Court Opinion

ID: 9498742
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:26:46.954291+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:59:02.641743
License: Public Domain

MICHAEL, Circuit Judge,
concurring in the judgment and concurring in part:
I agree with the majority that the record reveals no fact about Vincent Eura as an individual that would warrant a sentence below the applicable guidelines range for his crack cocaine offense. For this reason, I concur in the judgment to vacate Eura’s sentence and remand for resentencing at the low end of the range. I also concur in part II of the majority’s opinion upholding the warrantless search of Eura’s car.
I write separately to discuss the practical utility of the Sentencing Commission’s reports criticizing the substantial disparity in punishment for crack and powder cocaine offenses (the “100:1 ratio” or “crack/powder disparity”). For over a decade the Commission has recommended narrowing the 100:1 ratio on the ground that it unjustifiably exaggerates the relative harmfulness of crack cocaine offenses, particularly in relation to powder cocaine offenses. See, e.g., U.S. Sentencing *635Comm’n, Special Report to the Congress: Cocaine and Federal Sentencing Policy 10 (2002) (hereinafter “2002 Report”), available at http://www.ussc.gov/legist.htm. The Commission’s reports supporting this recommendation rely on an impressive array of authority (empirical, academic, and otherwise). In some cases these reports can be useful to courts in analyzing the factors of 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), particularly those enumerated in § 3553(a)(2)(A) and (B): the need for the sentence imposed “(A) to reflect the seriousness of the offense, to promote respect for the law, ... to provide just punishment for the offense,” and “(B) to afford adequate deterrence to criminal conduct.” 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(2)(A)-(B). I recognize that the Commission’s reports alone cannot justify a sentence outside the guidelines range, given the need articulated in § 3553(a)(6) to avoid unwarranted sentencing disparities among similarly situated defendants. I believe, however, that the reports can be used to support a below-guidelines sentence that takes into account the several case-specific factors in § 3553(a) and at the same time respects the single factor in § 3553(a)(6).
I.
A.
In 1995 the Sentencing Commission issued a report to Congress recommending that the 100:1 ratio between crack cocaine and powder cocaine penalties be reduced. U.S. Sentencing Comm’n, Special Report to the Congress: Cocaine and Federal Sentencing Policy 198 (1995), available at http://www.ussc.gov/legist.htm (hereinafter “1995 Report”). Shortly thereafter, the Commission submitted a proposed amendment to the Sentencing Guidelines that would have equalized the penalties for crack cocaine and powder cocaine. Amendments to the Sentencing Guidelines for United States Courts, 60 Fed.Reg. 25,-074, 25,077 (U.S. Sentencing Comm’n May 10, 1995) (notice). Congress rejected this proposal but, recognizing the need for reform, directed the Commission to make further recommendations on cocaine sentencing. Act of Oct. 30, 1995, Pub.L. No. 104-38, 109 Stat. 334. In 1997 the Commission issued another proposal urging Congress to overhaul the crack/powder penalty scheme by reducing the 100:1 ratio to a 5:1 ratio. U.S. Sentencing Comm’n, Special Report to the Congress: Cocaine and Federal Sentencing Policy 2 (1997), available at http://www.ussc.gov/legist.htm (hereinafter “1997 Report”). The Attorney General also recommended a 5:1 ratio while the White House publicly endorsed a 10:1 ratio. See Elizabeth Tison, Amending the Sentencing Guidelines for Cocaine Offenses, 27 S. Ill. U. L.J. 413, 427 (2003). Congress did not act on the Commission’s proposal. Finally, in 2002 the Commission again unanimously declared the 100:1 ratio “unjustified” and urged reducing crack sentences to reflect a 20:1 ratio. 2002 Report, supra, at 91, 106. Again, Congress did not act on the Commission’s recommendation.
