Court Opinion

ID: 9492405
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:40:36.91665+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:17.605056
License: Public Domain

KENNEDY, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
While I concur in Judge Norris’ dissenting opinion, I write separately because I believe there are other respects in which the Majority errs.
It seems to me that the Majority’s concern regarding the targeting of parolees in this sting investigation is because of the duress and coercion resulting from the parolee’s circumstances. If so, U.S.S.G. § 5K2.12, Coercion and Duress, which authorizes the judge to depart downward “[i]f defendant committed the offense because of serious coercion, blackmail, or duress under the circumstances not amounting to a complete defense ... ”, is applicable and controlling here. As a result, improper investigatory techniques would be factors considered in the Sentencing Guidelines and this case falls within the “heartland” under § 5K2.12.1 See *363Koon v. United States, 518 U.S. 81, 94, 116 S.Ct. 2035, 135 L.Ed.2d 392 (1996). A departure may or may not be warranted depending on the factual determinations, although the guideline specifically states that personal financial difficulties do not warrant a decrease in the sentence.
Further, in applying § 5K2.12, the effect of the coercive conduct and duress on the defendant is what is to be measured. See § 5K2.12 (“The extent of the decrease ordinarily should depend on the reasonableness of the defendant’s actions and on the extent to which the conduct would have been less harmful under the circumstances as the defendant believed them to be.”).2 The Majority opinion, however, makes no reference to the effect of the government’s conduct on the defendant, but instead seems to focus on what it is that the government is charged with doing. I do not believe that the guidelines permit a downward departure under § 5K2.12 or even § 5K2.0 simply to punish the government without a showing that the government misconduct affected the culpability of the defendant. See United States v. Montoya, 62 F.3d 1, 5 (1st Cir.1995) (stating that unlike sentencing manipulation, which focuses on government misconduct, “the guidelines, and by extension departures from the guidelines, are centrally concerned with a proper sentence for the defendant in light of his own conduct and his own criminal history”); United States v. Janis, 69 F.3d 914, 915 (8th Cir.1995) (“A district court cannot depart where the only purpose of the departure is to deter government misconduct.”); United States v. Williams, 978 F.2d 1133, 1136 (9th Cir.1992) (holding that a downward departure is inappropriate when the only purpose of the departure is to deter government misconduct); but cf. United States v. Nolan-Cooper, 155 F.3d 221, 243 (3rd Cir.1998) (improper government investigatory conduct may remove case from the heartland and warrant a downward departure). Here, the defendant offered nothing as to how the government’s sting operation affected him.3 See United States v. Santoyo, 146 F.3d 519, 525-26 (7th Cir.1998) (holding that alleged government “cajoling,” without any proof of a Due Process Clause violation or a claim of Defendant’s lack of predisposition, did not remove case from “heartland.”). It would be difficult to do so since he engaged in five drug transactions, the last two after a period of time spent in jail. Although Koon refers to mitigating factors, I do not see how government misconduct, unless it affected the defendant’s conduct so that it lessens the seriousness of what he or she did, can be a mitigating factor. For these reasons and those stated by Judge Norris, I respectfully dissent.

. As the majority correctly notes, courts have used U.S.S.G. § 5K2.12 as a means for "downward departures in cases where the government has induced a defendant to commit a crime, but the defense of entrapment is not warranted.” See United States v. McClelland, 72 F.3d 717, 724-25 (9th Cir.1995). Although Koon precludes courts from refusing to consider relevant factors other than those proscribed by the Sentencing Commission, the Koon decision does not necessarily alter the manner in which courts classify government misconduct as a type of coercion or duress under U.S.S.G. § 5K2.12. I thus agree with the Majority that improper investigatory techniques may warrant a downward departure, but I would add that this is true only if the defendant has demonstrated duress, coer*363cion, or some additional factor that merits a removal from the "heartland” of § 5K2.12.

. In Koon, the Court required the departure factors to have an effect on the defendants. 513 U.S. at 94, 115 S.Ct. 537. The effect of the victim’s conduct on the defendants’ conduct was critical to the departures expressly provided by the guidelines. Id. at 101-05, 115 S.Ct. 537. It was the fact that the widespread publicity would make the defendants more likely to be targets of abuse in prison that justified the second approved departure. Id. at 112, 115 S.Ct. 537. It was the additional burden on the defendants of state and federal prosecutions for the same conduct that justified the final departure. Id. The Court sustained these three departures.

. In some ways, the majority opinion seemingly refers to sentencing manipulation, which this Circuit has never adopted, see United States v. Jones, 102 F.3d 804, 809 (6th Cir.1996), or the outrageous government conduct defense. See United States v. Sanchez, 138 F.3d 1410, 1413 (11th Cir.1998). Such claims, both variations on sentencing entrapment, focus on whether the government’s conduct is so outrageous that it offends the due process requirement of fundamental fairness. In making this determination, the courts do not necessarily consider the effect of the misconduct on the defendant. See Sanchez, 138 F.3d at 1414.