Court Opinion

ID: 9480524
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:50:32.121136+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:47:44.606803
License: Public Domain

WILKINSON, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
The majority holds that the Sentencing Guidelines confer upon federal sentencing courts the power to entertain challenges to the constitutionality of prior state convictions that may be used to enhance a federal sentence. This ruling marks an extraordinary expansion of federal judicial power to invalidate state convictions. The decision is ruinous both to federalism and finality, as it opens up yet another channel for criminal defendants to attack the validity of state convictions without even requiring exhaustion of state remedies. Because I believe that federal law, properly construed, requires a federal sentencing court to respect state convictions which the federal defendant has been given a full and fair opportunity to litigate, I dissent.1
I.
The imposition the majority’s holding places on our federal system, the new burden it visits on the federal judiciary, and the severe threat it poses to the finality of convictions can best be appreciated by considering just how frequently the federal judicial power announced by the majority will be invoked by criminal defendants being sentenced pursuant to the Sentencing Guidelines. As examination of the Guidelines makes clear, the majority’s holding will allow almost every federal defendant with prior convictions to bring unrestricted attacks on those prior convictions at the federal sentencing stage.
Under the Sentencing Guidelines, a defendant’s criminal history category is a primary factor in the determination of his sentencing range; the higher the category, the greater the sentence he receives. See U.S.S.G. Ch. 5 Pt. A (Sentencing Table). Section 4A1.1 computes a defendant’s criminal history category by assigning points on the basis of length of sentence for certain types of prior convictions. For example, a prior conviction that resulted in a custody sentence of more than 13 months counts 3 points, while a prior sentence of at least sixty days (but less than 13 months) counts two points. Id. at § 4Al.l(a) & (b). The sum of the points correlates, in turn, to a particular criminal history category. Id. at Ch. 5 Pt. A. By comparison, under § 4B1.1 career offenders like Jones and Johnson — defined as defendants at least 18 years of age who are convicted of certain serious felonies and who have at least two serious prior felony convictions — are automatically assigned to the highest criminal history category.
No matter which method is used to determine a defendant’s criminal history category, placement in a particular category is always based on prior convictions. Because the criminal history category is an important variable in every sentencing determination under the Guidelines, the federal judicial power recognized by the majority to review and invalidate underlying pri- or convictions can be invoked by virtually every federal defendant with a criminal record. And given the relatively low cost and the potentially high return of such a collateral attack, every criminal defendant can now be expected to bring one.
In this new round of collateral review, the defendant will always be represented by counsel. Because such representation is not afforded as a matter of right under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, federal sentencing hearings may now be viewed as the preferred arena for plenary review of prior state convictions. Every criminal conviction in the country — state and federal, exhausted and unexhausted, old and new — recognized in Chapter 4 of the Guidelines as a potential basis for sentence enhancement will *471now be open to a novel form of collateral challenge by recidivist federal offenders.
The majority attempts to soft-pedal the significance of its holding by asserting that the power to invalidate a state conviction for federal sentencing purposes is a mere adjunct to the sentencing function that will not involve release of a prisoner from custody and that will have no preclusive effect in the state that rendered the “invalid” conviction. It insists that the authority to invalidate convictions will not disrupt the sentencing process, for sentencing courts can fashion procedures to hear challenges to prior convictions and will maintain substantial flexibility to make upward departures. I regard such assurances as nothing but sheep’s clothing: This decision distorts the will of Congress, undermines the philosophy of the Sentencing Guidelines, disregards much of the Supreme Court’s habeas corpus jurisprudence of the last two decades, imposes substantial new burdens upon probation officers, federal prosecutors, and district judges, and dramatically reorders the relationship between state and federal courts.
II.
The federal judicial power claimed by the majority is extraordinarily broad, exceeding in many ways the authority of federal courts in habeas jurisdiction, 28 U.S.C. § 2254. A federal habeas court’s power to invalidate state convictions is explicitly provided for in a comprehensive statutory scheme, and is carefully circumscribed by rules that take into account the strong countervailing concerns of federalism, see, e.g., 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b) (exhaustion requirement), and finality, see, e.g., Rule 9(a) governing § 2254 proceedings (addressing delayed petitions). In contrast, the judicial power discovered today derives from one sentence in the Guidelines Commentary, accords no respect to state judicial processes, and is practically unbounded by time.
A.
The majority lacks authority for the power that it claims. Federal courts cannot exercise adjudicatory authority unless Congress affirmatively confers on them the right to do so. Bender v. Williamsport Area School District, 475 U.S. 534, 541, 106 S.Ct. 1326, 1331, 89 L.Ed.2d 501 (1986). The presumption against federal jurisdiction, see Dracos v. Hellenic Lines, Ltd., 762 F.2d 348, 350 (4th Cir.1985), which is grounded in separation of powers concerns, is even more compelling when the jurisdiction in question involves the power to invalidate state judgments, for in such a situation principles of federalism are also implicated.
Congress has seen fit to grant federal courts the authority to adjudge the validity of state judgments in two instances: 28 U.S.C. § 1257 provides for Supreme Court review of certain final state judgments, and 28 U.S.C. § 2254 provides federal habe-as review for state prisoners. Accordingly, “except in a habeas corpus case [under 28 U.S.C. § 2254], no federal court other than the Supreme Court [under 28 U.S.C. § 1257] has jurisdiction to review the decision of a state court.” Lynk v. LaPorte Superior Ct. No. 2, 789 F.2d 554, 563 (7th Cir.1986).
Certainly there is no such jurisdiction here. The purported source of jurisdiction — Application Note 6 in the Commentary to § 4A1.2 of the Sentencing Guidelines — provides that “[c]onvictions which the defendant shows to have been constitutionally invalid may not be counted in the criminal history score.”2 The Note is *472phrased as a limitation on the sentencing power of federal- courts, not as a conferral of federal jurisdiction. It prohibits a federal sentencing court from using invalid prior convictions to enhance the length of a federal sentence, and places the burden on the defendant to “show” the convictions “to have been constitutionally invalid.” The Note is utterly silent with respect to the authority to declare convictions invalid, and thus provides no basis to overcome the presumptive lack of federal jurisdiction to do so.
