Court Opinion

ID: 9487986
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:32:58.554195+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:37.256501
License: Public Domain

McWILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge,
concurring in the result.
I agree that Okane’s sentence should be vacated and that he be resentenced. However, I am of the firm view that the Sentencing Guidelines do not contemplate that where, as here, a district court, under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(b) and Sentencing Guideline § 5K2.0, decides to make an upward departure from a guideline range established by a prior determination of a defendant’s base offense level and criminal history category, that the district court may, in making such upward departure, go back, so to speak, and raise the defendant’s base offense level, or his criminal *838history category, or both, and then arrive at a second and “brand new” guideline range dramatically in excess of the original guideline range. The district court should simply depart upward from the guideline range, as established, and give its reasons therefor.
Sentencing Guideline § 5K2.3 provides that if a victim suffers psychological injury much more serious than that normally resulting from the commission of the offense, the district court “may increase the sentence above the authorized guideline range.” That guideline, in my view, by its own terms simply authorizes a district court, if it finds “serious psychological injury,” to “increase the sentence above the authorized guideline range,” but does not authorize a district court to factor the “serious psychological injury” into a recalculation of the base offense level and then come up with a second and “brand new” guideline range, much in excess of the original guideline range.