Court Opinion

ID: 9482849
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:02:33.175151+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:49:14.713733
License: Public Domain

BRIGHT, Senior Circuit Judge,
concurring separately.
I concur in the result. Although the sentence does not violate the Guidelines, almost twenty years in prison for possession of cocaine with intent to distribute is a harsh result for this offender, now age thirty-eight. This sentence demonstrates yet again the vagaries of Guideline sentencing. A similar offender, who would have been under age eighteen when the prior offenses occurred, would not be a career offender, and would not have received this lengthy sentence but one no longer than eleven years and five months. This sort of gross disparity in sentencing often occurs under the Guidelines. See Gerald W. Heaney, The Reality of Guidelines Sentencing: No End to Disparity, 28 Am.Crim.L.Rev. 161, 188-89 (1991). The Career Offender provisions of the Guidelines should not operate as compulsory rules, but should instead function as general standards to aid sentencing judges. See Federal Courts Study Comm., Judicial Conference of the United States, Report of the Federal Courts Study Comm. 135-43 (1990). This case is another example of rigid guidelines producing inequity and injustice in sentencing, and demonstrates a need for the reformation, if not the abolishment, of Guideline sentencing.