The majority’s discovery of the power to invalidate state convictions in a single sentence in an Application Note that is silent on the issue is all the more extraordinary because the Application Note by itself lacks the force of law. The Guidelines state that the Commentary, which includes the Application Notes, should be “treated as the legal equivalent of a policy statement,” U.S.S.G. § 1B1.7, “much like legislative history or other legal material that helps determine the intent of a drafter,” U.S.S.G. § 1B1.7, comment. They are .to be used as a way to “interpret the guideline or explain how it is to be applied.” U.S.S.G. § 1B1.7. An Application Note thus has no legal significance independent of its power to illuminate a Guideline. Rather than identifying the Guideline in § 4A1.2 that Application Note 6 purports to clarify, the majority takes the Application Note itself as an independent basis for the judicial power it assumes. See, e.g. Op. at 461 (referring to “the sentencing challenge procedure authorized by Guideline § 4A1.2, Application Note 6”); id. at 28 (“§ 4A1.2 Application Note 6 provides for some kind of opportunity ... to challenge a possibly invalid prior conviction before its use in sentencing”). The majority’s interpretive legerdemain elevates Application Note 6 — the legal equivalent of legislative history — to the status of a Guideline which confers an unprecedentedly broad grant of federal jurisdiction to invalidate state judgments. To describe the provenance of today’s holding is to disclose its groundlessness.
The proper place to begin is not with the Commentary to the Guidelines, but rather with the Guidelines themselves. Section 4A1.2(j) of the Guidelines explicitly speaks to the use of invalid convictions. It states:
Sentences for expunged convictions are not counted, but may be considered under § 4A1.3 (Adequacy of Criminal History Category).
As the past tense adjective “expunged” indicates, § 4A1.2Q) prohibits a sentencing court from counting convictions that have been invalidated prior to their use as sentencing factors. See, e.g., United States v. Schweihs, 733 F.Supp. 1174, 1176-77 (N.D.Ill.1990) (“expunged conviction” in § 4A1.2(j) is “a conviction that has been reversed”).
In view of the fact that the Sentencing Commission specifically stated in § 4A1.2(j) of the Guidelines that already-expunged convictions must not be counted in the Criminal History Score, it is impossible to believe that the Commission would relegate to a single sentence in an Application Note the much more extraordinary authority to invalidate state convictions.3 Using the Application Notes to “explain” and “interpret” the Guidelines, see U.S.S.G. § 1B1.7, *473it is clear that Application Note 6 is nothing more than a gloss on § 4A1.2(j)’s prohibition against counting already-expunged convictions. The first sentence of Application Note 6 elaborates the meaning of § 4A1.2(j):
Sentences resulting from convictions that have been reversed or vacated because of errors of law, or because of subsequently-discovered evidence exonerating the defendant, are not to be counted.
The contested sentence in Application Note 6, which prohibits the counting of convictions that “the defendant shows to have been constitutionally invalid,” merely adds that the criminal defendant has the burden of “showing” the fact of the conviction’s invalidity.4 The elevation of the rather innocuous assertion that the defendant has the burden of verifying that a conviction has been invalidated into an unprecedented grant of federal jurisdictional authority is indefensible.
B.
The majority attempts to skirt the dearth of jurisdictional authority for its holding by insisting that a federal sentencing court’s power to inquire into and invalidate state convictions “raises questions not of federal jurisdiction but only of the proper exercise of the sentencing court’s discretion and the permissible breadth of the sentencing court’s inquiry.” Op. at 462. The majority consults a rather eclectic band of sources in support of its claim. None of the grounds it offers, however, is convincing.
Certainly 18 U.S.C. § 3661 does not confer the authority to invalidate convictions. Section 3661 states:
No limitation shall be placed on the information concerning the background, character, and conduct of a person convicted of an offense which a court of the United States may receive and consider for the purpose of imposing an appropriate sentence.
Section 3661 is incorporated with modifications in the Guidelines at § 1B1.4:
In determining the sentence to impose within the guideline range, or whether a departure from the guidelines is warranted, the court may consider, without limitation, any information concerning the background, character and conduct of the defendant, unless otherwise prohibited by law. See 18 U.S.C. § 3661.
The majority interprets these provisions to provide “that for purposes of federal sentencing there is no statutory limitation on the breadth of the sentencing court’s inquiry.” Op. at 467. Within this “limitless” range of inquiry the majority finds the authority to invalidate convictions.
This authority exceeds even the majority’s own expansive reading of § 3661 and § 1B1.4. Assuming, arguendo, the correctness of the majority’s interpretation of these provisions td permit a federal court to go behind and invalidate state convictions in the interest of ascertaining information about the defendant’s background, character and conduct, its holding still does not follow. The majority’s rule gives federal courts blanket authority to inquire into the validity of state convictions regardless of whether the purportedly invalid convictions disclose anything about the defendant’s person. However, numerous bases for invalidating a conviction reveal nothing about the defendant’s conduct, background, or character — for example, Fourth Amendment violations, see, e.g., Arizona v. Hicks, 480 U.S. 321, 107 S.Ct. 1149, 94 L.Ed.2d 347 (1987) (excluding evi*474dence obtained during search without probable cause), jurisdictional defects, see, e.g., Gomez v. United States, — U.S. -, 109 S.Ct. 2237, 104 L.Ed.2d 923 (1989) (conviction reversed because federal magistrate lacked jurisdiction to conduct jury selection), violations of the attorney-client privilege, see, e.g., United States v. White, 887 F.2d 267 (D.C.Cir.1989) (conviction reversed because evidence admitted in violation of attorney-client privilege), lack of proper venue, see, e.g., United States v. Blecker, 657 F.2d 629 (4th Cir.1981) (government’s failure to prove venue was reversible error), a defective indictment, see, e.g., United States v. Haga, 821 F.2d 1036 (5th Cir.1987) (variance between charges in indictment and basis of defendant’s conviction warrants reversal), and a reliable confession obtained without adequate assurances of voluntariness, see, e.g., Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966). Other bases for invalidation of a conviction — for example, confrontation clause violations, the prosecutor’s failure to disclose potentially exculpatory evidence, judicial or prosecutorial misconduct before the jury, vindictive or selective prosecution, and jury contamination by extraneous influence — might or might not speak to the defendant’s character depending on the circumstances of each case. Although the logic of the majority’s rationale requires close attention to these distinctions, the majority is oblivious to them in recognizing an unqualified power to invalidate state convictions for purposes of federal sentencing. Thus, even the majority’s expansive reading of 18 U.S.C. § 3661 and U.S.S.G. § 1B1.4 — which ties, and thus limits, the power to invalidate convictions to the power to inquire into the defendant’s character — does not justify the exercise of judicial power asserted in its holding.
