Court Opinion

ID: 9488498
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:47:26.362956+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:55.756573
License: Public Domain

KAPLAN, District Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. In my view, there is no indication that the Sentencing Commission adequately considered assistance to State and local law enforcement authorities in formulating Section 5K1.1 of the Sentencing Guidelines. In consequence, the sentencing judge was mistaken in believing that he lacked power, absent a motion by the United States Attorney pursuant to Section 5K1.1, to consider whether to depart downward pursuant to Section 5K2.0 on the basis of appellant’s extensive cooperation with State and local authorities.
Section 5K2.0 of the Guidelines authorizes the imposition of a sentence outside the Guidelines range “if the Court finds ‘that there exists an aggravating or mitigating circumstance of a kind, or to a degree, not adequately taken into consideration by the Sentencing Commission in formulating the guidelines.’” U.S.S.G. § 5K2.0, quoting 18 U.S.C. § 3553(b); see Williams v. United States, 503 U.S. 193, 199, 112 S.Ct. 1112, 1119, 117 L.Ed.2d 341 (1992). In consequence, the issue for us is whether the Commission, in formulating Section 5K1.1 and thus in requiring a motion by the United States Attorney as a prerequisite to a downward departure based on assistance to law enforcement authorities, adequately considered assistance to State and local authorities.
The language of Section 5K1.1, as the majority points out, is extremely broad and most assuredly could embrace assistance to State and local authorities. Yet both the provenance of the language and the different considerations relevant to departures based on assistance to federal and to State and local authorities, respectively, suggest that the breadth of language is misleading and that the Commission did not adequately consider the matter.
To begin with, the broad language on which the majority relies was appropriated in haec verba in all material respects from 18 U.S.C. § 3553(e), which gives the courts authority, upon motion of the government, to impose a sentence below a statutorily prescribed minimum when a defendant provides “substantial assistance in the investigation or prosecution of another person who has committed an offense.” Not only was the language simply adopted, without any evidence of independent consideration by the Commission of this matter, but there is nothing in the legislative history to suggest that Congress had considered or resolved the question as it relates to departures from mandatory minima. Hence, it is doubtful that the Commission properly may be regarded as having adopted a Congressional judgment on the issue.
If there were no material difference in the considerations applicable to departures based on assistance to federal versus State and local authorities, the apparent lack of explicit consideration of the two situations would be of no moment. But there is an arguably material difference.
The policy underlying Section 5K1.1 and its requirement of a motion by the United States Attorney as a prerequisite to a downward departure for assistance is straightforward. It vests the responsibility for determining whether the defendant has provided “substantial assistance” in the prosecutor rather than the sentencing court based on the premise that the United States Attorney is better able to evaluate that assistance than the sentencing judge. See, e.g., United States v. Cheng Ah-Kai, 951 F.2d 490, 494 (2d Cir.1991); see also U.S.S.G. § 5K1.1, App. Note 3.
The accuracy of this premise in the case of assistance to federal authorities is almost self evident. The United States Attorneys, by virtue of their frequent involvement in federal investigations and relationships with federal investigative agencies, almost invariably are in a better position than the court to evaluate the defendant’s cooperation with federal law enforcement activities. The same cannot be said, however, for their ability to evaluate cooperation with State and local efforts. In some cases, particularly situations involving joint federal-state efforts, they will be better situated than the sentene-*245ing court.1 In other circumstances, they will have no advantage at all. Thus, a reasoned judgment to treat the two situations differently seems entirely possible.
It is, of course, for the Sentencing Commission to determine this question and, once it resolves it, for the courts to adhere to its judgment. Congress, however, has defined with precision the sources to which we may turn in determining what the Commission has considered. Section 3553(b) provides that in determining what the Commission has considered, “the courts shall consider only the sentencing guidelines, policy statements, and official commentary of the Sentencing Commission.” 18 U.S.C. § 3553(b) (emphasis added). The breadth of language of Section 5K1.1 is not compelling in view of the fact that it appears to have been lifted wholesale from a statute which similarly did not address the issue. There is nothing else in the guidelines, policy statements and official commentary that demonstrates consideration of the question by the Commission. In consequence, I believe the sentencing judge had the power to consider a downward departure under Section 5K2.0.

. In this case, the United States Attorney probably was in a position superior to that of the sentencing court because appellant cooperated with a joint BATF-Nassau County investigation. This, however, goes to the weight the sentencing court might attach to the government's views rather than to the sentencing court's power to depart.