Court Opinion

ID: 9488559
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:48:47.934937+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:57.640378
License: Public Domain

POSNER, Chief Judge,
concurring.
I join the opinion of the court, but add some thoughts on the life-sentence issue. The issue is exceptionally difficult, and unfortunately the difficulty is disproportionate to its actual importance other than to the two defendants. But with so much potentially at stake for them, we owe it careful consideration.
Until last year, the federal criminal code forbade the imposition of a life sentence for crimes involving the destruction of airplanes, motor vehicles, or their places of storage unless a jury recommended a life sentence. 18 U.S.C. § 34. (The requirement of a jury recommendation was repealed by the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, but there is no contention that the repeal affects this case.) There was no such recommendation in this case. So the first time this case was here we vacated the life sentences that the district judge had imposed on the two defendants. 16 F.3d 767, 783-85 (7th Cir.1994); see also United States v. Williams, 775 F.2d 1295, 1299 (5th Cir.1985); United States v. Hansen, 755 F.2d 629, 631 (8th Cir.1985); Ruiz v. United States, 365 F.2d 500 (3d Cir.1966); cf. Ex parte Goss, 262 S.W.2d 412 (159 Tex.Crim. 235, App.1953), overruled on other grounds in Ex parte Hill, 528 S.W.2d 125, 127 (Tex.Ct.App.1975). On remand the judge sentenced each of them to 53 years. One defendant was at the time of sentencing 26 years old, the other 24.
The government believes that a jury recommendation is not required for any term of years, no matter how long. It asked for a 100-year sentence for one of the defendants. Yet, with parole having been abolished, it would not make any sense that I can see to interpret 18 U.S.C. § 34 to require a jury recommendation only in cases in which the word “life” appears in the sentence. The qualification (“with parole having been abolished”) is important. In a system with parole, a term of years means what the parole board wants it to mean. Before parole for federal prisoners was swept away (effective in 1987) by the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, a prisoner was eligible for parole after he had served one-third of his sentence or 10 years, whichever came first. 18 U.S.C. § 4205(a). So if he was sentenced to 100 years in prison, or for that matter to life in prison, he would be eligible for parole after 10 years. A sentence to a term of years, no matter how long, was not a sentence of life imprisonment; nor, for that matter, was a sentence of life imprisonment.
It did not follow that there was no difference between a sentence of life imprisonment and one of 30 years, the shortest sentence that would produce the same date of eligibility for parole as a sentence of life imprisonment. The judge’s choice between these sentences would signal his view of the gravity of the defendant’s conduct, and this might influence the parole board’s choice of the actual, as distinct from the earliest possible, parole date. There was even authority, based on 18 U.S.C. § 4205(b)(1), that the judge could, in sentencing to a term of years in excess of 30 years, postpone the date of eligibility for parole beyond 10 years. E.g., United States v. Tidmore, 893 F.2d 1209 (11th Cir.1990); Rothgeb v. United States, 789 F.2d 647, 652 (8th Cir.1986). Several circuits, however, our own included, disagreed — precisely because the effect would be to empower the judge to make a term of years a heavier sentence than life imprisonment. United States v. Fountain, 840 F.2d 509, 517-23 (7th Cir.1988); United States v. Hagen, 869 F.2d 277, 280-81 (6th Cir.1989); United States v. Castonguay, 843 F.2d 51 (1st Cir.1988).
With parole abolished and (another innovation of the Sentencing Reform Act) good-time credits reduced to a maximum of 14.7 percent of a sentence of more than four years (see 18 U.S.C. § 3624(b)(1)), a judge could — if we allowed him — use a sentence to a term of years to imprison a defendant for his natural life, thus circumventing the requirement in 18 U.S.C. § 34 of a jury recommendation for a life sentence. This use or rather misuse would be plain if the judge *847chose a term that was so long, given the defendant’s age, that the defendant was certain (barring some medical breakthrough as yet unforeseen) to die before he completed the term. A 150-year term would do the trick, regardless of the age of the defendant. So would a 120-year term for a 30-year-old, or a 70-year term for a person of 80. Good-time credits would not shorten those terms to the point where they could be survived; the terms in my examples would be shortened only to 128, 102, and 60 years.