In any event, neither 18 U.S.C. § 3661 nor its embodiment in U.S.S.G. § 1B1.4 can support anything approaching this expansive reading. By their own terms, § 3661 and § 1B1.4 simply allow sentencing courts to consider information “concerning the background, character, and conduct ” of a criminal defendant (emphasis added). They permit courts to consider information about the defendant’s person that may be relevant to sentencing.5 The majority mentions not a single case in which a court relies on U.S.S.G. § 1B1.4 or 18 U.S.C. § 3661 (or § 3661’s predecessor, 18 U.S.C. § 3577) to inquire into and invalidate a prior state conviction. And with good reason: It is a far leap from the rather commonplace assertion that a sentencing court may consider information about a defendant’s character and background to the position that it may review, ab initio and without specific authorization, the validity of a conviction rendered by a forum which was much more fully and intimately connected with it. The court’s authority to learn as much as possible about the defendant’s character can no more be used as a basis to inquire into and invalidate a presumptively valid prior conviction than it can be used to inquire into and validate a previously reversed conviction that the sentencing court believes was erroneously overturned. Under the Guidelines the sentencing court must receive and consider the fact of a felony conviction — valid or expunged — as it is presented. The authority under 18 U.S.C. § 3661 and U.S.S.G. § 1B1.4 to consider for sentencing purposes information concerning the defendant’s character simply does not add up to the quite different authority needed to in*475validate a state conviction, and the majority’s derivation of the latter from the former is wholly unwarranted.
Equally unavailing is the majority’s attempt to locate the source of its authority in United States v. Tucker, 404 U.S. 443, 92 S.Ct. 589, 30 L.Ed.2d 592 (1972). In Tucker, the defendant brought a habeas suit under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 attacking the length of his federal sentence that had been enhanced pursuant to state convictions that were declared invalid prior to the § 2255 proceeding. 404 U.S. at 445 & n. 2, 92 S.Ct. at 590 & n. 2. Tucker held that the concededly invalid state convictions could not be used to enhance the length of the federal defendant’s sentence. Tucker never considered a federal sentencing court’s authority to assess the validity of a prior state conviction used to enhance a federal sentence, and nothing in Tucker or any subsequent Supreme Court decision suggests that such a power exists.
The majority’s attempt to glean this power from “the interaction between §§ 4A1.2 and 4A1.3” of the Sentencing Guidelines, Op. at 468, also fails. The majority makes much of the fact that “any conviction that is not counted in the criminal history score may be considered pursuant to § 4A1.3 if it provides reliable evidence of past criminal activity.” U.S.S.G. 4A1.2, comment, (n. 6). It chides the dissent for failing to appreciate the “substantial flexibility afforded the sentencing court by § 4A1.3,” which it views as “an invitation by the Sentencing Commission to depart upward based on conduct underlying an invalid, or arguably so, conviction.” Op. at 465-466. The majority appears to believe that because § 4A1.3 provides for consideration of conduct underlying an invalid conviction that cannot itself be counted in § 4A1.2, it also provides an antecedent power to invalidate convictions.
This is clearly wrong. First, the majority’s interpretation of § 4A1.3 as an “invitation to depart” in the face of even “arguably invalid” convictions negates the very structure of the Guidelines, which prescribe presumptive ranges of punishment that may be departed from only in exceptional circumstances. See 18 U.S.C. § 3553(b); see also U.S.S.G. § 4A1.3, comment. (departures warranted only in the “limited circumstances where reliable information indicates that the criminal history category does not adequately reflect the seriousness of the criminal defendant’s criminal history”) (emphasis added); Guidelines Manual, Chap. 1, Part A, Introduction 4(b) (“Commission believes that ... [courts] will not [depart] very often”). The majority thus diminishes the significance of the Guidelines’ sentencing ranges and re-injects broad discretion into a system that was designed to cabin discretion.
More importantly, the majority’s focus on the fact that sentencing courts can consider under § 4A1.3 conduct underlying invalid convictions that cannot be counted under § 4A1.2 begs the central question of when, how, and by whom these convictions may be invalidated. Indeed, all of the various bases offered by the majority for today’s holding — Application Note 6, “the interaction between §§ 4A1.2 and 4A1.3,” 18 U.S.C. § 3661, Tucker, and Davenport —suffer from the same essential defect: Although they all relate to the prohibition against the use of invalid state convictions to enhance sentences, none speaks to the significantly different issue of federal judicial power to invalidate state convictions. Such jurisdictional authority over states can only be conferred by Congress, see 28 U.S.C. §§ 1257, 2254, and none has been conferred here.
C.
In addition to the particular errors in the majority’s interpretation of the Guidelines, its ruling suffers from a broader, and more portentous, flaw. This larger problem concerns the philosophy of discretionary sentencing inherent in the majority’s logic, which until now I had thought was precisely the philosophy that the Sentencing Act of 1984, and the Guidelines promulgated thereunder, rejected.
In the majority’s world, sentencing judges possess unlimited discretion to consider any factor about a defendant’s past in order to mete out the precise sentence that *476“justice” requires. Believing that the Guidelines “have [not] limited ... the reach of the sentencing court’s traditional and statutory power to consider prior convictions,” Op. at 467, the majority would use 18 U.S.C. § 3661 and U.S.S.G. § 1B1.4, inter alia, as wideranging tools to look behind the objective evidence of presumptively valid convictions in search of a more personal and detailed insight into the character of the defendant. This invariably subjective, increasingly personalized inquiry is absolutely antithetical to the purpose of the Sentencing Guidelines.
Prior to the establishment of the Guidelines, “the Federal Government employed in criminal cases a system of indeterminate sentencing.” Mistretta v. United States, 488 U.S. 361, 109 S.Ct. 647, 650, 102 L.Ed.2d 714 (1989). Because this system presupposed that rehabilitation was the goal of sentencing, it “required the judge and the parole officer to make their respective sentencing and release decisions upon their own assessments of the offender’s amenability to rehabilitation. As a result, the court and the officer were in positions to exercise, and usually did exercise, very broad discretion.” Id. The indeterminate sentencing system suffered at least two major difficulties. First, “[rehabilitation as a sound penological theory came to be questioned.” Id. at 651. Second, because the system gave almost unfettered discretion to the sentencing judge, “[sjerious disparities in sentencing ... were common.” Id.
