Court Opinion

ID: 9489130
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:06:35.241879+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:20.513940
License: Public Domain

REINHARDT, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
The majority holds that an offender in the highest listed criminal history category — an offender who has committed a large number of offenses and who can expect a severe punishment under the Guidelines — may have his Guidelines punishment increased even further solely because his most recent offense is similar to some of his earlier ones. The majority appears to conclude that if a Category VI offender’s latest offense is similar to one or more of his past offenses, he is not only more likely, but significantly more likely to commit future criminal offenses than other Category VI offenders who may have committed a greater number of offenses, perhaps of a more serious nature, but whose offenses are more varied in nature. That conclusion makes little if any sense. Although an argument can be made that in some cases a similarity of offenses may suggest a greater likelihood of recidivism when the persons being compared have each committed a relatively small number of crimes, the argument has no force whatsoever in the case of generally comparable offenders who are already recidivists and who have already repeatedly relapsed into criminal conduct of all types. For this reason, and because the Guidelines clearly mandate a result contrary to that reached by the majority, I must dis*279sent from my colleagues’ decision to uphold a significant increase in punishment simply because the defendant has committed several immigration violations rather than an equal or greater number of diverse but more serious offenses.
The majority’s reasoning is particularly troubling in light of the general rule governing upward departures and the particular rule governing upward departures for Category VI offenders. Under those rules, a departure is unwarranted in this case because the defendant’s conduct is clearly no more egregious than that of other offenders in Category VI and because he is clearly no more likely to commit another crime than other Category VI defendants. To put it in terms of the precedent that binds us, Segu-ra’s is not the extremely unusual case that warrants the “occasional” departure permitted for the most egregious of Category VI offenders. He simply made the mistake of committing a number of violations of the immigration laws.
We have previously stated that “an upward departure under § 4A1.3 is warranted only Vhen the criminal history category significantly under-represents the seriousness of the defendant’s criminal history or the likelihood that the defendant will commit further crimes.’ ” United States v. Carrillo-Alvarez, 3 F.3d 316, 320 (9th Cir.1993)(quoting U.S.S.G. § 4A1.3, Policy Statement). Such departures are reserved for the “unusual” case. Id. “[S]ince the Guidelines have already accounted for criminal history, a court should depart based on inadequate criminal history only in those limited cases when a defendant’s record is ‘significantly more serious’ than that of other defendants in the same criminal history category.” United States v. Singleton, 917 F.2d 411, 412 (9th Cir.1990); United States v. Gayou, 901 F.2d 746, 748 (9th Cir.1990). Moreover, because
“defendants in category VI are by definition the most intractable of all offenders,” Carrillo-Alvarez, 3 F.3d at 320, upward departures from that criminal history category are extremely unusual.1 The Guidelines, which provide specific instructions concerning upward departures from Category VI, state that a district court may, “on occasion,” find the guideline range for Criminal History Category VI inadequate to reflect the seriousness of the defendant’s criminal history and depart upward, but only in eases involving “egregious, serious criminal record[s].” U.S.S.G. § 4A1.3 (emphasis added); see Carrillo-Alvarez, 3 F.3d at 320. Accordingly, we have been reluctant to sanction a departure from Category VI unless the defendant, “among all those in that criminal history category, has a criminal record so serious, so egregious, that a departure is warranted.” Carrillo-Alvarez, 3 F.3d at 320.
That Segura’s record is not so serious, so egregious, that a departure from Category VI is warranted is made clear by our decisions in Singleton and United States v. George, 56 F.3d 1078, 1085 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 116 S.Ct. 351, 133 L.Ed.2d 247 (1995). In Singleton, we found the district court’s determination that an upward departure from Category VI was “just barely” warranted in the case of a defendant whose extensive criminal history escalated in seriousness and included serious felonies, violent conduct, and firearms violations. . 917 F.2d at 413. We stated that
[w]ere it not for the density of Singleton’s string of offenses (ten between his eighteenth birthday in 1982 and his assault on the officer in 1988), and were it not for their escalating nature, we would find it necessary to vacate the sentence to the extent that it was based upon the inadequacy of the criminal history category.
*280Id. (emphasis added). See United States v. Durham, 941 F.2d 858, 863 (9th Cir.1991)(af-ftrming departure where district court cited defendant’s “extensive criminal history, his continued involvement in crime, and the increased violence of those crimes as evidence that [the defendant’s] criminal history category did not reflect his propensity to commit crime”) (emphasis added).
In George, we found that the district court lacked the authority to depart from Category VI for a defendant who had nineteen convictions over the course of approximately seventeen years. The district court thoroughly explained the basis for its departure. It noted that George’s string of convictions was “uninterrupted even during periods of incarceration, during which he committed drug and escape offenses.” Id. It further noted that “the periods during which George was free from custody were short-lived, invariably ending in convictions on new felony offenses,” that there was no evidence that he “had made any progress toward rehabilitation,” that he lacked respect for the law and presented an extremely high likelihood of recidivism, and that he “received no criminal history points for three prior felony convictions.” Id.
Nonetheless, we reversed, finding it unclear that George’s “criminal record [wa]s ‘significantly more serious’ than that of other offenders in Category VI.” Id. at 1085-86. We stated that George’s record of convictions, unlike Singleton’s, had not “escalated in seriousness” over the years; his most serious offenses had been committed between 1975 and 1977, and his subsequent offenses had not involved violence. 56 F.3d at 1086. We therefore concluded:
If the record of the defendant in Singleton of offenses accelerating in seriousness from criminal mischief to serious felonies involving assaultive behavior “just barely” justified departure, it is not at all clear that George’s record up to the instant offense would justify such a departure.

