Court Opinion

ID: 9492498
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:42:33.532922+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:20.151096
License: Public Domain

BUTZNER, Senior Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. The district court granted the prosecutor’s motion to depart from the statutory minimum sentence pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3553(e). J.A. 45. The prosecutor erred by insisting that the starting point for departure was the statutory minimum sentence of 240 months. Section 3553(e) does not require that the point of departure be the statutory minimum sentence. Section 3553(e) accomplishes three objectives. First, it authorizes a court, upon motion by the government, to depart below “a level established by statute as a minimum sentence.” Second, it refers the court to the Sentencing Commission’s “guidelines and policy statements” for an appropriate sentence. And third, the sentence must be imposed in accordance with 28 U.S.C. § 994.
Section 994 directs the Commission to promulgate and distribute “guidelines, as described in this section, for use of a sentencing court in determining the sentence to be imposed in a criminal case.... ” Pillow’s guideline sentence was correctly determined to be 188 to 235 months in accordance with the Commission’s “guidelines and policy statements.”
Section 994(n) specifically provides:
The Commission shall assure that the guidelines reflect the general appropriateness of imposing a lower sentence than would otherwise be imposed, including a sentence that is lower than that established by statute as a minimum sentence, to take into account a defendant’s substantial assistance in the investigation or prosecution of another person who has committed an offense.
United States Sentencing Guideline § 5K1.1 provides in part: “Upon motion of the government stating that the defendant has provided substantial assistance in the investigation or prosecution of another person who has committed an offense, the court may depart from the guidelines.” The court also granted the prosecutor’s motion which he made pursuant to this section. J.A. 44^15. The low end of the guideline sentence was 188 months. Therefore, the district court should have departed from 188 months — that is, “from the guidelines” — in order to comply with the mandatory provisions of § 5K1.1.
The court stated: “I had contemplated a reduction from 188 months to 140 months as a three-point reduction, but since we do have the mandatory minimum of 240 months and that must be my beginning point, I cannot go to a sentence as low as I had contemplated.” My analysis would have enabled the district court to achieve a sentence of 140 months. This position is also consistent with, and supported by, USSG § 2D1.1, comment, (n.7):
Where a mandatory (statutory) minimum sentence applies, this mandatory minimum sentence may be “waived” and *409a lower sentence imposed (including a sentence below the applicable guideline range), as provided in 28 U.S.C. § 994(n), by reason of a defendant’s “substantial assistance in the investigation or prosecution of another person who has committed an offense.” See § 5K1.1 (Substantial Assistance to Authorities).
Although the prosecutor moved for departure under both 18 U.S.C. § 3553(e) and USSG § 5K1.1, he treats the two departures as a unitary system of departure. In truth, they are not unitary; instead they are separate departures, each with its own terms and function. Melendez v. United States, 518 U.S. 120, 116 S.Ct. 2057, 135 L.Ed.2d 427 (1996).
Other difficulties with the prosecutor’s position are readily apparent. The prosecutor relies on USSG § 5G1.1 which applies to sentencing on a single count of conviction. Pillow was convicted on two counts. The correct sentencing procedure is § 5G1.2, Sentencing on Multiple Counts of Conviction. Even if § 5Gl.l(a) and (b) are incorporated into § 5G1.2 by § 5G1.2(b), the statutory minimum sentence is not “required by law” because the district court has departed from the statutory minimum sentence, and it is no longer in existence.
Because I would remand for resentenc-ing, I respectfully dissent.