Dissatisfaction with these and other flaws led Congress to pass the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984. The Act rejected the “outmoded rehabilitation model” at the heart of the indeterminate sentencing system and established a Sentencing Commission to institute instead a “mandatory-guideline system.” Id. at 651-52. In accordance with the congressional mandate, the guidelines were “designed to create uniform, determinate sentences based upon the crime committed, not the offender.” United States v. Mejia-Orosco, 867 F.2d 216, 218 (5th Cir.1989).
In addition, the Guidelines “substantially circumscribe the discretion which sentencing courts formerly exercised.” United States v. Allen, 873 F.2d 963, 966 (6th Cir.1989). The Commission achieved this goal by translating numerous sentencing factors into categories of offense behavior and offender characteristics that, when applied to the facts of a particular crime, yield a determinate range of sentences for each class of convicted persons. Congress made the Guidelines sentencing ranges “binding on the courts,” Mistretta, 109 S.Ct. at 652, unless a court is presented with sentencing factors not considered by the Commission:
The court shall impose a sentence of the kind, and within the range, [of the Guidelines] unless 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 that should result in a sentence different from that described.
18 U.S.C. § 3553(b) (emphasis added). The Guidelines’ utilization of a multitude of sentencing factors, combined with a court’s ability to depart from Guideline ranges in unusual situations not contemplated by the Commission, ensures individualized sentencing in every case. Allen, 873 F.2d at 966. But if an aggravating or mitigating circumstance was adequately taken into account by the Commission, departure from the Guidelines is unwarranted. See United States v. Summers, 893 F.2d 63, 66 (4th Cir.1990); United States v. Daiagi, 892 F.2d 31, 34 (4th Cir.1989).6
The flaw in the majority’s logic lies in its utter failure to appreciate that the Guidelines channel the inherently subjective nature of the traditional sentencing inquiry by determining in advance the relevance for sentencing purposes of many sentencing factors. The Guidelines themselves al*477ready account for most factors that pertain to sentencing, as well as the precise degree to which they are relevant. Thus, the power to learn about the defendant’s character, which the majority believes to be plenary and to include the power to invalidate convictions, is circumscribed by provisions in the Guidelines that determine precisely how such personal information should be assessed and computed. At Congress’ direction, see 28 U.S.C. § 994(d), the Guidelines list several factors — race, sex, national origin, creed, religion, and socio-economic status — that may never be considered as either aggravating or mitigating circumstances. U.S.S.G. § 5H1.10, p.s. Also in compliance with a clear congressional mandate, see 28 U.S.C. § 994(e),7 the Guidelines provide that several other factors — age, education and vocational skills, mental and emotional conditions, physical condition (including drug and alcohol dependence), employment record, and family and community ties — are generally irrelevant except in an extraordinary case. U.S.S.G. § 5H1.1-6, p.s. These factors all concern the defendant’s background, character, and conduct. Nonetheless, it is reversible error for a court to depart from a Guideline range through reassessment of these and other factors which the Commission has already taken into account and accorded determinate sentencing weight. See, e.g., United States v. Brand, 907 F.2d 31 (4th Cir.1990) (trial court departure based on finding of extraordinary family responsibilities erroneous and thus violative of U.S. S.G. § 5H1.6., p.s.); United States v. Summers, 893 F.2d at 69 (district court downward departure based on age of defendant violative of U.S.S.G. 5H1.1., p.s.).
Consistent with these explicit limitations on a court’s power to inquire into the defendant’s background, character and conduct, U.S.S.G. § 1B1.4 recognizes that other provisions of the Guidelines circumscribe its scope. Section § IB 1.4 states that in determining the sentence to impose within the guideline range or whether departure is warranted, the sentencing court may consider information about a defendant’s background without limitation, “unless otherwise prohibited by law ” (emphasis added). Congress’ requirement in 28 U.S.C. §§ 994(d) and (e) that certain facts about a defendant’s background and character must not be considered at all (or only in a very limited way), and the Commission’s policy statements in U.S.S.G. § 5H reflecting the limited relevance of these factors, both constitute law that, as § 1B1.4 recognizes, prohibits the unlimited inquiry authorized by the majority.
The majority now casually dismantles this careful structure. It is obvious that the Guidelines prohibit the majority from sanctioning a limitless, standardless, subjective inquiry into a defendant’s background. The power to inquire about a defendant’s person is rigorously circumscribed, and certainly cannot be invoked as authority to reassess the validity of a prior conviction. Just as the Guidelines determine the relevance and weight, for sentencing purposes, of certain personal characteristics, they also speak in comprehensive detail about which prior convictions can and cannot be used as sentencing factors. See U.S.S.G. Chapter 4. Because the relevance and weight of a prior conviction, as well as its potential invalidity, are factors that the Guidelines thoroughly “take into consideration,” a court is bound by the criminal history score generated by U.S. S.G. chapter 4, and is prohibited from performing its own personal inquiry into a conviction’s validity as a basis for departing from a Guideline range. 18 U.S.C. § 3553(b).
I recognize, of course, that discretion has not been altogether eliminated under the Sentencing Guidelines, and that discretion *478still inheres in selecting the sentence within the appropriate guideline range and in determining whether or not to depart from the guideline range in unusual circumstances. To acknowledge that such discretion remains is not, however, to overlook the essential point that the Guidelines have curtailed what was once almost unfettered sentencing discretion by objectifying sentencing factors and establishing determinate sentencing parameters. In the face of this curtailment, the majority now bestows on federal courts, in the name of discretion, a free-wheeling power to invalidate prior criminal convictions. Still riding its personalized horse of justice over the sentencing plain in each individual case, the majority fails to comprehend that under the Guidelines, justice is achieved through determinate sentencing. This failure makes all the more egregious the majority’s deduction of the power to invalidate convictions from the power to inquire into character.
III.
