Court Opinion

ID: 9497366
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:49:36.15173+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:58:09.249522
License: Public Domain

BOYCE F. MARTIN, JR., Circuit Judge,
dissenting, joined by DAUGHTREY, MOORE, COLE, and CLAY, Circuit Judges.
The majority’s opinion in this case amounts to nothing more than an exercise in futility and a waste of time and resources, in light of the Supreme Court’s grant of certiorari in United States v. Booker, No. 04-104, 2004 WL 1713654 (Aug. 2, 2004), and United States v. Fanfan, No. 04-105, 2004 WL 1713655 (Aug. 2, 2004). Both cases present the question of the impact of Blakely v. Washington, — U.S. -, 124 S.Ct. 2531, 159 L.Ed.2d 403 (2004), on the United States Sentencing Guidelines, and both are scheduled for oral argument in just over a month, on October 4. Given that the Supreme Court’s impending resolution of Booker and/or Fanfan will likely resolve the primary issue in this case, I believe that the most appropriate course of action would be to withhold our decision until the Supreme Court has spoken.
Nevertheless, because the majority has taken this opportunity to state its position, I feel compelled to explain why I disagree. For the reasons discussed below, I believe that the Guidelines are invalid under Blakely to the extent that they compel a trial judge to impose a sentence that exceeds the maximum sentence that is authorized “solely on the basis of the facts reflected in the jury verdict or admitted by the defendant.” Blakely, — U.S. at -, 124 S.Ct. at 2536 (emphasis in original). This is the same view espoused by the Seventh Circuit, see United States v. Booker, 375 F.3d 508 (7th Cir.2004), the Eighth Circuit, see United States v. Mooney, No. 02-3388, 2004 WL 1636960 (8th Cir. July 23, 2004), vacated on grant of reh’g en banc, Aug. 6, 2004, and the Ninth Circuit, see United States v. Ameline, 376 F.3d 967 (9th Cir.2004), as well as by United States District Judges such as Judge D. Brock Hornby, whose oral decision in United States v. Fanfan, No. 03-47-P-H (D. Me. June 28, 2004), will be reviewed by the Supreme Court in October, and by the panel of our Court that decided United States v. Montgomery, No. 03-5256, 2004 WL 1562904 (6th Cir. July 14, 2004), vacated on grant of reh’g en banc, July 19, 2004, appeal dismissed, July 23, 2004.
The seeds of Blakely were sown in Ap-prendi v. Neiv Jersey, in which the Supreme Court held that “[o]ther than the fact of a prior conviction, any fact that increases the penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory maximum must be submitted to a jury, and proved beyond a reasonable doubt.” 530 U.S. 466, 490, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000). The Court applied this rule to strike down a New Jersey hate crime statute that authorized a judge to impose a twenty-year sentence, despite the usual ten-year maximum, if the judge found that the crime was committed “ ‘with a purpose to intimidate ... because of race, color, gender, handicap, religion, sexual orientation or *444ethnicity.’ ” Id. at 468-69, 120 S.Ct. 2348 (quoting N.J. Stat. Ann. § 2C:44-3(e) (West Supp.1999-2000)). Two years later, in Ring v. Arizona, the Supreme Court applied the same rule to invalidate an Arizona law authorizing the death penalty if the judge found one of ten aggravating factors. 536 U.S. 584, 603-09, 122 S.Ct. 2428, 153 L.Ed.2d 556 (2002).
In Blakely, the Court built upon and clarified the rule announced in Apprendi holding that:
Our precedent make clear ... that the “statutory maximum” for Apprendi purposes is the maximum sentence a judge may impose solely on the basis of the facts reflected in the jury verdict or admitted by the defendant. In other words, the relevant “statutory maximum” is not the maximum sentence a judge may impose after finding additional facts, but the maximum he may impose without any additional findings. When a judge inflicts punishment that the jury’s verdict alone does not allow, the jury has not found all the facts “which the law makes essential to the punishment,” and the judge exceeds his proper authority.
