Court Opinion

ID: 9482374
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:48:13.343392+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:56.886285
License: Public Domain

MANION, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
Allowing district courts to correct illegal sentences as the district court did here may be a more efficient process than forcing parties to appeal illegal sentences. Nevertheless, I conclude that Fed.R.Crim.P. 35(a) as amended in 1987 forecloses this procedural route. Therefore, I respectfully dissent from the majority’s opinion.
Before being amended in 1987, Rule 35(a) specifically allowed a district court to correct an illegal sentence “at any time” and to correct a sentence imposed in an illegal manner within a reasonable time after a motion filed within 120 days after sentencing. But the amended Rule 35(a) provides only that “the court shall correct a sentence that is determined on appeal ... to have been imposed in violation of the law, to have been imposed as a result of an incorrect application of the sentencing guidelines, or to be unreasonable, upon remand of the case to the court....’’ (Emphasis added.) Amended Rule 35 (effective November 1,1987) omits any general authority in the district courts to correct illegal sentences. I do not believe this omission was inadvertent. The most reasonable implication from the omission of any such authority and the specific mention of correction after appeal and remand is that sentencing decisions in the district court are to be final, subject to change only if appealed.
In enacting the Sentencing Reform Act, “Congress realized that ‘[ajppellate review of sentences is essential to assume that the guidelines are applied properly and to provide case law development of the appropriate reasons for sentencing outside the guidelines.’ ” United States v. Jordan, 915 F.2d 622, 627 (11th Cir.1990) (quoting S.Rep. No. 225, 98th Cong., 2d Sess. 158, reprinted in 1984 U.S.Code Cong. & Ad. News 3182, 3341). Funnelling allegedly illegal sentencing decisions to the courts of appeals, as a plain reading of the amended Rule 35(a) requires, is consistent with the goals of proper case law development and consistent application of the guidelines. A court of appeals’ decision on a sentencing question settles that question for all district courts in the circuit; a district court’s decision on a sentencing question at best binds only itself, and leaves open the possibility of other district courts reaching contrary decisions.
Efficiency is important, and appeals are costly (although the “correction” did not avoid an appeal here). Nevertheless, because I conclude amended Rule 35(a) leaves no room for any inherent authority in a district court to correct illegal sentences on its own, I respectfully dissent from the majority’s holding affirming Himsel’s sen*149tence, and would vacate Himsel’s sentence and remand for resentencing.