In arrogating jurisdiction to invalidate state convictions, the majority refuses to recognize the doctrine of exhaustion of state remedies and the comity concerns that underlie it. The exhaustion doctrine predates its statutory embodiment in 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b) and “flows from the essential nature of our federal system wherein both federal and state courts are ‘equally bound to guard and protect rights secured by the Constitution.’ ” United States v. Gaylor, 828 F.2d 253, 255 (4th Cir.1987) (quoting Ex parte Royall, 117 U.S. 241, 245, 6 S.Ct. 734, 736, 29 L.Ed. 868 (1886)). Exhaustion “is principally designed to protect the state courts’ role in the enforcement of federal law and prevent disruption of state judicial proceedings.” Rose v. Lundy, 455 U.S. 509, 518, 102 S.Ct. 1198, 1203, 71 L.Ed.2d 379 (1982). The doctrine recognizes that “it would be unseemly in our dual system of government for the federal courts to upset a state-court conviction without affording to the state courts the opportunity to correct a constitutional violation.” Duckworth v. Serrano, 454 U.S. 1, 4, 102 S.Ct. 18, 20, 70 L.Ed.2d 1 (1981).
The majority disregards nonetheless the consistent admonition of this circuit that “state remedies must be exhausted before a federal forum will pass upon the validity of a prior conviction in connection with a [claim that the prior conviction illegally enhanced a federal sentence].” Strader v. Troy, 571 F.2d 1263, 1268 (4th Cir.1978). In Brown v. United States, 483 F.2d 116 (4th Cir.1973), the defendant brought a § 2255 proceeding to challenge a federal sentence that was enhanced by three allegedly invalid prior state convictions. The Brown court refused to entertain a collateral challenge to the state court convictions, primarily because it would circumvent the requirement to exhaust state remedies. It detailed, rather presciently, the damage visited by the majority upon orderly procedure:
If the state conviction is in another state from that in which the 2255 proceedings are had, the State procuring the challenged conviction would not be a party to the proceeding, would not have been heard on the invalidation of its conviction, and would have been denied the right to a prior exhaustion of state reme-dies_ [These reasons] appear sufficient warrant for requiring that a prisoner who bases his attack against one sentence on a collateral attack on another state sentence, particularly, when imposed in a foreign jurisdiction, to attack first the underlying sentence in the court imposing that sentence.
483 F.2d at 119. See also United States v. Gaylor, 828 F.2d 253 (4th Cir.1987) (failure to exhaust state remedies bars a § 2255 attack on federal sentence enhanced by allegedly invalid prior state convictions). These decisions clearly prohibit a federal sentencing court from ruling on the validity of unexhausted state convictions.
Disregarding the dispositive force of Brown and Gaylor, the majority maintains that United States v. Scarborough, 777 F.2d 175 (4th Cir.1985), absolves it from recognizing an exhaustion requirement here. This is incorrect. The Dangerous Special Offender statute at issue in Scarborough instructed courts to “disregard” *479prior convictions “shown on direct or collateral review or at the [sentencing] hearing to be invalid.” 18 U.S.C. § 3575(e) (emphasis added). Scarborough held that because the “explicit language” of the statute contemplated a hearing in which to ascertain the validity of prior convictions, a federal court could inquire into the validity of unexhausted state convictions used to enhance sentences under the DSO statute. Id. As we stated in Gaylor, “Scarborough recognized a limited waiver of the usual rule of exhaustion in the narrow and specific circumstances prescribed by Congress.” Gaylor, 828 F.2d at 256. If anything, then, the decision teaches that unless the particular statute “clearly contemplates some sort of review of the validity of a prior conviction,” Scarborough, 777 F.2d at 181, such review should not be recognized.
The majority contends nonetheless that this case comes within Scarborough’s narrow exception to the requirement to exhaust state remedies because “the language of Application Note 6 and the interaction between §§ 4A1.2 and 4A1.3” show that “Congress has directed courts to examine the prior convictions as an incident to using them in sentencing.” Op. at 468. As I have demonstrated above, however, nothing in Application Note 6 or the structure of the Guidelines remotely contemplates such review. The Guidelines simply do not contain the “explicit language” that Scarborough requires before federal courts can disregard the constitutionally-based exhaustion requirement. Moreover, Scarborough’s slender exception to the exhaustion requirement was limited to the narrow class of cases under the DSO statute. By contrast, the federal judicial power assumed today may apply in every federal criminal case.
In an attempt to soften the affront to states of its decision, the majority asserts that a federal judgment invalidating a prior state conviction for purposes of federal sentencing will have no preclusive effect in subsequent state or federal habeas proceedings because the state custodian would not have been a party in the federal sentencing process. This conclusion does not follow, since the federal defendant may now use the federal sentencing court’s judgment as the basis for a separate § 2254 suit against the custodian in the state which rendered the now “invalid” conviction. Moreover, the state’s retention in custody of a prisoner on the basis of a conviction that a federal court has determined violates the federal constitution may, apart from all considerations of unseemliness, offend due process and require release.
The majority’s explanation of the effect of its decision upon states further demonstrates its disregard for the values of federalism. These values are not implicated only when a federal court orders the release of a state prisoner. Federal court invalidation of a state conviction — even if it lacks collateral legal consequences within the state — constitutes a major affront to the integrity of the state’s judicial process.
As we stated in Gaylor:
A challenge to the validity of a state conviction implicitly questions in at least some part the integrity of the state’s judicial process. It is the state’s particular interest in preserving the dignity and public respect attendant to its system of criminal justice that justifies an exhaustion of remedies requirement.... [I]t is the challenge itself and not the vehicle by which it is brought that implicates the interests of a state....
828 F.2d at 255. In addition, “[indiscriminate federal intrusions may simply diminish the fervor of state judges to root out constitutional errors on their own.” Engle v. Isaac, 456 U.S. 107, 128-29 n. 33, 102 S.Ct. 1558, 1572 n. 33, 71 L.Ed.2d 783 (1982).
The majority’s insistence that “a finding of constitutional invalidity for [the limited purpose of federal sentencing would not] have preclusive effect in a later state or federal habeas proceeding,” Op. at 469, misses the point. State convictions are either valid or they are invalid. They are not valid for some purposes, but invalid for others. They are not valid in the eyes of the state judiciary, but invalid in the eyes of the federal system. The method for determining their validity is singular, and it *480belongs in the first instance with the states.
IV.
This decision also strikes another blow to the finality of judgments that is essential to the proper functioning of the rule of law. See Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 109 S.Ct. 1060, 1074-75, 103 L.Ed.2d 334 (1989) (plurality opinion); Kuhlmann v. Wilson, 477 U.S. 436, 452-54 & n. 16, 106 S.Ct. 2616, 2627 & n. 16, 91 L.Ed.2d 364 (1986) (plurality opinion); Engle v. Isaac, 456 U.S. 107, 127-28, 102 S.Ct. 1558, 1571-72, 71 L.Ed.2d 783 (1982).
