Court Opinion

ID: 9499401
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:47:42.49345+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:59:29.168835
License: Public Domain

CONCURRENCE
JULIA SMITH GIBBONS, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the majority opinion’s disposition of this case but write separately to make two points.
First, in my view, Part I of the opinion treats defendant’s plainly meritless argument that the district court engaged in inappropriate fact-finding as one worthy of substantial analysis and thus glosses over the exact nature of the argument. Defendant’s argument is that the district court’s comments that his criminal history was “extensive and egregious” and that there was a “likelihood that defendant’s criminal lifestyle will continue” amounted to improper judicial fact-finding because the court went beyond merely finding the existence of defendant’s criminal convictions. While I find it difficult to accept defendant’s characterization of the district court’s observations as findings of fact,1 I will assume that he is correct for purposes of addressing this issue. The problem with defendant’s argument is that the district court’s ability to find facts post-Booker is not limited to a determination of prior convictions, and the district court’s going beyond the fact of conviction poses no Sixth Amendment problem whatever in an advisory guideline system. Booker, 543 U.S. at 233, 125 S.Ct. 738; see also United States v. Stone, 432 F.3d 651, 654-55 (6th Cir.2005) (rejecting defendants’ argument that the district court was without power *896to make factual determinations regarding the amount of tax loss or whether defendants obstructed justice in calculating the recommended guidelines range for defendants’ convictions on charges of conspiracy to commit tax fraud and tax evasion and noting that Booker did not eliminate judicial fact-finding but rather freed district courts to sentence defendants outside of the now advisory guidelines range). Thus, the easy answer to defendant’s argument is that if the district court found facts other than prior convictions, it was clearly permissible to do so. We need not work to place the court’s comments within the definition of prior conviction of Almendarez-Torres, as the majority opinion does.2
Second, while I have no difficulty with the general analysis in Part II of the opinion, it fails to state explicitly the ultimate impact of its approach. We deal here with an upward departure under § 4A1.3, which relates to the inadequacy of a defendant’s criminal history category. The advice to district courts in that policy statement section- — where, as in this case, a defendant’s criminal history category is VI — is to adjust the guideline range by moving down the sentencing table in Criminal History Category VI. The result will be a new advisory guideline range, within which the defendant may be sentenced. By contrast, the policy statements accompanying departures under § 5, Part K, of the advisory guidelines contemplate a process for departing that does not result in a new advisory range but rather a sentence outside the range. Even in the § 5, Part K, departure situation, however, courts have often used the steps of the sentencing table as a guide and have explained the departure in terms of a particular number of steps. Yet, the processes as conceptualized in the guideline policy statements do differ.
The majority opinion concludes that the pre-Boofcer standard first articulated in this circuit in Joan should continue to guide our analysis of upward departures3 under § 4A1.3. Its reasoning in doing so is sound, for the utilization of the Joan standard is analogous to our continued use of p:re-Booker standards to review guideline calculation decisions in other contexts. See, e.g., United States v. Davidson, 409 F.3d 304, 310 (6th Cir.2005). But using the Joan approach introduces a wrinkle into the guideline calculation process under § 4A1.3 because the third step of the analysis required by Joan involves reasonableness review. The majority deals with the wrinkle by importing our post-Booker case law and standards into the Joan analysis. The effect of application of the framework created by the majority is this: to the extent a district court departs from a particular guideline range to arrive at a new range based on inadequacy of the *897criminal history category, that departure is not entitled to a presumption of reasonableness but is subject to full reasonableness review. The absence of any presumption of reasonableness for the extent of departure makes sense given the fact that a § 4A1.3 departure involves an exercise of discretion that is somewhat akin to departures under § 5, Part K. The district court’s discretion is limited, however, by the language of § 4A1.3, and similarly, our reasonableness inquiry must focus on the degree of the departure and the extent to which the district court’s chosen departure range is reasonable in light of the considerations relevant to § 4A 1.3 departures.
Finally, it seems to me that once the departure under § 4A1.3 has been subject to Joan reasonableness review and the guideline range has otherwise been determined to be calculated accurately, the presumption of reasonableness should then attach to a sentence within the particular advisory guideline range that the court utilizes in sentencing a defendant. The majority opinion omits this step, but the omission makes no difference in the outcome in this case. Just as the departure to a higher guideline range was reasonable, so was the ultimate sentence, whether or not it was presumptively so. The omission does, however, obscure the fact that post -Booker reasonableness review should occur after the guideline range, with its included departure, has been determined. At this point, we look to consideration of § 3553(a) factors and apply the other principles that are part of post-Booker reasonableness review.

. In my view, these observations are part of the district court’s legal conclusion to apply § 4A1.3. The standard for upward departure under that section requires the court to conclude that the defendant’s criminal history category substantially under-represents the seriousness of his criminal history or the likelihood that he will commit other crimes. In its comments, the district court was clearly concluding that both prongs of the standard were met. The comment about recidivism is an explicit determination as to the latter prong, while the “extensive and egregious” remark is a prelude to and a part of the determination that the initial prong was met.

. The majority may well be correct that the district court could make these findings even if restricted by Almendarez-Torres. The government, citing Alford, 436 F.3d at 681, frames the principle in the following way: "[I]ssues implicit in the facts of other convictions ... need not be admitted by the defendant or proved to the jury, even under a mandatory system." (Appellee’s Br. at 10.)

. The majority opinion at times uses the word "variance,” which has been used both precisely and imprecisely post-Booker to refer to certain departures from the advisory guideline range. When used precisely, the term "variance” refers to departures based on § 3553(a) factors rather than departures under § 5, Part K, of the guidelines. See United States v. Cousins, 469 F.3d 572, 577 (6th Cir.2006). The departure here is under § 4A1.3 and is the only departure of its type mentioned in the guidelines — i.e., the only departure in which the court applies discretion under a given legal standard to arrive at a new range. The policy statement language uses the word "departure.” We are thus dealing with a "variance” only if the word is used in a very general sense.