Would such sentences be illegal unless the jury had recommended life imprisonment? Besides the present case and Martin, of which more later, there are no eases under section 34 itself, although this is not surprising given its limited scope. Cases like Rothgeb v. United States, supra, 789 F.2d at 651, hold, unexceptionably, that if a statute authorizes life imprisonment or, in the alternative, imprisonment for a term of years, the judge’s picking a term so long (210 years in that case) as to be tantamount to life is not reversible error. But the absence, in our case, of a jury recommendation for a sentence of life in prison disempowered the sentencing judge to choose between a life term and a term of years, so if he used a term of years to impose a life sentence he was evading a limitation on his authority. Ruiz v. United States, supra, 365 F.2d at 501, declined to rule that “under some circumstances a term of years greater than the prisoner’s life expectancy may not be imposed,” but without explaining what those circumstances might be. A state case dealing with a statute similar to 18 U.S.C. § 34 invalidated a 75-year sentence, remanding for the imposition of a sentence “reasonably expected to be less than life.” Stewart v. State, 372 So.2d 257, 258-59 (Miss.1979). See also United States ex rel. Curtis v. Blackburn, 748 F.2d 1047 (5th Cir.1984). And we have expressed skepticism “that ‘any term of years’ means ‘any term of years less than the age of the universe’ rather than ‘any term of years less than life.’ ” United States v. Fountain, supra, 840 F.2d 509, 518.
It can never be certain that a federal prisoner, or any other prisoner, will not be released until some fixed number of years (the term of the sentence minus the maximum good-time credits) have elapsed or, in the case of a sentence of imprisonment for natural life, until the prisoner has died. There are always escape hatches, such as executive clemency, or section 70002 of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A), which authorizes (in “extraordinary” circumstances) the release of a federal prisoner who is at least 70 years old and has served at least 30 years of his sentence. But these escape hatches do not warrant our treating a life sentence, or a sentence to a term of years so long as to amount to the same thing, as not really so severe.
The 53-year sentences in this case are not so long as to be the certain equivalent of life sentences. Life expectancy “at any given age is the average number of years remaining to be lived by those surviving to that age on the basis of a given set of age-specific rates of dying.” National Center for Health Statistics, Vital Statistics of the United States, 1990, vol. II, mortality, part A, § 6 (life tables), p. 6 (Public Health Service 1994). Currently, the life expectancy of a 26-year-old white American male (the defendants are white) is 48.4 years, and of a 24-year-old 50.3 years. The actual prison terms that these defendants would have to serve if their sentences stand, after subtraction of their maximum good-time credits, would be 45 years, which is slightly short of their life expectancy. And as the definition given above makes clear, a “life expectancy” is an estimate merely of how long the average person of a given age, nationality, and sex (and of course more precise classifications are possible — one might speak of the life expectancy of a person of a given age, etc. who had had a particular form of cancer or lived in a particular area or was of a particular race) is expected to live. Roughly half (not exactly, because we are speaking of the average rather than median age of death) will die earlier. By the same token, roughly half will survive. This shows that even a sentence equal to (rather than, as here, slightly shorter than, at least when the maximum good-time credits are subtracted) a person’s life expectancy is less severe than a life sentence. A sentence equal to a person’s life *848expectancy, of which the sentences in this case are an approximation, is a life sentence with a probability of approximately .5, which in the serious affairs of life is a very high probability; imagine being told that you have a 50 percent probability of living out the week. And as I have said, even a sentence of “natural life” is not a life sentence with a probability of 1.