The resources of the federal judiciary, we are repeatedly reminded, are finite and increasingly unable to address the demands made upon them. As Johnson’s case illustrates, the majority’s rule will increase these demands dramatically. Johnson attempts to attack his state conviction by claiming that he entered an involuntary plea of guilty as the result of coercion by his counsel. To support this claim, Johnson wished to take the stand to testify concerning the circumstances of his plea agreement in state court, and to submit to the district court for review the official transcripts of his guilty plea hearing and subsequent hearings before the New York State Supreme Court. In response, the government may have been required to introduce testimony from Johnson’s original attorney and others involved in the New York proceeding to rebut the claim of invalidity. The district court would thus have been forced, probably after a lengthy continuance, to devote a significant amount of time and effort to consider and address Johnson’s collateral attack. Moreover, Johnson’s case involved no more than a single-issue attack on a single underlying state conviction; the burden on federal district courts will necessarily increase as multiple state convictions are attacked for multiple infirmities.8
This decision will also increase the workload of federal appellate courts. First, because the majority makes upward departure under U.S.S.G. § 4A1.3 less of an exception, appellate review of such departures will necessarily increase. See 18 U.S.C. § 3742(a)(3) (providing for appellate review of upward departures from applicable guideline range). Second, although a sentencing court’s refusal to depart from a Guidelines sentencing range is unappeala-ble, see United States v. Bayerle, 898 F.2d 28, 30-31 (4th Cir.1990), its selection of the appropriate range, which turns in large part on its calculation of the criminal history score, is appealable. See 18 U.S.C. §§ 3742(a)(1) & (2) (sentence imposed in violation of law or as a result of an incorrect application of the guidelines is appeal-able). Thus, because a sentencing court is now “require[d] ... to inquire into the validity of a challenged prior state conviction before formally ‘counting’ that conviction in the computation of a defendant’s Criminal History Score,” Op. at 462, its refusal to invalidate a prior conviction may be subject to review under at least an abuse of discretion standard, and more probably— because legal issues of constitutional dimension will often be involved — under a de novo standard. Defendants can henceforth be expected to challenge as a matter of course the adequacy of the district court’s examination of the validity of prior convictions.
The additional resources required to give meaningful review to state convictions at federal sentencing hearings will consequently cut deeply into the time and attention that federal courts can give to “civil actions, many novel and complex, which intimately affect the lives of great numbers of people” and “original criminal trials and appeals which deserve our most careful attention.” Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 260, 93 S.Ct. 2041, 2065, 36 L.Ed.2d 854 (1973) (Powell, J., concurring). It will also require United *481States Attorneys to expend precious prose-cutorial capital to defend, at the sentencing stage of a federal conviction, state convictions rendered under substantive and procedural regimes of jurisdictions with which they are unfamiliar. Given the already extreme burden on federal judicial and prose-cutorial resources, and the presumptive validity of state convictions in our federal system, see Barefoot v. Estelle, 463 U.S. 880, 887, 103 S.Ct. 3383, 3391, 77 L.Ed.2d 1090 (1983), an additional round of review for those to whom collateral recourse is already provided is worse than redundant.
Numerous procedures now exist for those in Jones’s and Johnson’s situation to challenge state convictions. Direct review in the state court system and to the Supreme Court, as well as state and federal habeas review, are all means by which state convictions can be attacked. The Supreme Court has frequently noted the significant costs of habeas review, not only to finality, but also to our federal structure and to society at large. See Engle, 456 U.S. at 127-28, 102 S.Ct. at 151-52. There is no justification for increasing these costs when the purposes served by the majority’s ruling can be achieved through mechanisms already in place.
Astoundingly, the majority denounces reliance on these well-established procedures as a “litigious approach.” Op. at 469. Insistence upon respect for such settled rules of direct and collateral review is certainly not more litigious than the majority’s approach, which adds to the host of procedures already available a novel and unde-marcated round of post-conviction attack. Moreover, the break from established procedures raises a plethora of problems all but unmentioned by the majority. Foremost are the practical difficulties of reviewing an old conviction from a foreign jurisdiction. The state of the original conviction is where “all of the material events took place” and where “the records and witnesses pertinent to” the challenge are likely to be found. Braden v. 30th Judicial Circuit Court of Ky., 410 U.S. 484, 493-94, 93 S.Ct. 1123, 1128-29, 35 L.Ed.2d 443 (1973). As we noted in Brown, “it can hardly be gainsaid that a more orderly and justiciable review of the validity of a conviction can be afforded by the [original] sentencing court than by a court of a foreign jurisdiction.” 483 F.2d at 119. These reviewability problems are amplified by the “erosion of memory” and “dispersion of witnesses” that invariably occur with the passage of time. Kuhlmann v. Wilson, 477 U.S. at 453, 106 S.Ct. at 2627. The lack of an exhaustion requirement further magnifies the difficulties, because unexhausted claims will often lack “a complete factual record to aid the federal courts in their review.” Rose v. Lundy, 455 U.S. at 519, 102 S.Ct. at 1203-04.
The majority brushes aside all these complexities when it states that the presen-tence report prepared by the probation officer as required by U.S.S.G. § 6A1.1 will “obviat[e] the need for delays or prolonged hearings” because it will “giv[e] the court a sufficient basis for its inquiry into the validity of the convictions.” Op. at 465. Under the majority’s scheme, probation officers will be required to amass details underlying old convictions, to interview witnesses in foreign jurisdictions, and to prepare detailed analyses of those jurisdictions’ procedural rules. Even assuming that probation officers could perform such duties, it is wholly unrealistic to believe that the validity of a prior conviction can thoughtfully be evaluated merely on the basis of a presentence report. For example, the underlying claims here concerning the voluntariness of guilty pleas cannot intelligently be reviewed without a detailed factual inquiry that would necessitate an evidentiary hearing. The Guidelines contemplate that a hearing "may sometimes be the only way to resolve disputed issues.” U.S.S.G. § 6A1.3, comment. Since the majority views the validity of a state conviction as a disputable issue in federal sentencing, an avalanche of hearings under § 6A1.3 can be expected to follow from today’s holding.
