Court Opinion

ID: 9481507
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:21:21.289152+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:22.091711
License: Public Domain

HEANEY, Senior Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
The decision of the experienced Chief Judge of the District of Minnesota to depart downward was not only a wise and prudent one, but it was consistent with the guidelines. The judge made a modest reduction in the term of imprisonment from thirty-three to twenty-four months and recommended that Prestemon receive therapeutic help during this confinement. He additionally imposed a five-year term of supervised release after the term of imprisonment expired, a term longer than required by the guidelines.1 Certainly the substitution of two additional years of supervised release for nine months of confinement will more than adequately serve the interests of society.
Contrary to the view expressed in the majority opinion, downward departures are not rare. The four largest district courts in this circuit departed downward in eighteen percent of all cases in 1989.2 Nor does the enabling statute or the guidelines support the view that departures are intended to be rare.3 Rather, departures are to be made whenever a guidelines sentence does not accurately reflect all the circumstances — here, that certainly is the case.
The defendant was a first offender. He had an excellent academic record and strong parental support. As he grew older, however, he had difficulty coping with the fact that he is part black and his parents are white. The program director of the Children’s Home Society summarized the impact of Prestemon’s family situation in a letter to the court:
Damon joined the family at three months of age.... [His parents] were told he was of English and Irish descent but he *1279very definitely is part Black.... Damon was an ideal son until about two years ago.
... [The parents’] genuine love and acceptance of Damon as a person has made it unimportant to them whether he has this or the other attributes in his appearance. Thereby they have not been fully cognizant of Damon’s burden of racial definition he has had to carry alone....
Damon is a good looking young man, very polite and soft spoken, hiding any possible anger under a sweet, gentle veneer. He expressed fear and real terror of personal persecution as an African American, citing threats he had encountered. Mrs. Prestemon had not previously comprehended Damon’s fears and had not understood why he was not willing to accept job opportunities offered him in small Iowa towns after graduating from Brown Institute. He graduated in “Broadcasting” from there with a straight 4.0 grade average_
Damon’s parents have not been adequately prepared to cope with their son’s quite obvious mixed racial descent. They are unable to help, support and offer ideas or coping skills their son would have badly needed during the last few years....
The dynamics of Damons [sic] social/racial bewilderment and his impaired identity quest is a major factor, in my opinion, one that caused him to distance himself from his family, emotionally. They were unable to provide needed guidance in this area of adjustment and growth. There is a good example of “love alone is not enough!”
I am holding forth the strong hope that the Court’s order will include therapeutic help for Damon. He needs to work through racial identity confusion and also apparent faulty thought processes based on a possible combination of genetic predisposition.
These facts, not Prestemon’s race, moved the judge to impose the sentence that he did. Prestemon’s race was important only because it described his status as an adopted child in a “mixed race adoption proceedingf ]”.4
In light of these circumstances, I cannot understand how we can substitute our judgment for that of the district judge and say that the circumstances were not so unique as to permit the sentence that the district court imposed. As the Second Circuit has noted,
it was not Congress’ aim to straitjacket a sentencing court, compelling it to impose sentences like a robot inside a Guidelines’ glass bubble, and preventing it from exercising discretion, flexibility and independent judgment.
United States v. Lara, 905 F.2d 599, 604 (2d Cir.1990). While family ties and responsibilities are not ordinarily relevant in determining whether a sentence should be outside the guidelines, see U.S.S.G. § 5H1.6, they may be relevant in unusual cases. See, e.g., United States v. Big Crow, 898 F.2d 1326, 1331-32 (8th Cir.1990); United States v. Handy, 752 F.Supp. 561 (E.D.N.Y.1990). Prestemon’s is an unusual case.
The majority suggests that cross-racial or cross-cultural adoption is not “so unusual or atypical that the Sentencing Commission did not adequately take such circumstances into consideration in formulating the guidelines.” Information presented to the district court, however, shows that cross-racial adoptions are indeed “unusual or atypical.” Less than two percent of children in Minnesota are adopted; of these *1280adopted children, only around half are in “special categories”;5 of these “special category” children, only a portion are cross-racial adoptees; and of these cross-racial adoptees, only a portion will have difficulties with the law. As the majority concedes, there is nothing in the guidelines that refers to adoptive status, and the majority has not cited a single case involving adoptive status.
Guideline sentencing is a fact of life, but the guidelines do not require a judge to abandon common sense at sentencing. We should not restrict a sentencing judge’s discretion more than the guidelines do.
Just today this court approved an upward adjustment from three years to seven years for credit card fraud. United States v. Perkins, 929 F.2d 436 (8th Cir.1991). While I disagreed with the trial court’s decision to depart upward, I joined in the majority opinion because it is important to sustain a district court’s exercise of discretion. We should sustain that exercise here.

.The guidelines state that the court must impose a term of supervised release of at least three but not more than five years when the defendant is sentenced to prison for at least one year and has been convicted of a Class A or B felony. U.S.S.G. §§ 5Dl.l(a), 5D1.2(b)(l). Prestemon was convicted of violating 18 U.S.C. § 2113(a) and (d), a Class B felony, but that statute does not require the court to impose a term of supervised release.

. Two-thirds of these downward departures resulted from 5K1.1 motions by the government and one-third were for other reasons.

. See Oberlies, Reviewing the Sentencing Commission’s 1989 Annual Report, 3 Fed.Sent.R. 152, 153 (1990) (Commission has long recognized that appropriate departures are an essential part of any effectively functioning sentencing system).

. Although the guidelines purport to be neutral about race, the fact is that black offenders receive longer sentences under the guidelines than white offenders. In 1989, the average guidelines sentence for black offenders was 70.95 months, while the average guidelines sentence for white offenders was 37.3 months (data collected from the District of Minnesota, Eastern District of Arkansas, Eastern District of Missouri, and the Western District of Missouri, and adjusted to reflect time served).
Nationwide Sentencing Commission data with respect to 18 to 35 year old males sentenced under the guidelines in 1989 reveal that black defendants are receiving longer sentences under the guidelines than white defendants. Black males between 18 and 35 sentenced in 1989 under the guidelines will serve, on the average, about 68.5 months; in contrast, white males between 18 and 35 sentenced in 1989 under the guidelines will serve, on the average, about 44.7 months.

. "Special categories” includes children born in another country, children racially different than their adoptive parents, children older than infants when adopted, children adopted in a group along with their siblings, and children with physical or emotional difficulties.