Blakely, — U.S. at -, 124 S.Ct. at 2537 (citations omitted) (emphasis in original).
Blakely involved the constitutionality of the sentencing scheme employed by the State of Washington, which was composed of two statutes. The first statute prescribed the sentence ranges for each class of felony offenses. Blakely was convicted of second-degree kidnaping, for which the statute provided a maximum sentence of ten years imprisonment. Wash. Rev.Code Ann. § 9A.20.021(1)(b). The second statute, called the Sentencing Reform Act, specified more limited standard sentence ranges for particular offenses; for Blakely’s offense, it set a range of 49-53 months imprisonment. Id. § 9.94A.320. A Washington trial court could impose a sentence that exceeded this standard range only if it found a “substantial and compelling reason justifying an exceptional sentence.” Blakely, — U.S. at -, 124 S.Ct. at 2535. The Sentencing Reform Act specified several factors that would justify a trial judge’s decision to impose an exceptional sentence. Id. The trial judge in Blakely found that the defendant had acted with “deliberate cruelty,” one of the listed factors, and, accordingly, increased his sentence to 90 months. Id. at 2537. The Supreme Court held that the fact that Blakely’s sentence was increased above the Sentencing Reform Act’s standard range of 49-53 months based upon facts neither found by a jury nor admitted by Blakely was a violation of Apprendi. Id. at 2537-38.
As the majority acknowledges, in determining what the statutory maximum was for purposes of Apprendi the Blakely Court looked to the standard sentence range for second-degree kidnaping that was set by the Sentencing Reform Act, not to the broader sentence range provided in the other statute. Id. As a logical consequence, the statutory maximum in this case is provided in the Guidelines, rather than in the substantive criminal statutes that Koch was convicted of violating. Both the Guidelines and the Washington Sentencing Reform Act were designed to narrow the extremely wide sentence ranges within which a defendant could be sentenced for any particular offense. Compare U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual ch. 1, pt. A, Introduction (2003) (explaining that the Guidelines were designed to “narrow[ ]” the wide sentence ranges that applied to “similar criminal offenses committed by similar offenders”) with Wash. Rev.Code Ann. § 9.94A.010 (explaining that the Washington Sentencing Reform *445Act was designed to “structure[ ] ... discretionary decisions affecting sentences” and “[e]nsure that the punishment for a criminal offense is proportionate to the seriousness of the offense and the offender’s criminal history”). Just as it was the narrower sentence range under the Washington Sentencing Reform Act that provided the “statutory maximum” in Blakely, the narrower sentence range under the Guidelines provides the “statutory maximum” in this case.
Both the Guidelines and the Washington Sentencing Reform Act provide for an increase in a defendant’s sentence beyond that which is authorized by the jury’s verdict or the defendant’s admissions, based upon facts neither found by a jury beyond a reasonable doubt nor admitted by the defendant, but rather found by a judge under the much lower civil burden of proof. In this case, it is undisputed that Koch’s sentence was increased, solely on the basis of facts found by the district judge, to an amount that exceeded the sentence that was authorized under the Guidelines in light of the jury’s verdict. This is precisely what Blakely condemns. Although Blakely addresses only the Washington sentencing scheme, its holding applies with equal force to the Guidelines.