In its rush to establish yet another means for criminal defendants to challenge state convictions, the majority ignores this mass of legal and practical difficulties. At bottom, the power to invalidate state con*482victions announced by the majority is premised on nothing more than the belief that a criminal conviction cannot be reviewed too often, and that the more times it is reviewed, the more validity it possesses. This is a highly dubious notion, see Bator, Finality in Criminal Law and Federal Habeas Corpus for State Prisoners, 76 Harv.L.Rev. 441, 446-51 (1963), and in any event is one our criminal justice system can ill afford. As the late Professor Paul Ba-tor eloquently stated:
A procedural system which permits an endless repetition of inquiry into facts and law in a vain search for ultimate certitude implies a lack of confidence about the possibilities of justice that cannot but war with the effectiveness of the underlying substantive commands.... There comes a point where a procedural system which leaves matters perpetually open no longer reflects humane concern but mere anxiety and a desire for immobility.
Bator, supra, at 452-53. This decision will make its own unnecessary contribution to the immobility confronting our system of criminal justice. It will make the new Sentencing Guidelines more burdensome for federal district judges and will create a new source of friction with the states. And in the name of procedural justice, it will sever the process of federal post-conviction review from the state’s own process of self-review, creating a system in which federal attacks upon state convictions are endless, and endlessly disconnected.
V.
The proper analysis in this case begins and ends with the recognition that Congress has not conferred upon the federal courts the power assumed here by the majority. The majority’s approach is also disturbing because it violates the clear command of Congress that federal courts must give state court judgments “full faith and credit”:
The ... judicial proceedings of any ... State, Territory, or Possession ... shall have the same full faith and credit in every court within the United States and its Territories and Possessions as they have by law or usage in the courts of such State, Territory or Possession from which they are taken.
28 U.S.C. § 1738.
The Full Faith and Credit statute “reflects a variety of concerns, including notions of comity, the need to prevent vexatious litigation, and a desire to conserve judicial resources.” Migra v. Warren City School Dist. Bd. of Educ., 465 U.S. 75, 84, 104 S.Ct. 892, 898, 79 L.Ed.2d 56 (1984). It requires federal courts, in determining the subsequent effect of a state judgment in federal court, to give the state judgment the same effect as it would have in the rendering state. Id. at 81, 104 S.Ct. at 896. Section 1738 applies to state criminal as well as state civil judgments. Allen v. McCurry, 449 U.S. 90, 101 S.Ct. 411, 66 L.Ed.2d 308 (1981).
The Supreme Court has consistently held that the preclusion rules of § 1738 presumptively control unless a coordinate federal statute contains “an express or implied partial repeal” of § 1738. Kremer v. Chemical Constr. Corp., 456 U.S. 461, 468, 102 S.Ct. 1883, 1890, 72 L.Ed.2d 262 (1982); see also Allen, 449 U.S. at 99, 101 S.Ct. at 417. The Court has also noted that an implied repeal is disfavored and will not be recognized unless the intent of Congress is “clear and manifest.” Kremer, 456 U.S. at 472 n. 10, 485, 102 S.Ct. at 1892 n. 10, 1899. The primary example of a congressional exception to § 1738 “is the authorization for federal courts to reexamine state findings upon a request for a writ of habeas corpus. 28 U.S.C. § 2254.” Id. at 485 n. 27, 102 S.Ct. at 1899 n. 27. In contrast, 42 U.S.C. § 1983, despite its underlying purpose to provide a federal cause of action in situations where state courts inadequately protect federal rights, is not an exception to the preclusion rules of § 1738, even if it is the only vehicle through which a constitutional claim can be brought to federal court. Allen, 449 U.S. at 97-105, 101 S.Ct. at 416-20.
The Full Faith and Credit Statute speaks directly to the question presented in this case. Nothing in the Guidelines, its Com*483mentary, or the sentencing statutes remotely suggests that Congress intended to effect a partial repeal of § 1738. This silence requires a federal sentencing court to give full faith and credit to a state conviction in which the defendant had a “full and fair opportunity,” Allen, 449 U.S. at 101, 101 S.Ct. at 418, to litigate the issues that allegedly render the underlying state convictions invalid.
The Full Faith and Credit Statute requires federal courts to give “not some, but full credit” to state judicial proceedings. Davis v. Davis, 305 U.S. 32, 40, 59 S.Ct. 3, 6, 83 L.Ed. 26 (1938). The majority’s holding fails to respect state judgments even to the extent that the states themselves would do so. Its suggestion that a federal court need not respect a state judgment when the state judgment is considered for purposes of federal law, see Op. at 461, 466, reveals an astonishing failure to appreciate the dictate of § 1738, for Allen, Kremer, and Migra all stand precisely for the proposition that a federal court must respect the factual and legal conclusions underlying a state judgment when that judgment is implicated in a federal statutory scheme. The fact that the majority places the burden on the defendant to prove the invalidity of state convictions does not overcome this deficiency, for the placement of burden gives only presumptive value to the state conviction, and presumptive value is not full faith and credit.
VI.
The district court thus properly held that it lacked authority to entertain Jones’ and Johnson’s attack on their prior state convictions. The district court also correctly noted that if the defendants’ state convictions are declared invalid by the state of conviction, the defendants can bring a habeas suit under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 attacking the federal sentence as illegally enhanced. This was the course required by Brown, and it should be followed here.
Attention to these procedures will affect the two defendants differently. Johnson is still in custody on the 1983 New York state conviction he attempted to challenge at the sentencing hearing. As his counsel conceded at the sentencing hearing, he retains the option to exhaust certain state remedies and to bring a federal habeas attack on that conviction. If successful, he can challenge his federal sentence under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. This approach pays appropriate respect to state judicial processes and to the elaborate scheme of federal and state postconviction remedies.
In contrast to Johnson, Jones is no longer “in custody” for the 1978 conviction that he challenges and thus appears to be precluded from federal habeas relief even though the prior state sentence is being used to enhance his present sentence. See Maleng v. Cook, — U.S. -, 109 S.Ct. 1923, 1926, 104 L.Ed.2d 540 (1989). The record does not reveal whether Jones obtained state or federal postconviction review. However, even assuming that Jones now lacks postconviction remedies altogether, the district court still does not possess authority to scrutinize and invalidate his state conviction.
