Court Opinion

ID: 9800669
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 08:29:12.27998+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:46:26.318764
License: Public Domain

BRIGHT, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the opinion of the Court. However, I write separately to express my concern that Rene Fernandez Noriega’s 210-month sentence is excessive, and to reiterate, as the United States Attorney General stated just last year, that our sentencing system is broken and a new approach must be taken. See United States v. Stokes, 750 F.3d 767, 772-73 (8th Cir.2014) (Bright, J., concurring); United States v. Hiveley, 61 F.3d 1358, 1363-66 (8th Cir.1995) (Bright, J., concurring).
Noriega, a 50-year-old man, was convicted of a non-violent drug conspiracy offense and had no prior criminal history. He faced a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison and through enhancements under the Guidelines he received a sentence of 17.5 years (210 months). This is exactly the type of case that Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr., was referring to in his August 12, 2013 speech to the American Bar Association. See Eric Holder, Attorney General of the United States, United States Department of Justice, Remarks at the Annual Meeting of the American Bar Association’s House of Delegates (Aug. 12, 2013), available at http://www. justice.gov/iso/opa/agj3peeches/2013/ag-speech-130812.html. As Attorney General Holder stated in his remarks, “[b]y reserving the most severe penalties for serious, high-level, or violent drug traffickers, we can better promote public safety, deterrence, and rehabilitation — while making our expenditures smarter and more productive.” Id. Attorney General Holder has mandated that the Justice Department modify its charging policies to avoid “draconian mandatory minimum sentences” for nonviolent drug offenders. Id.
This mandate should be taken seriously. Until reforms come to the Guidelines and other sentencing provisions, those in the system — the probation officers, the U.S. Attorneys, defense counsel, and judges— must seek ways to correct this broken system and ensure that sentences are commensurate with the underlying crime. That did not happen in this case and, as a result, Noriega has suffered a severe pen*913alty that is unwarranted given his lack of a criminal history.