a new charge leading to criminal punishment” without affording the defendant the safeguards considered essential to a fair trial.17
In McMillan, the Supreme Court addressed a challenge to Pennsylvania’s Mandatory Minimum Sentencing Act18 based in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the jury trial guarantee of the Sixth Amendment. The Act provided that anyone convicted of certain felonies must be sentenced to at least five years’ imprisonment if the judge finds by a preponderance of the evidence that the person “visibly possessed a firearm” during the commission of the offense.19 Individuals subjected to this sentence enhancement argued that the firearm possession was actually an element of the crime, and thus under In re Winship20 must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, and in the alternative that due process required that the firearm component be subject to a higher standard of proof than preponderance of the evidence.21
The Court found merit in neither claim, holding that Pennsylvania’s “chosen course in the area of defining crimes and prescribing penalties” did not violate the standard articulated in Specht.22 The Court noted that it had “never attempted to define precisely the constitutional limits noted in [Specht], i.e., the extent to which due process forbids the reallocation or reduction of burdens of proof in criminal cases,” and declined now to proffer any such definition, in light of other factors making it unnecessary to reach this issue.23 The Court noted, first, that the Pennsylvania Act created no presumptions of guilt and did not relieve the government of its burden of proving guilt, but rather became applicable only “after a defendant has been duly convicted of the crime for which he is to be punished.”24 Next, the Court observed that the Act enumerated felonies carrying maximum sentences of ten or twenty years, “upp[ing] the ante” for these felonies only insofar as the minimum sentence could not fall below five years; the Court concluded that the statute gave “no impression of having been tailored to permit the visible possession finding to be a tail which wags the dog of the substantive offense.”25 The Court rejected the petitioners’ invocation of Specht, noting that the statute struck down in Specht subjected the defendant to a “ ‘radically different situation’ from the usual sentencing proceeding,” whereas the Act merely raised the minimum sentence that may be imposed by the trial court.26 Finally, the Court rejected the petitioners’ warning that States would use any leeway the Court allowed them to restructure existing crimes in such a way as to evade the due process requirements announced in Winship, observing that Pennsylvania’s legislature had not changed the definition of any existing offense.27
The Court then turned to the petitioners’ “subsidiary” claim that visible possession of a firearm should be subjected to a higher standard of proof than “preponderance of the evidence.” Citing to the 1949 decision in Williams v. New York,28, the Court quickly dispensed with this argument on the basis of that decision’s holding that due process is not violated by the sentencing court’s “traditional[ ]” practice of hearing evidence and finding facts “without any prescribed burden of proof *553at an.”29
In addressing both sets of arguments pressed by the petitioners, the McMillan Court not only affirmed the continued vitality of Specht, but also used language that limited its holding regarding the inapplicability of Specht to situations in which the sentence “enhancement” relates to the particular event on which the conviction is based. The Court held that the Act did not fall under Specht because it “only bec[ame] applicable after a defendant has been duly convicted of the crime for which he is to be punished.” McMillan, 477 U.S. at 87, 106 S.Ct. at 2417 (emphasis added). Rejecting the claim that a higher burden of proof should apply, the Court noted that “[s]entencing courts necessarily consider the circumstances of an offense in selecting the appropriate punishment, and we have consistently approved sentencing schemes that mandate consideration of facts related to the crime, without suggesting that those facts must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.” Id. at 92, 106 S.Ct. at 2419 (emphases added).
The Court’s apparent assumption that punishment will relate to the crime of conviction, rather than to crimes for which the defendant has been acquitted, reflects a commonality of understanding about fundamental fairness shared by scores of judges and academics,30 as well as every nonfederal jurisdiction in the nation that has implemented guideline sentencing.31 The Federal Guidelines stand alone in perpetuating their anomalous treatment of acquittals in sentencing.
In sum, I do not believe the Supreme Court has yet sanctioned the intolerable notion that the same sentence can or must be levied on a person convicted of one crime, and acquitted of three “related” crimes, as can be imposed on his counterpart convicted of all four crimes. The result of such a system is subtly but surely to eviscerate the right to a jury trial or to proof beyond a reasonable doubt for many defendants. Yet we appear to have relentlessly, even mindlessly progressed down the path. It is time to turn back. The British novelist G.K. Chesterton once said: “[W]hen two great political parties agree about something, it is generally wrong.”32 I am afraid the same can be said in this one instance about great circuit courts.