The majority concedes that “[t]he logic of this argument has some force,” but ultimately finds the argument “not conclusive ... because the ‘statutory maximum’ at issue in Blakely arose from a statute, and the Sentencing Guidelines are not statutes.” Maj. Op. at 441. That is a distinction without a difference. I presume that the majority would agree that were the challenged provisions of the Guidelines enacted by Congress in the first instance, they would be unconstitutional under the rule announced in Blakely. I fail to see how the fact that Congress delegated its authority to the Sentencing Commission to set presumptive sentencing ranges saves the federal scheme from constitutional attack. The majority’s holding contravenes and undermines Blakely by allowing Congress to accomplish indirectly — by delegating authority to the Commission — precisely what we now know the Sixth Amendment prohibits it from doing directly-
The congressional delegation of power to the Sentencing Commission does not affect Congress’s authority — and, indeed, its obligation — to ratify the Guidelines. See Ameline, 376 F.3d 967, 970. Congress must ratify each Sentencing Guideline promulgated by the Commission, and it retains the power to “revoke or amend any or all of the Guidelines as it sees fit either within the 180-day waiting period or at any time.” Mistretta v. United States, 488 U.S. 361, 393-94, 109 S.Ct. 647, 102 L.Ed.2d 714 (1989); 28 U.S.C. § 994(p). It is well-established that the Guidelines have the force of law, Stinson v. United States, 508 U.S. 36, 45, 113 S.Ct. 1913, 123 L.Ed.2d 598 (1993), and “bind judges and courts in the exercise of their uncontested responsibility to pass sentence in criminal cases,” Mistretta, 488 U.S. at 391, 109 S.Ct. 647.
Furthermore, and perhaps more to the point, neither the outcome nor the reasoning in Blakely turned upon the fact that the Washington Sentencing Reform Act was enacted in the first instance by the state legislature. As Justice O’Connor recognized in her dissenting opinion in Blakely:
It is no answer to say that today’s opinion impacts only Washington’s scheme and not others, such as, for example, the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. The fact that the Federal Sentencing Guidelines are promulgated by an administrative agency nominally located in the Judicial Branch is irrelevant to the *446majority’s reasoning. The Guidelines have the force of law, and Congress has unfettered control to reject or accept any particular guideline.
Blakely, — U.S. at - - -, 124 S.Ct. at 2549-50 (O’Connor, J., dissenting, Part IV.A., joined by Breyer, J.) Justice Breyer’s dissenting opinion expressed a similar view. Id. at 2561 (Breyer, J., dissenting) (“Perhaps the Court will distinguish the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, but I am uncertain how.”). The demise of the Guidelines was forecast more explicitly in Justice Breyer’s dissenting opinion in Ap-prendi, in which he wrote:
The actual principle underlying the Court’s [Apprendi ] decision may be that any fact (other than prior conviction) that has the effect, in real terms, of increasing the maximum punishment beyond an otherwise applicable range must be submitted to a jury and proved beyond a reasonable doubt. See [Apprendi, 530 U.S. at 494, 120 S.Ct. at 2364] (“[T]he relevant inquiry is one not of form, but of effect — does the required finding expose the defendant to a greater punishment than that authorized by the jury’s guilty verdict?”). The principle thus would apply ... to all determinate-sentencing schemes in which the length of a defendant’s sentence within the statutory range turns on specific factual determinations {e.g., the federal Sentencing Guidelines). Justice Thomas essentially concedes that the rule outlined in his concurring opinion would require the invalidation of the Sentencing Guidelines. [Id. at 523, 120 S.Ct. 2348], n. 11.
Apprendi, 530 U.S. at 543-44, 120 S.Ct. 2348 (Breyer, J., dissenting).1
I am also unpersuaded by the majority’s reliance upon cases that uphold sentences imposed under the Guidelines against various constitutional challenges. The majority assumes that finding in Koch’s favor would necessarily require us to “anticipate the overruling of Supreme Court precedent,” but that assumption is erroneous. The Supreme Court has never decided the issue presented in this case.
