Court Opinion

ID: 9486810
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:00:47.122667+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:56.681954
License: Public Domain

NATHANIEL R. JONES,
concurring.
I concur in the judgment reached by the panel, for the applicable case law clearly indicates that Defendant McAdams’ seven cases were not technically consolidated for sentencing purposes. However, I write separately to highlight what I believe to be a prime example of the frequent semantic hoops that this and other courts feel compelled to leap through as a result of the Sentencing Guidelines, to the considerable disadvantage of criminal defendants.
Application Note 3 to U.S.S.G. § 4A1.2 instructs that prior sentences should be counted together for sentencing purposes if “they resulted from offenses that ... were consolidated for trial or sentencing.” Applying a common literary construction to this language, a defendant should fairly be able to assume that prior sentences will, therefore, not be counted separately if they were, in the plain meaning of the application note’s terminology, united or joined together at sentencing. See Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary 280 (1986) (“consolidate ... to join together into one whole: unite”). Consolidated should arguably mean just that.
In the instant case, Defendant McAdams was sentenced on May 23, 1991, for seven convictions, in the same hearing and by the same judge. Applying a commonsense definition to the language of Application Note 3, it seems clear that these cases were therefore “consolidated.” Yet, this court has declined to adopt a straightforward definition of the application note’s language, holding instead that “[tjhese facts, in and of themselves, simply do not suggest that the cases were consolidated for sentencing.” United States v. Coleman, 964 F.2d 564, 567 (6th Cir.1992). This court and many others have thus applied a technical definition to “consolidated” that bears only a passing resemblance to the plain language of the application note.
In the instant case, application of the technical definition precludes a finding that Defendant McAdams’ cases were consolidated for sentencing, because the seven cases bore separate docket numbers and arose from dissimilar factual bases. As this is the law of the circuit, it must be faithfully applied. Accordingly, I concur in the result of the majority. I write separately only to wonder aloud whether a similarly contorted construction of the plain language would have been adopted if it favored criminal defendants. Much to my chagrin, my instincts — and experience— answer that question with a resounding “no.” Hence, my separate concurrence.