. U.S.S.G. § lB1.3(a)(2) provides that, in determining an offender’s base offense level, a sentencing judge must consider:
solely with respect to offenses of a character for which § 3D 1.2(d) would require grouping of multiple counts, all acts and omissions [committed by the offender or foreseeably resulting from a jointly undertaken criminal activity] that were part of the sáme course of conduct or common scheme or plan as the offense of conviction[J
U.S.S.G. § 3D1.2(d) requires grouping of multiple counts:
When the offense level is determined largely on the basis of the total amount of harm or loss, the quantity of a substance involved, or some other measure of aggregate harm, or if the offense behavior is ongoing or continuous in nature and the offense guideline is written to cover such behavior.

. See, e.g., United States v. Frias, 39 F.3d 391, 392-94 (2d Cir.1994) (Oakes, J., concurring) (“This is jurisprudence reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland. As the Queen of Hearts might say, ‘Acquittal first, sentence afterwards.’ ’’); United States v. Hunter, 19 F.3d 895, 897-98 (4th Cir.1994) (Hall, J., concurring) (”[A]s regards charges on which the jury has acquitted the defendant, [‘pricing’ these charges at the same level of severity as convicted conduct for sentencing purposes] is just wrong."); United States v. Concepcion, 983 F.2d 369, 395-96 (2nd Cir.1992) (Newman, J., dissenting from the denial of a request for rehearing in banc) ("In some way, the law must be modified. A just system of criminal sentencing cannot fail to distinguish between an allegation of conduct resulting in a conviction and an allegation of conduct resulting in an acquittal.”); Boney, 977 F.2d at 637-47 (D.C.Cir.1992) (Randolph, J., dissenting in part and concurring in part) (“My analysis, and my colleagues' ... rests somewhat uneasily with the ‘special weight’ the Supreme Court has accorded acquittals in its Double Jeopardy jurisprudence.”); United States v. Galloway, 976 F.2d 414, 436-44 (8th Cir.1992) (Bright, J., dissenting) ("If the former Soviet Union or a third world country had permitted [the practice of punishing people for conduct that had not been the subject of indictment or trial] human rights observers would condemn those countries.”); United States v. Restrepo, 946 F.2d 654, 664-79 (9th Cir.1991) (Norris, J., dissenting) (arguing that the ‘preponderance of the evidence’ standard for counting *550conduct underlying acquitted charges in sentencing should be rejected) ("Circuit has followed circuit without, in some cases, even a vestige of independent analysis. ... There are signs, however, that the dam is finally cracking, signs of an emerging awareness of the truly profound implications of the changes the Guidelines have wrought.” (citing Brady)); United States v. Kikumura, 918 F.2d 1084, 1100-01 (3d Cir.1990) (“This [twelve-fold increase in the sentence] is perhaps the most dramatic example imaginable of a sentencing hearing that functions as 'a tail which wags the dog of the substantive offense. (Quoting McMillan v. Pennsylvania, 477 U.S. 79, 88, 106 S.Ct. 2411, 2417, 91 L.Ed.2d 67 (1986)). In this extreme context, we believe, a court cannot reflexively apply the truncated procedures that are perfectly adequate for all of the more mundane, familiar sentencing determinations.”); United States v. Jones, 863 F.Supp. 575, 578 (N.D.Ohio 1994) ("The right to a trial by juiy means little if a sentencing judge can effectively veto the jury's acquittal on one charge and sentence the defendant as though he had been convicted of that charge." (citing Brady)); United States v. Cordoba-Hincapie, 825 F.Supp. 485, 487 (E.D.N.Y.1993) ("Can the guarantees of a jury trial to determine the substantive predicates of criminality be shortcircuited by characterizing a critical element of great significance in deciding punishment as one for the judge to determine in fixing sentence — a sentence predetermined under fixed guidelines, not one imposed under a discretionary regime? ... Congress could not have intended such a bizarre and dangerous result when it adopted guideline sentences”).
A parallel body of work condemning sentencing based on acquitted conduct has been growing in the academic community. See, e.g., Kevin R. Reitz, Sentencing Facts: Travesties of Real-Offense Sentencing, 45 Stan L.Rev 523. (1993); David Yellen, Illusion, Illogic, and Injustice: Real-Offense Sentencing and the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, 78 Minn. L.Rev. 403 (1993); Elizabeth T. Lear, Is Conviction Irrelevant?, 40 UCLA L.Rev. 1179 (1993); Daniel J. Freed, Federal Sentencing in the Wake of Guidelines: Unacceptable Limits on the Discretion of Sentencers, 101 Yale L.J. 1681 (1992); Michael Tonry, Salvaging the Sentencing Guidelines in Seven Easy Steps, 4 Fed. Sentencing Rep. 355, 356-57 (1992); Gerald W. Heaney, The Reality of Guidelines Sentencing: No End to Disparity, 28 Am.Crim. L.Rev 161, 208-20 (1991).