Among the cases cited by the majority, particular emphasis is placed upon Edwards v. United States, 523 U.S. 511, 118 S.Ct. 1475, 140 L.Ed.2d 703 (1998), a case that the majority says “rejected a challenge to enhancements based on judge-made findings ... in the context of a Sixth Amendment challenge.” Maj. Op. at 439. In reality, however, the Edwards Court expressly declined to consider the petitioners’ Sixth Amendment claim. See Edwards, 523 U.S. at 516, 118 S.Ct. 1475 (proclaiming that “we need not, and we do not, consider the merits of petitioners’ statutory and constitutional claims”). Moreover, the Sixth Amendment claim that the Edwards petitioners had advanced did not challenge the validity of the Guidelines. Rather, the petitioners argued that the district court erred in determining whether the drug conspiracy involved cocaine or cocaine base when the jury’s general verdict was ambiguous as to the drug involved. See Petitioners’ Br., 1997 WL 793079, at *30-31 (“Petitioners are entitled to have the jury determine what illegal agreement the Petitioners formed and *447agreed to participate in.”). This argument concerns the effect of the Sixth Amendment on 21 U.S.C. § 846, not on the Guidelines. As the Seventh and Ninth Circuits have stated:
The Court did not opine on the guidelines’ consistency with the amendment because that consistency was not challenged. It did not rebuff a Sixth Amendment challenge to the guidelines because there was no Sixth Amendment challenge to the guidelines.
Booker, 375 F.3d at 514; Ameline, 376 F.3d 967, 977. For these reasons, Edwards is inapposite.
The majority’s reliance upon our Court’s post-Apprendi cases is similarly misplaced. Those cases are simply irrelevant here in light of the Supreme Court’s intervening decision in Blakely, which undermines our prior holdings. See Salmi v. Sec’y of Health and Human Servs., 774 F.2d 685, 689 (6th Cir.1985) (holding that a prior decision is not “controlling authority” if it is “inconsistent” with an intervening Supreme Court decision).
Finally, the majority states that “in responding to a request that we invalidate the Sentencing Guidelines, we agree with Judge Easterbrook that ‘[t]his is the wrong forum for such a conclusion.’ ” Maj. Op. at 438 (quoting Booker, 375 F.3d at 515 (Easterbrook, J., dissenting)). Notwithstanding the fact that Koch has made no “request” that the Guidelines be invalidated (counsel for Koch explicitly stated in oral argument that he was not asking the Court to invalidate the Guidelines and, indeed, argued that our decision in this case should await the Supreme Court’s resolution of Booker and/or Fanfan), the majority ignores our very duties as United States Circuit Judges. Having insisted upon declaring its view regarding the applicability of Blakely to the Guidelines, rather than— as I would do — awaiting the Supreme Court’s impending resolution of the issue, the majority is obligated, as we all are, to interpret and apply Supreme Court precedent to the facts of this case, regardless of whether its analysis leads to a result that it does not like. As I have explained, Blakely’s holding logically controls the outcome of this case, and the majority errs in concluding otherwise. The majority simultaneously abdicates its responsibility to decide this issue in a reasoned manner and insists upon “deciding” this issue as quickly as possible. If the majority truly wished merely to provide interim guidance for the district courts while at the same time waiting for the Supreme Court to decide the issue before fully examining Blakely’s application to the Guidelines, it would not, one hopes, be releasing opinions possibly affected by Blakely in the meantime.
The question remains whether the unconstitutional aspects of the Guidelines are severable from the rest of the Guidelines, an issue on which courts have reached differing results. Just as I would have withheld our decision in this case pending the Supreme Court’s resolution of the applicability of Blakely to the Guidelines, I believe that the decision of whether and to what extent the Guidelines are severable is better left to the Supreme Court. Notably, the issue need not be resolved at all if the Court finds that the Guidelines are unaffected by Blakely.
