Court Opinion

ID: 9488599
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:49:47.511304+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:57.941043
License: Public Domain

FERNANDEZ, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
There can be no doubt that we will not apply a substantive change to the Guidelines retroactively, unless it is listed among those changes set forth in U.S.S.G. § 1B1.10. See United States v. Aldana-Ortiz, 6 F.3d 601, 602 (9th Cir.1993). We do apply clarifying changes retroactively. See United States v. Donaghe, 50 F.3d 608, 612 (9th Cir.1994). However, the mere fact that the Commission calls a change clarifying does not make it so where it changes our precedent regarding the law. See United States v. Smallwood, 35 F.3d 414, 418 n. 8 (9th Cir.1994). When a Guideline change affects the substantive law of this circuit, it is a substantive change. See id.; United States v. Johns, 5 F.3d 1267 (9th Cir.1993). So it is here.
The Commission has called its change to U.S.S.G. § 5G1.2 clarifying, but the amendment directly reverses the law of this circuit. See United States v. Shorthouse, 7 F.3d 149 (9th Cir.1993), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 114 S.Ct. 1838, 128 L.Ed.2d 466 (1994). The *858fact that this particular substantive change would benefit rather than harm Sanders is beside the point. See United States v. Mooneyham, 938 F.2d 139, 141 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 502 U.S. 969, 112 S.Ct. 443, 116 L.Ed.2d 461 (1991). Had the Commission wanted it to be otherwise, it could have placed the amendment under the provisions of U.S.S.G. § 1B1.10. The fact that this was a clarifying amendment would not preclude that. See, e.g., U.S.S.G. app. C, amend. 454 (clarifying amendment listed under § lB1.10(c)).
I, therefore, see no basis for applying this amendment to upset Sanders’ sentence. When the district court sentenced him, it did so in exactly the right way under the Guidelines as they were interpreted by the law of this circuit. We should not be reversing this case based upon a later change. Indeed, there is much mischief in doing so.
We will, for example, encourage defendants to file otherwise meritless appeals on the off-chance that there will be some later spasm of activity from the Commission that will change the interpretation of the Guidelines. See Mooneyham, 938 F.2d at 141. That is not a bad gamble, when one considers the frequency of changes made by that body. As of the November 1994 version we were up to Amendment 509. Moreover, this new approach will bypass § lBl.lO’s conferral of discretion upon the district court when retroactive changes are made, for (as here) there will be no discretion. The defendant will simply get the benefit of the change. Again, that is just too good a gamble for a defendant to pass up.
In short, I think it takes matters out of order to first consider whether a defendant is benefitted by a change and to then decide if the change is substantive. We should first characterize the change and then let the result flow from that characterization. Here the change is substantive. The result that flows is non-retroactivity, and the sentence should be affirmed.
Thus, I respectfully dissent.