. Concepcion, 983 F.2d at 396 (Newman, J., dissenting from the denial of a petition for rehearing).

. See, e.g., United States v. Rodriguez-Gonzalez, 899 F.2d 177, 181-82 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 844, 111 S.Ct. 127, 112 L.Ed.2d 95 (1990).

. See, e.g., Jones, supra note 2.

. See Lear, supra note 2, at 1229-33.

. See, e.g., Restrepo, supra note 2, at 664-79 (Norris, J., dissenting).

. In his separate concurring opinion. Judge Randolph recognized that “this conceptual nicety might be lost on a person who ... breathes a sigh of relief when the not guilty verdict is announced without realizing that his term of imprisonment may nevertheless be ‘increased’ if, at sentencing, the court finds him responsible for the same misconduct. That the Double Jeopardy Clause protects him from reprosecution on the acquitted count, or that his acquittal means that his maximum potential sentence will be determined solely on the basis of the count on which *551he was convicted is doubtless of little comfort." Boney, 977 F.2d at 647 (Randolph, J., dissenting in part and concurring in part).

. See supra note 8.

. See Michael H. Tonry, Real Offense Sentencing: The Model Sentencing and Corrections Act, 72 J.Crim. L. & Criminology 1550, 1593 (1981).

. See 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(6) (1994).

. See Michael Tonry, Sentencing Guidelines and the Model Penal Code, 19 Rutgers L.J. 823, 845 (1988).

. 477 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 2411, 91 L.Ed.2d 67 (1986).

. See, e.g., United States v. Mobley, 956 F.2d 450, 455 (3d Cir.1992).

. 386 U.S. 605, 87 S.Ct. 1209, 18 L.Ed.2d 326 (1967).

. See id. at 607-08, 87 S.Ct. at 1210-12.

. Id. at 611, 87 S.Ct. at 1213.

. 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9712 (1982).

. See McMillan, 477 U.S. at 81-82, 106 S.Ct. at 2413-14.

. 397 U.S. 358, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 25 L.Ed.2d 368 (1970).

. See McMillan, 477 U.S. at 83-84, 106 S.Ct. at 2414-15.

. See id. at 86, 91-93, 106 S.Ct. at 2416, 2418-20.

. See id. at 86, 106 S.Ct. at 2416.

. Id. at 87, 106 S.Ct. at 2417.

. Id. at 88, 106 S.Ct. at 2417.

. See id. at 89, 106 S.Ct. at 2417-18.

. See id. at 89-90, 106 S.Ct. at 2417-18.

. 337 U.S. 241, 69 S.Ct. 1079, 93 L.Ed. 1337 (1949).

. McMillan, 477 U.S. at 91-92, 106 S.Ct. at 2419.

. See supra note 2.

. See Tonry, supra note 2, at 356-57 (noting that the Federal Sentencing Commission is the only sentencing commission in the nation to reject the "charge offense” model, whereby sentences are based solely on crimes for which a defendant has been convicted, in favor of the "real offense” model, which allows sentencing courts to consider unconvicted and even acquitted crimes in setting the sentence).

. Jonathon Green, The Cynic's Lexicon 46 (1984).