Id.

I can only conclude, on the basis of these cases, that Segura’s record, which the district court acknowledged consisted of mainly minor offenses, cannot by any stretch of legal reasoning be said to justify an upward departure from Category VI. If the criminal conduct of Singleton, who had a dense concentration of offenses escalating to serious felonies involving violent criminal behavior, “just barely” warranted a departure, and if the criminal conduct of George, who had a completely uninterrupted string of felony convictions over the course of seventeen years, showed no sign of rehabilitation or respect for the law, and presented an extremely high likelihood of recidivism, did not warrant a departure, the mere fact that Seg-ura’s record of mainly minor offenses includes a number of immigration violations surely cannot warrant one. Segura’s record is clearly no more extensive than George’s, and certainly his offenses, like George’s, have not escalated in seriousness and violence. Because Singleton’s record just barely justified a departure, because George’s record, which is more serious than Segura’s, did not, and because Segura’s record is without question not significantly more serious than that of other defendants in Category VI, it is crystal-clear to me that the district court lacked the authority to depart. Put another way, it would test one’s rational powers to suggest that among all the defendants in Category VI, defendants whom the majority recognizes to be the most incorrigible in the federal system, ante at 277, Segura stands out as being one with a record so egregious and so serious, see Carrillo-Alvarez, 3 F.3d at 320, that a departure is warranted — regardless of the fact that several of the offenses he committed were immigration offenses.
Apparently recognizing that Segura’s criminal record places him well within the normal range of Category VI offenders, the majority attempts to escape the rule that a departure may not be imposed in such circumstances by invoking the similarity-of-offense approach to which I have referred. While similarity of offenses may in some eases justify an upward departure to a higher category if the defendant is in one of the lower criminal history categories, it cannot rationally justify such a departure when the defendant is in Category VI, the highest listed category. In a few instances, we have said that defendants who have relapsed on one or more occasions into the same or a similar type of criminal behavior may pose a greater likelihood of recidivism than defendants who have com*281mitted a few dissimilar and unrelated offenses, and have allowed an upward departure for that reason. See United States v. Chavez-Botello, 905 F.2d 279, 281 (9th Cir.1990) (five offenses); United States v. Montenegro-Rojo, 908 F.2d 425, 427 n. 1 (9th Cir.1990) (two offenses). The rationale employed in those few cases is applicable, however, only when the defendant and those with whom his conduct is being compared are individuals with minor criminal records that place them in the lower criminal history categories — that is, only in the case of defendants who have not regularly or frequently engaged in criminal conduct. Similarity of offense is a relevant predictor of future criminal conduct, if at all, only in the case of those who are not already demonstrated recidivists, who are not already in the highest listed criminal history category. For that reason, we have never previously upheld an upward departure in a Category VI cash on the ground advanced by the majority; rather, our departures from Category VI have always been reserved for the most egregious of criminal offenders.
In Category VI, all of the defendants have repeatedly engaged in criminal conduct over the course of a number of years. There is no • significant difference in the likelihood of recidivism between a defendant who has committed a large number of crimes of various types and another defendant who has committed a large number of crimes of the same or a similar type. Accordingly, in determining which Category VI defendants deserve extraordinary punishment, we have always looked to the egregiousness of their conduct, not to the wholly irrelevant question of whether the offenses they have committed were similar in nature.
The majority concludes that a defendant like Segura who has committed seventeen offenses, several of which are similar in nature, is significantly more likely to commit further crimes than a defendant like George who, over virtually the same period of time, has committed nineteen different offenses, a number of which are more serious and more violent than those committed by Segura. The majority reaches this conclusion, and thus justifies the added punishment imposed by the district court, notwithstanding the fact that both defendants unquestionably pose a similar high risk of further recidivist conduct. The difference between the two, the majority declares, is that Segura has committed a number of immigration offenses. To me, that is an obvious and complete non sequitur. In fact, I see no possible justification whatsoever for an upward departure from Category VI in this case. The majority’s holding is clearly unprecedented and contrary to our prior law.
While there are rare cases when a departure from Category VI is permissible, this is plainly not one of them. Here, we are confronted with a defendant who has committed a number of immigration violations, but whose criminal record has not escalated in seriousness or violence, and, in fact, whose record is essentially non-violent. Immigration offenses may not be popular these days, but compared to other more violent crimes, they are clearly not the most egregious. Yet the majority singles Segura’s ease out as the “unusual” one that warrants added punishment. Because Segura’s immigration violations unquestionably do not render his conduct more egregious than that of other defendants in the same criminal history category and because those offenses do not in any way suggest a significantly greater likelihood of recidivism, I must respectfully dissent.

. The Sentencing Commission designed §§ 4A1.1 and 4A1.3, which deal with criminal history categories and with the adequacy of those categories, to be “consistent with the extant empirical research assessing correlates of recidivism and patterns of career criminal behavior.” U.S.S.G. 4A, Introductory Commentary. The Commission included a defendant’s past criminal record among the factors correlating with the likelihood of recidivism because "[r]epeated criminal behavior is an indicator of a limited likelihood of successful rehabilitation.” Id. Accordingly, defendants in Category VI, the highest criminal history category, are, not surprisingly, the defendants who demonstrate the most limited likelihood of successful rehabilitation and the greatest likelihood of recidivism. See U.S.S.G. § 4A1.3, Policy Statement (stating that Criminal History Category I includes “the first offender with the lowest risk of recidivism”).