In making its 2002 recommendation, the Sentencing Commission reviewed scholarly articles, conducted extensive empirical and public opinion studies, and solicited public comment from a wide range of sources (including medical and scientific experts, federal and local law enforcement officials, criminal justice practitioners, academics, and civil rights activists). See 2002 Report, supra, at Appendix E. Based on this immense body of evidence, the Commission made four main findings. First, the 100:1 ratio exaggerates the relative harmfulness of crack cocaine, especially when its addictive qualities, risks of prenatal exposure, and use by juveniles are taken into account. See id. at v-vi. Cocaine in any form, whether as crack or powder, “produces the same physiological and psychotropic effects.” Id. at v. The only dif-*636ferenee is that powder cocaine is less addictive than crack cocaine because it is snorted, but this difference alone does not warrant the extreme differential in penalties. See id. Moreover, the “epidemic of crack use by youth never materialized to the extent feared.” Id. at vi. In fact, use of crack cocaine among juveniles is lower than use of powder cocaine. See id. Second, the current penalties “sweep too broadly and apply most often to lower level offenders,” resulting in a “penalty gap” that most acutely affects low-level crack offenders with the least criminal history. Id. at vi-vii. This penalty gap contravenes the basic principles of sentencing policy. See id. Third, the current penalties overstate the seriousness of most crack cocaine offenses and fail to provide adequate proportionality, punishing “all crack cocaine offenders as if they committed [the] more harmful acts” associated with only some crack offenses (namely, acts of violence). Id. at vii. Fourth, the current penalties disproportionately target African-American defendants, spurring a perception of racial disparity that “fosters disrespect for and lack of confidence in the criminal justice system.” Id. at vii-viii. This disparity, furthermore, introduces irrationality and “possibly harmful mischief’ into the criminal justice system because it has little to do with culpability: all crack begins as powder cocaine and is transformed into crack through a “quick and uncomplicated operation,” generally near the point of retail sale. United States v. Smith, 359 F.Supp.2d 771, 780 (E.D.Wis.2005) (detailing testimony and other evidence before Commission); see also U.S. Sentencing Comm’n, 60 Fed.Reg. at 25,077 (“Cocaine is imported and distributed in powder form, meaning that those persons highest in the distribution chain — whom the Commission considers the most culpable and the most responsible for the nation’s cocaine problem — deal only in powder” and thus sometimes receive shorter sentences than small-scale street dealers). Based on these findings, the Commission “unanimously and firmly” concluded that the 100:1 ratio was unjustified in light of congressional sentencing objectives and should be substantially narrowed. 2002 Report, supra, at viii.
B.
It is of course significant that Congress has chosen not to enact the Sentencing Commission’s repeated recommendations. Courts cannot impose a below-guidelines sentence based purely on a policy disagreement with the guidelines, even if this disagreement derives in part from the Commission’s findings. It is for Congress, not the courts, to make policy judgments about which crimes are categorically worse than others. See, e.g., United States v. Evans, 333 U.S. 483, 486, 68 S.Ct. 634, 92 L.Ed. 823 (1948). As the majority correctly observes, a sentencing court cannot systematically endorse a crack penalty ratio that it deems more fair and just than the 100:1 ratio, whether it be 20:1, 10:1, or 5:1. Ante at 633-634; see United States v. Pho, 433 F.3d 53, 64-65 (1st Cir.2006).
Rather, as Booker instructs, sentencing courts must make individual sentencing decisions grounded in the factors of 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 245, 125 S.Ct. 738, 757, 160 L.Ed.2d 621 (2005). More precisely, sentencing courts must first calculate the applicable guidelines range (after making the appropriate findings of fact) and then consider this range along with the factors sent forth in § 3553(a) before imposing a sentence. See United States v. Hughes, 401 F.3d 540, 546 (4th Cir.2005). These factors include the nature of the offense, the history and character of the defendant, and the needs to “reflect the seriousness of the offense,” provide “just punishment,” “afford adequate deterrence,” protect the *637public, and avoid unwarranted sentencing disparities among defendants with similar records convicted of similar conduct. 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). As the majority correctly notes, courts are free to depart from the advisory guidelines range so long as the resulting sentence is reasonable in light of the various statutory factors. Ante at 634. In other words, proper consideration of the § 3553(a) factors will render a sentence reasonable.
