Court Opinion

ID: 9490356
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:40:50.572619+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:54:02.884422
License: Public Domain

EVANS, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
Robert Booker is no boy scout. Along with Timothy Pollard he ran a crack cocaine business in South Bend, Indiana, during 1991 and part of 1992. A jury found him guilty on a charge of conspiracy to peddle crack and two substantive distribution charges, but it acquitted him on an 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) charge alleging that he used or carried a firearm in connection with his drug business.
Booker has paid a steep price for his crimes. The amount of crack for which he was held responsible earned him a spot at base offense level 38 under the federal sentencing guidelines. His leadership role in the enterprise (under guideline § 3Bl.l(a)) added 4 more points, which put him at level 42, one step below the absolute top of the guidelines. Level 42 calls for a sentence between 360 months and life—without regard to one’s criminal history. The only level above 42 calls for a life sentence without parole across the board.
Following our remand, United States v. Pollard, 72 F.3d 66 (7th Cir.1995), Booker was sentenced to 30 years (without parole, of course) on the conspiracy charge. Judge Sharp, as the majority notes, declined to further increase Booker’s level up to 43 by invoking an enhancement under § 2Dl.l(b)(l). The judge was impressed with the jury acquittal on the § 924(c) count *445(after all, § 924(e) and § 2Dl.l(b)(l) are closer than kissing cousins), and he said, “After reviewing a transcript of the evidence at trial, this court finds that the government failed to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that Booker used or possessed a firearm in connection with his drug trafficking.” While this finding is cryptic and perhaps a reach as well, I would honor it and affirm Booker’s sentence. The result of the majority’s order will, I think, mean that Booker will get life without parole. That sentence will be the result of our overriding concern that a clearly reluctant district judge did not make his findings in exactly the way we told him to. And, in fact, he did not, but neither did he fail entirely to make the essential finding. The unfairness of a life sentence without parole for Mr. Booker, despite the majority’s guideline-speak, is the more important issue; it will be a grossly unjust result compared to the term imposed on his co-entrepreneur, Mr. Pollard.
One of the guidelines’ selling points was that they would eliminate disparity in sentencing. But if you blindfolded a judge, spun her around three times, and gave her a stick to point at a penalty chart — ala Pin the Tail on the Donkey — you would not, in my view, have any more disparity than we have today in federal court sentencing proceedings under the guidelines. This case is a good example.
First, there’s the initial decision to charge Booker in federal court, where the penalties are steep, instead of the courts of Indiana. Second, Booker is black and deals in crack, which carries penalties 100 times greater under the guidelines than would be the case if he sold powder cocaine, the choice of folks who live in tony suburbs. The law, of course, says this is perfectly cricket, but that doesn’t make it fair. Lastly, Pollard, who as we noted in our prior opinion is almost a career offender, was every bit the drug dealer Booker (who has no criminal record) was; yet, comparatively, he was handled with kid gloves. The prosecutor, who has enormous (critics suggest too much) power under the guidelines, gave Pollard all sorts of consideration which resulted, upon remand, in a sentence of 10 years and 1 month. On the other hand, the prosecutor wants to lock up Booker and throw the key away ... forever. Even bad apples should be treated with some semblance of fairness, so I dissent from today’s decision to reverse the order of Judge Sharp as requested by the government. I agree, however, with the court’s disposition of Booker’s own appeal.