Court Opinion

ID: 9483504
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:22:29.549562+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:49:39.800872
License: Public Domain

BOYCE F. MARTIN, Jr., Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I join in Chief Judge Merritt’s dissenting opinion; however, I also write separately to set forth a few additional observations. I believe the majority has selected a standard of proof in relevant conduct analysis that shows little respect for individual liberties. Even if I accepted the use of a preponderance of the evidence standard in relevant conduct analysis, I would still dissent in this case because the majority has failed to apply the standard faithfully. The evidence used to increase Silverman’s sentence was insufficient to prove that, more likely than not, Silverman engaged in additional criminal conduct. Although a jury may have found Silverman guilty of numerous offenses, he at least deserves to be sentenced based on evidence that is reliable; he should not be sentenced .on evidence that is nothing more than triple hearsay. Any rational sentencing system should require that evidence used for sentencing must be verified through accurate and reliable sources.
A more fundamental problem with the majority’s analysis is the adoption of the preponderance of evidence standard in relevant conduct analysis. Judge William W. Wilkins, Jr., who is chairperson of the U.S. Sentencing Commission, recently referred to the relevant conduct provision as the “cornerstone” of the federal sentencing *1534guidelines. See William W. Wilkins, Jr., Relevant Conduct: The Cornerstone of the Sentencing Guidelines, 41 S.C.L.Rev. 495 (1990). Although this assertion may be true, the majority has contorted the “cornerstone” of the sentencing guidelines to allow the government to use the preponderance of the evidence standard to convict defendants of uncharged criminal activity.
Any justice system must delineate what burden or standard of proof applies in litigation. “The function of a standard of proof, as that concept is embodied in the Due Process Clause and in the realm of factfinding, is to ‘instruct the factfinder concerning the degree of confidence our society thinks he should have in the correctness of factual conclusions for a particular type of adjudication.’ ” Addington v. Texas, 441 U.S. 418, 428, 99 S.Ct. 1804, 1808, 60 L.Ed.2d 323 (1979) (quoting In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 370, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 1076, 25 L.Ed.2d 368 (1970) (Harlan, J., concurring)). The standard of proof serves to allocate the risk of error between the litigants and to indicate the relative importance attached to the ultimate decision. Id. In many aspects of civil litigation, society has long allowed the use of the preponderance of the evidence standard. Under such a standard, the risk of error is marginally on the plaintiff and he need only show that, more likely than not, he is correct. However, in the criminal justice system, which is a system under which a criminal defendant could be deprived of his liberty, society has required the use of the reasonable doubt standard. This standard of proof “reflects the value society places on individual liberty.” Id., 441 U.S. at 425, 99 S.Ct. at 1809. Under such a standard, the risk of error is almost entirely on the government. Today, the majority has endorsed a system under which the government can convict a defendant of uncharged criminal conduct by simply demonstrating to the court that, more likely than not, the defendant has engaged in the criminal activity. Thus, the majority has proclaimed to society just how little the federal courts value an individual’s liberty. This is not a proclamation that we need to issue to a society in which millions of Americans already strongly question the fairness and legitimacy of the criminal justice system.
The amalgam of the relevant conduct provision and the preponderance of the evidence standard presents one additional problem: the opportunity for abuse. What appears to be happening in guidelines cases is that the government goes to trial and proves the charged criminal activity beyond a reasonable doubt and then, at sentencing, the government proves additional uncharged criminal activity by a preponderance of the evidence. The final result is that the defendant ends up with a sentence that has been substantially increased because of the uncharged criminal activity. Even more troubling is the government’s use of acquitted conduct to serve as the basis of enhancing a defendant’s sentence. See United States v. Moreno, 933 F.2d 362, 473 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 112 S.Ct. 265, 116 L.Ed.2d 218 (1991) (an acquittal does not bar a sentencing court from considering the acquitted conduct in imposing a sentence). A defendant who has been acquitted of some criminal activity but convicted of other criminal activity has won only a pyrrhic victory because when the defendant appears in the courtroom at sentencing he finds the acquitted activity riding on the back of the convicted activity.
There are likely few things harder to admit than that as a judge you are wrong. I now, however, see the error of my early endorsement of the goals of the guidelines. At the time I wrote United States v. Perez, 871 F.2d 45 (6th Cir.1989), which was my first encounter with the federal sentencing guidelines, I firmly believed that the guidelines could elevate the federal criminal justice system to a new level. I even supported Judge Stephen Breyer’s argument, which he made in the Hofstra Law Review, that many compromises were made in the implementation of the sentencing guidelines, but that a better system would emerge. See Stephen Breyer, The Federal Guidelines and the Key Compromises Upon Which they Rest, 17 Hofstra L.Rev. 405 (1988). I now believe I was wrong in endorsing the guidelines. The guidelines, *1535as ambitious as they were, have become more than just guidelines; they are rigid mandates. I still believe that sentencing throughout the federal system should be as uniform as possible. However, the guidelines disregard fundamental notions of due process and create a slip-shod system of sentencing in which the only thing that matters is the maximization of prison sentences. “The best we can say about [the sentencing guidelines] is what Herbert Hoover said of Prohibition: that this has been a ‘great ... experiment, noble in motive [and] far-reaching in purpose.’ But like that earlier experiment, this one has failed.” Jose A. Cabranes, A Failed Utopian Experiment, Nat.L.J., July 27, 1992, at 17, 18 (U.S. District Judge Ca-branes based the article on a speech he delivered at the University of Chicago). As with any failed experiment, it is now time that we rid ourselves of the experiment and move on to a new, improved system.
In this case, of course, we are not faced with the question of whether Congress should eliminate the sentencing guidelines. We are faced with the more narrow question of the proper application of the relevant conduct provision. On this question, I believe Chief Judge Merritt, as well as the dissenters in United States v. Restrepo, 946 F.2d 654 (9th Cir.1991) (en banc), have made strong arguments in favor of rejecting the preponderance of the evidence standard in many areas of guidelines sentencing and adopting the reasonable doubt standard, and I urge the majority and other courts to seriously consider these arguments. I find the arguments well-reasoned and thoroughly persuasive; hence, I must respectfully dissent from the majority’s opinion.