This framework should allow a sentencing court to consider the Sentencing Commission’s reports when analyzing the § 3553(a) factors. The Commission’s findings on the crack/powder disparity may inform a court’s analysis of the § 3553(a) factors, particularly the need to impose a sentence “sufficient, but not greater than necessary” to “reflect the seriousness of the offense, ... promote respect for the law, ... provide just punishment for the offense,” [and] “afford adequate deterrence to criminal conduct.” 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(2)(A)-(B). As I discussed in part I.A, the Commission’s findings draw upon extensive evidence (empirical, academic, and otherwise). The amply supported findings are not made irrelevant simply because Congress did not act upon them, although the congressional response (rejection of the 1995 proposal and silence in response to the 1997 and 2002 reports) inevitably detracts from their overall significance. See, e.g., United States v. Perry, 389 F.Supp.2d 278, 307-08 n. 33 (D.R.I.2005) (noting that to disregard Commission’s findings purely because Congress failed to adopt them would raise serious Booker concerns and that, for this reason, the congressional response to the findings, like the entire guidelines regime, should be treated as advisory only — as “part of the mix in applying the Guidelines on an advisory basis”); United States v. Franklin, No. 04-4000701SAC, 2005 WL 1330959, at *1 n. 1 (D.Kan.2005) (while “disparity in the Sentencing Guidelines between cocaine base and powder cocaine is not a valid basis for downward departure” in the Tenth Circuit, “[t]his is not to say that a sentencing court [post-Booker] may not consider this disparity” in evaluating certain § 3553(a) factors) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). While the Commission’s findings alone cannot justify a below-guidelines sentence, in certain cases they can help sentencing courts analyze the § 3553(a) factors and select a sentence that is “sufficient, but not greater than necessary” to punish, deter, and rehabilitate the defendant. 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). The Commission’s findings, in other words, can be considered insofar as they are refracted through an individual defendant’s case.
In Simon v. United States, for example, the district court for the Eastern District of New York analyzed the circumstances relevant to § 3553(a), including the case’s unusually long procedural history and the defendant’s family circumstances, prison record, and failing health. 361 F.Supp.2d 35, 39-49 (E.D.N.Y.2005). The court considered the Commission’s findings only to the extent that they applied to § 3553(a)(2)(A) and (B): the need for the sentence imposed to reflect the seriousness of the offense, promote respect for the law, be “just,” and provide adequate deterrence to criminal conduct. Regarding the need for just punishment, § 3553(a)(2)(A), the court stated that it must “consider society’s views as to appropriate penalties, not just a judge’s own personal instincts.” Id. at 43 (quoting Peter H. Rossi & Richard A. Berk, United States Sentencing Commission, Public Opinion on Sentencing Federal Crimes 6 (1995), available at http://www.ussc.gov/nss/jp_exsum.htm); see also Rossi & Berk, supra, at 6 (stating that a just punishment should be “positively correlated with the punishment desired by the citizens”). The Commission’s findings, insofar as they surveyed and studied *638public opinion on the crack/powder disparity, thus became relevant to the court’s consideration of the § 3553(a)(2)(A) factor. A public opinion study sponsored by the Commission revealed that the public generally favors “the same median sentence” for crack, heroin, and powder cocaine offenses. Simon, 361 F.Supp.2d at 47 (citing Rossi & Berk, supra, at 83). Citing this study, the court explained that “[w]here such a deviation between the Guidelines and public opinion exists, the reasonableness of the sentence [that the Guidelines] recommend diminishes,” meaning that a just sentence may fall below the advisory range. Id. at 47.
Regarding the need to reflect the seriousness of the offense, § 3553(a)(2)(A), the Simon court considered the Commission’s finding that the crack guidelines exaggerate the relative harmfulness of crack cocaine. See id. at 47-48 (citing 2002 Report, supra, at 93). The court cited evidence supporting the Commission’s finding: namely, that the harms of prenatal exposure to crack cocaine and powder cocaine are identical and less severe than originally believed and that use by juveniles of crack cocaine is between two and seven times lower than use of powder cocaine. See id. (citing 2002 Report, supra, at 93-97). Nonetheless, the court recognized that crack offenses should be punished more severely than similar powder offenses, although not necessarily by a factor of 100, because crack is highly addictive and its harms “fall[ ] disproportionately on some of the most vulnerable in our community.” Id. at 46 (citing 1995 Report, supra, at 35). This examination of relative harmfulness also informed the court’s consideration of the general deterrence factor, § 3553(a)(2)(B), which requires consideration of the harm resulting from the conduct to be deterred. See id. at 47-48 (citing 2002 Report, supra, at 93-97 and Rossi & Berk, supra, at 7). The court recognized that while the 100:1 ratio exaggerates crack’s relative harmfulness, “[i]t is indisputable ... that Congress has concluded that sentences for crack-related offenses are to be lengthy, and in particular more lengthy than similar powder cocaine offenses.” Id. Ultimately, the court determined that these related statutory factors — seriousness of the offense and general deterrence— weighed in favor of a lengthy sentence, one significantly longer than what the court would impose for a similar powder cocaine offense, though not 100 times longer. See id. at 46, 48.