There is one procedural complication in this case that also must be addressed. The United States argues that Koch forfeited this claim of error by failing to object to his sentence on Apprendi grounds. Accordingly, it argues, we are limited to reviewing the claim for plain error. Fed.R.Crim.P. 52(b) (“Plain errors or defects affecting substantial rights may be noticed although they were not brought to the attention of the court.”). See also *448United States v. Cotton, 535 U.S. 625, 628-29, 122 S.Ct. 1781, 152 L.Ed.2d 860 (2002). We have indicated, however, that where a defendant has objected to the factual findings that underlie his sentence, he has preserved for de novo review on appeal a constitutional objection based on a rule of law announced subsequent to his trial. See United States v. Strayhorn, 250 F.3d 462, 467 (6th Cir.2001), overruled in part by Harris v. United States, 536 U.S. 545, 122 S.Ct. 2406, 153 L.Ed.2d 524 (2002). I reserve judgment as to whether the principle announced in Strayhom applies to this case because I believe that the error present in Koch’s sentence is cognizable under plain error review, which is the least rigorous standard suggested by the parties.
Plain error exists where there is “1) error, 2) that is plain, and 3) that affects substantial rights. If all three conditions are met, [we] then exercise [our] discretion to notice a forfeited error, but only if 4) the error seriously affects the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of the judicial proceedings.” Johnson v. United States, 520 U.S. 461, 466-67, 117 S.Ct. 1544, 137 L.Ed.2d 718 (1997).
First, by imposing a sentence that exceeded the maximum sentence available under the Guidelines in light of the jury’s verdict, based upon facts neither found by a jury nor admitted by Koch, the district court deviated from the holding of Blakely. “Deviation from a legal rule is ‘error’ unless the rule has been waived.” United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 732-33, 113 S.Ct. 1770, 123 L.Ed.2d 508 (1993).
With respect to the second and third prongs, we have held that both “are satisfied when the defendant’s total sentence exceeds the maximum sentence that could lawfully be imposed based upon the jury’s verdict as to all counts of conviction.” United States v. Graham, 275 F.3d 490, 523 (6th Cir.2001) (citations omitted). This is precisely what happened in this case, and it is now “plain” that this is precisely what Blakely prohibits. See Johnson, 520 U.S. at 468, 117 S.Ct. 1544 (“Where the law at the time of trial was settled and clearly contrary to the law at the time of appeal it is enough that an error be ‘plain’ at the time of appellate consideration.”) The district judge’s application of the preponderance of the evidence standard to the facts presented at the sentencing hearing certainly affected Koch’s ultimate sentence. See Olano, 507 U.S. at 734, 113 S.Ct. 1770 (holding that an error affects “substantial rights” where it has “affected the outcome of the district court proceedings”). The judge imposed several sentencing enhancements, and found that the conspiracy involved 907 kilograms of marijuana (as compared to the probation officer’s estimate of 38.977 kilograms), based upon relatively weak evidence, much of which was never presented at trial. Cf. Ameline, 376 F.3d 967, 978.
Finally, the error affected the fairness of the proceedings. Koch suffered at least the same unfairness that Blakely suffered, for which the Supreme Court had this to say:
Any evaluation of Apprendi’s fairness to criminal defendants must compare it with the regime it replaced, in which a defendant, with no warning in either his indictment or plea, would routinely see his maximum potential sentence balloon from as little as five years to as much as life imprisonment, see 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(b)(1)(A), (D), based not on facts proved to his peers beyond a reasonable doubt, but on facts extracted after trial....
Blakely, — U.S. at -, 124 S.Ct. at 2542. Because the district court’s imposition of Koch’s sentence was plain error, I *449would remand for resentencing in light of Blakely.
For these reasons, I respectfully dissent.

. The footnote in Justice Thomas's dissenting opinion to which Justice Breyer refers reads as follows:
It is likewise unnecessary to consider whether (and, if so, how) the rule regarding elements applies to the Sentencing Guidelines, given the unique status that they have under [Mis-tretta']. But it may be that this status is irrelevant, because the Guidelines "have the force and effect of laws.”
Id. at 523, n. 11, 120 S.Ct. 2348 (Thomas, J., dissenting) (citation omitted) (quoting Mistretta, 488 U.S. at 413, 109 S.Ct. 647 (Scalia, J., dissenting)).