Should a sentence equal to the defendant’s life expectancy be classified as a life sentence for purposes of section 34? If the answer is no, where should the line be drawn? If yes, what about the slightly shorter sentences (if maximum good-time credits are subtracted) imposed in this case? And should good-time credits be considered at all? These are difficult questions; perhaps questions the answers to which are too arbitrary to be given by courts, which shy away from creating numerically precise rules and thus refuse, for example, to create fixed limitations periods for statutes that do not contain any. Hemmings v. Barian, 822 F.2d 688, 689-90 (7th Cir.1987); Short v. Belleville Shoe Mfg. Co., 908 F.2d 1385, 1394 (7th Cir.1990) (concurring opinion). It is a matter for Congress, which passed section 34 in a different era, to address — as it has now done by deleting the requirement of a jury recommendation, but only for the future. We must do our best to give meaning to the original statute in a changed era. The best way, I think, is to direct the sentencing judge when choosing a period of years for a defendant not eligible for a life sentence to select a period that in light of the defendant’s fundamental demographic characteristics of age and sex (and in light also of his entitlement to good-time credits if he behaves himself as a prisoner), is significantly, though not necessarily greatly, less severe than a sentence of life imprisonment. The sentencing judge must reflect upon the difference between a life sentence and a sentence to a term of years and state for the record his reason for believing that the term of years that he has imposed is indeed significantly less severe than a term of life. The sentencing guidelines do not specify such a procedure, but neither do they purport to override the statute.
I do not think that the judge should also consider the defendant’s health. Apart from the complexities and uncertainties involved in computing life expectancies on the basis of the health of a specific person, a sentence reflects a judgment about the gravity of the defendant’s conduct. A person is not less an arsonist for having only six months to live, and a five-month sentence for arson might be thought to depreciate the gravity of his crime. But no one could suppose that a sentence of, say, 40 years for the defendants in this case could be criticized as making light of the seriousness of their crimes.
I have not been able to make up my mind whether the judge should take account of the defendant’s race. The use of race as a criterion for official action is highly disfavored; on the other hand the differences in adult life expectancy between blacks and whites in this country are so dramatic that to ignore them in computing a defendant’s life expectancy might make it difficult to pick a sentence consistent with section 34. The problem is not important here, because while black and white life expectancies differ greatly, the difference between white and total life expectancies is not great, because blacks comprise a relatively small proportion of the population. These defendants are white, so the use of race-neutral rather than race-specific life expectancy figures would not greatly alter the assessment of what a term of years significantly less than life would be for them.
I do think the maximum good-time credits should be subtracted. The defendant should not be allowed to say, “My sentence is too long because I am planning to be a bad boy in prison and so won’t earn the maximum good-time credits.”
There is no indication that the district judge was endeavoring to impose a sentence significantly less severe than life in prison, and since our previous opinion did not tell him to do this, no inference that he was endeavoring to do it can be drawn from his silence. The court is therefore right to remand the case for resentencing. The difficulty comes with the directions to the district judge. United States v. Martin, 63 F.3d 1422, 1434 (7th Cir.1995), an opinion which I joined, holds that “a sentence for a term of *849years exceeding the defendant’s approximate life expectancy would ordinarily constitute an abuse of discretion” under the pre-amended section 34 unless, of course, the jury recommends life imprisonment. In the present case, involving younger defendants, the sentences do not exceed the defendants’ life expectancies if, as I believe should be done, maximum good-time credits are subtracted, unless, contrary to my view, individual life expectancies rather than group life expectancies are used and the defendants can show that because of poor health or poor genes or other factors they are not likely to live as long as the average member of their demographic group. Martin does not resolve these issues concerning good-time credits and individual versus group life expectancies (and the bounds of the group), and I interpret Judge Ripple’s opinion for the court in the present case to leave them open as well. This is appropriate in light of the difficulty of the issues and the absence of briefing and argument directed to them and a factual record bearing on them.
The passage from Martin that I quoted and that is also quoted in Judge Ripple’s opinion states a good rule of thumb, keying the maximum sentence to the defendant’s life expectancy. It is not a rigid rule that in all circumstances a sentence exactly equal to the defendant’s life expectancy is per se in compliance with section 34, while a sentence that exceeds that life expectancy by even a day is-a per se violation of the statute. (Should a 90-year-old commit arson, it might unduly depreciate the gravity of his act to sentence him to a term of years equal to his life expectancy.) What is required is the judge’s reasoned choice of a sentence that will fulfill the purposes of section 34 in the post-parole world. I have tried, in amplification of Martin and of the majority opinion in this ease, to indicate some of the considerations that bear on that choice.