Court Opinion

ID: 9498701
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:25:35.404806+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:59:01.020147
License: Public Domain

WOLLMAN, Circuit Judge,
concurring and dissenting.
I concur in the court’s holding that the district court did not err in basing its departure point at 360 months.
I dissent, however, from the affirmance of the 60 percent departure from the 360-month guidelines range for the reasons set forth in Judge Colloton’s opinion for the court in United States y.. Saenz, 428 F.3d 1159 (8th Cir.2005).
I start with the proposition that “[a]n extraordinary reduction must be supported by extraordinary circumstances.” Saenz, 428 F.3d at 1162 (quoting United States v. Dalton, 404 F.3d 1029, 1033 (8th Cir.2005)). Here, although Burns’s assistance to the government was not insubstantial, it cannot fairly be considered as extraordinary. His assistance helped the government secure the indictment of one individual and helped establish drug quantity with respect to another individual. Moreover, there was no evidence that Burns’s assistance caused any injury to himself or placed him in any danger. Likewise, the fact that Burns gave the government all the information he had alone does not ren*832der his assistance extraordinary. Although Burns started cooperating during his post-arrest debriefing, the government points out, without any challenge to this assertion, that. many- defendants divulge information shortly after arrest, so it is hard to see how the timeliness of Burns’s cooperation can fairly be characterized as extraordinary.
That the district court refused to give significant weight to the government’s recommendation of a 15 percent reduction because of its refusal to disclose how it had reached that determination does not by itself render suspect the court’s reduction, Saenz, 428 F.3d at 1164. There is no indication in the record that the district court’s decision to reduce the sentence was the result of judicial pique over what it might have considered prosecutorial intransigence. District judges after all are not minions of the prosecutor’s office. ’' By the same token, United States attorneys are not subalterns of the district court.
The governing factor for me in this case is the overarching principle set forth -in Saenz:
Departures under § 5K1.1- and reductions under § 3553(e) should not beuii-tethered from the structure of the advisory guidelines. They take place, rather, within the framework of an advisory guideline scheme designed to reduce unwarranted sentence disparities among similar defendants.
428 F.3d at 1162.
Accordingly, neither prosecutors nor district courts should yield to the temptation of indulging in solipsistic preferences in recommending and imposing sentences. Advisory though they may be, the guidelines stand as guideposts that are to be observed if we-are not to see a return to the instances of unwarranted disparity the prevention of which led to the adoption of the guidelines themselves. As deferential to the considered, on-the-scene views of the district court as we appellate judges appropriately should be, nevertheless we have a responsibility to ensure that the guidelines are observed as advisory in practice and not merely in word.
When viewed in the light of Saenz’s overarching principle, I must conclude that, even after giving due respect to the carefully considered views of a district judge who has had the experience of sentencing untold' defendants over the years, the 60 percent reduction in this case was excessive in light of the relative insubstan-tiality of Burns’s assistance. Accordingly, I would vacate the sentence and remand the case for resentencing in accordance with the views set forth in Saenz and the cases cited therein.