In this way, the district court in Simon used the Commission’s findings as a resource in its analysis of the § 3553(a)(2)(A) and (B) factors, but not to categorically reject the 100:1 ratio in favor of some alternative ratio. See id. at 46 (“It is, however, not for this Court to adopt a specific ratio, but instead to craft a sentence that is reasonable and best satisfies the requirements of § 3553(a). In doing so, I rely in part on the research of the Commission and other sources, whose expertise in these matters is entitled to some deference.”). Moreover, Commission findings did not figure at all in the Simon court’s consideration of many of the § 3553(a) factors, for example § 3553(a)(1), which enabled the court to take into account the ease’s long procedural history and the defendant’s severely failing health, and § 3553(a)(2)(C), which enabled the court to evaluate the specific risk of recidivism. See id. at 41 — 43, 47-48. The court thus invoked the Commission’s findings to support a below-guidelines sentence that was reasonable principally because of the individualized factors of § 3553(a).
The district court in Simon took care to respect § 3553(a)(6), which highlights the need to avoid unwarranted disparities among defendants with similar records who have been convicted of similar con*639duct. See id. at 48^49. The court cited a number of individualized mitigating factors, including the defendant’s acute and worsening medical condition and the long delay he experienced before achieving finality, that differentiated his case from other similar cases. See id. Thus, although the court relied in part on the Commission’s findings to impose a below-guidelines sentence, the court gave adequate consideration to § 3553(a)(6) and explained the case-specific factors that warranted a disparate sentence.
Simon illustrates that a sentencing court can use the Sentencing Commission’s findings in considering the § 3553(a)(2)(A)-(B) factors while still respecting § 3553(a)(6). The court satisfied Congress’s overall sentencing goals, as reflected in § 3553(a), by using the Commission’s findings to sharpen and support its consideration of case-specific factors. These findings enabled the court to evaluate more precisely the somewhat abstract factors in § 3553(a)(2)(A)-(B): just punishment, seriousness of the offense, and general deterrence. By consulting the Commission’s reports, the court drew on the accumulated expertise of many who have studied or dealt with the crack guidelines (judges, prosecutors, defense lawyers, police, medical and scientific experts, and academics). The court thereby bolstered its rationale for imposing a below-guidelines sentence and demonstrated fully that the sentence imposed was reasonable in light of all of the relevant § 3553(a) factors.
I do not mean to suggest that sentencing courts must consider the Commission’s findings and, based on these findings, impose a below-guidelines sentence. See United States v. Gipson, 425 F.3d 335, 337 (7th Cir.2005) (holding that it was not error for the sentencing court “not to have taken the [100:1] differential into account” when sentencing crack offender within guidelines range); United States v. Cawthorn, 429 F.3d 793, 802-03 (8th Cir.2005) (adopting Seventh Circuit’s reasoning in Gipson). Rather, I simply suggest that a sentencing court does not automatically err by considering the Commission’s findings when analyzing the factors of § 3553(a), as long as these findings do not form the sole basis for imposing a below-guidelines sentence (by, for example, categorically endorsing a 20:1 or 10:1 ratio instead of the 100:1 ratio embedded in the guidelines). Case-specific factors must primarily drive the sentence. See Simon, 361 F.Supp.2d at 39-49; see also United States v. Williams, 435 F.3d 1350, 1353-54 (11th Cir.2006) (upholding below-guidelines sentence for crack offense as reasonable in light of § 3553(a) factors and explaining that district court gave “specific, valid reasons” for sentence rather than “bas[in'g sentence] solely on its disagreement with the Guidelines”). Because there are no case-specific facts to justify a below-guidelines sentence for Eura, I join the majority in vacating his sentence and remanding for resentencing at the low end of the guidelines range.