The fact that Jones’s twelve-year-old state conviction is now being used to enhance his federal sentence for another crime in no way casts doubt on the validity of the state conviction. The state conviction is similarly no less legitimate because a federal court did not review the state court’s constitutional rulings. The Supreme Court has consistently rejected the notion “that every person asserting a federal right is entitled to one unencumbered opportunity to litigate that right in a federal district court,” Allen, 449 U.S. at 103, 101 S.Ct. at 419, for “it is more important to give full faith and credit to state-court judgments than to ensure separate forums for federal and state claims.” Migra, 465 U.S. at 84, 104 S.Ct. at 898. See also Stone v. Powell, 428 U.S. 465, 493-94 & n. 35, 96 S.Ct. 3037, 3052 & n. 35, 49 L.Ed.2d 1067 (1976). Nor is the state conviction somehow unsound because it was not challenged collaterally. The Supreme Court has made clear that
direct appeal is the primary avenue for review of a conviction or sentence.... When the process of direct review ... *484comes to an end, a presumption of finality and legality attaches to the conviction and sentence.... Federal Courts are not forums in which to relitigate state trials.
Barefoot v. Estelle, 463 U.S. at 887, 103 S.Ct. at 3391-92. The state trial remains the “ ‘main event,’ ” not a “ ‘tryout on the road’ for what will later be the determinative federal ... hearing.” Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U.S. 72, 90, 97 S.Ct. 2497, 2508, 53 L.Ed.2d 594 (1977).
Jones and Johnson each had a jury trial, an appeal of right, and an opportunity for collateral review. Our criminal justice system, though generous, does not allow them to challenge the validity of their state convictions at the sentencing stage of their federal offenses. The majority has chosen the wrong time, the wrong place, and the wrong manner of federal review. The district court refused to assume the authority rightly reserved to other jurisdictions, and I would affirm its judgment.

. I dissent from the majority's holding in Section VII regarding the Sentencing Guidelines. I concur in Sections I-VI of its opinion.

. Application Note 6 reads in full:
Invalid Convictions. Sentences resulting from convictions that have been reversed or vacated because of errors of law, or because of subsequently-discovered evidence exonerating the defendant, are not to be counted. Any other sentence resulting in a valid conviction is to be counted in the criminal history score. Convictions which the defendant shows to have been constitutionally invalid may not be counted in the criminal history score. Also, if to count an uncounseled misdemeanor conviction would result in the imposition of a sentence of imprisonment under circumstances that would violate the United States Constitution, then such conviction shall not be counted in the criminal history score. Nonetheless, any conviction that is not counted in the criminal history score may be considered *472pursuant to § 4A1.3 if it provides reliable evidence of past criminal activity.
U.S.S.G. § 4A1.2, comment, (n. 6).

. Indeed, it is unclear whether the Sentencing Commission even possesses the authority to bestow this power on federal sentencing courts. See 28 U.S.C. §§ 991, 995 (Sentencing Commission’s purposes and powers); Mistretta v. United States, 488 U.S. 361, 109 S.Ct. 647, 654-58, 102 L.Ed.2d 714 (1989) (discussing Congress' limited delegation of authority to the Sentencing Commission). Moreover, if the Congress were to delegate the authority to confer such jurisdiction to the Commission, the delegation might raise non-delegation and separation of powers concerns not addressed in Mistretta. Thus, the majority’s holding, which derives from an extremely tenuous textual foundation, is even more questionable because it raises constitutional difficulties in derogation of the Supreme Court's admonition that statutes should be interpreted to avoid such difficulties when reasonably possible. See, e.g., Coit Independence Joint Venture v. Federal Savings & Loan Ins. Corp., 489 U.S. 561, 109 S.Ct 1361, 1371, 103 L.Ed.2d 602 (1989); Commodity Futures Trade Comm'n v. Schor, 478 U.S. 833, 841, 106 S.Ct. 3245, 3251, 92 L.Ed.2d 675 (1986).

. We recognized this point in United States v. Davenport, 884 F.2d 121, 124 (4th Cir.1989), where we stated that "[i]t is clear from the plain language [of Application Note 6] that the defendant has the burden of showing that a prior conviction is constitutionally invalid.” The majority maintains, based on this single sentence, that Davenport held that Application Note 6 authorizes federal sentencing courts to invalidate state convictions. The elaborate reasoning the majority engages in today in an attempt to answer the "unusually difficult” question whether “the Guidelines require the sentencing court to inquire into the validity of a challenged prior state conviction,” Op. at 16, belies its assertion that such a question was addressed and answered by the single quoted sentence in Davenport. The Davenport sentence concerns only the burden of proof for showing that a conviction has been invalidated. Like Application Note 6, Davenport is silent on the central issue of who has the power to determine invalidity.

. The legislative history of § 3661 confirms this reading. It reveals that § 3661 was designed to implement the rule announced in Williams v. New York, 337 U.S. 241, 69 S.Ct. 1079, 93 L.Ed. 1337 (1949). See H.R. No. 1549, 91 Cong., 2d Sess. 63, reprinted in 1970 U.S.Code Cong, and Admin.News 4007, 4040. See also United States v. Baylin, 696 F.2d 1030, 1038-39 (3d Cir.1982) (identical predecessor of § 3661 codified the Williams holding). Williams held that a sentencing court could consider as legitimate sentencing factors prior crimes for which the defendant had not been convicted. Williams was predicated on the belief that "[h]ighly relevant— if not essential — to [the sentencing judge's] selection of an appropriate sentence is the possession of the fullest information possible concerning the defendant’s life and characteristics.” 337 U.S. at 247, 69 S.Ct. at 1083 (emphasis added); see also id. at 249, 69 S.Ct. at 1084 (“careful study of the lives and personalities of convicted offenders” needed to ensure appropriate punishment).

. "In determining whether a circumstance was adequately taken into consideration [by the Commission], the court shall consider only the sentencing guidelines, policy statements, and official commentary of the Sentencing Commission.” 18 U.S.C. 3553(b).

. Title 28 U.S.C. § 994(e) states:
The [Sentencing] Commission shall assure that the guidelines and policy statements, in recommending a term of imprisonment or length of a term of imprisonment, reflect the general inappropriateness of considering the education, vocational skills, employment record, family ties and responsibilities, and community ties of the defendant.
Furthermore, 28 U.S.C. § 994(d) states that the Commission shall take these and other personal background characteristics into account "only to the extent that they do have relevance.”

. In fact, the burden on the federal court system is even more extreme, for the federal sentencing court's power to invalidate convictions is not limited to the invalidation of state convictions. The majority’s logic applies equally to a sentencing court's power to inquire into and invalidate federal convictions, even if these convictions have been validated through direct federal appeal and federal habeas review.