Court Opinion

ID: 9498695
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:25:25.751083+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:59:00.829845
License: Public Domain

BOYCE F. MARTIN, Jr., Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I join Judge Gilman’s persuasively reasoned opinion. I write separately with regard to Martin’s sentencing claim as to whether his car theft offenses were related for the purposes of the Guidelines. On this issue, I concur in the Court’s opinion, because our precedent compels this conclusion. I still, however, continue to disagree with that precedent. On this point, both pursuant to the Guidelines and for purposes of the Armed Career Criminal Act, I have already beaten the dead horse. See United States v. Powers, 129. Fed.Appx. 942, 945 n. 1 (6th Cir.2005) (unpublished) (‘Writing only for myself, I continue to adhere to my belief that the ‘on occasions different from one another’ language [in the Armed Career Criminal Act] was not meant to encompass the conduct in this case,” and that if a defendant’s convictions were a part of one continuous crime spree they should be treated as one predicate offense.); United States v. Brady, 988 F.2d 664, 670, 672 (6th Cir.1993) (en banc) (Martin, J., dissenting, and joining Judge Jones’s dissent arguing that “Congress comments plainly presuppose that the Act is intended to apply to only incorrigible, habitual criminals or, as the Second Circuit in Towne stated, to ‘recidivists ... who have engaged in violent criminal activity on at least three separate occasions, and not individuals who happen to acquire three convictions as a result of a single criminal episode.’ Id. at 672 (quoting United States v. Towne, 870 F.2d 880, 891 (2d Cir.1989)).”). Nevertheless, with due *640respect to PETA, I wish to kick the horse once more. This time, at least with respect to the Guidelines, my comments have some renewed significance.
First, though, with regard to my continued disagreement with this Court’s precedent, I believe that we have reached the point where there are few, if any, circumstances in which we would find that a defendant’s previous crimes are related for purposes of the Guidelines or the Armed Career Criminal Act. Under the Armed Career Criminal Act, our case law concludes that two offenses are separate predicate offenses if “it is possible to identify an endpoint between the two offenses.” United States v. Carnes, 309 F.3d 950, 955-56 (6th Cir.2002) (holding that the burglary of two adjacent homes, one immediately following the other, were separate predicate offenses because the defendant had to leave one residence to enter the other). The standards under the Application Notes to section 4A1.2(a)(2) under the Guidelines set forth a standard similar to the one for our review under the Armed Career Criminal Act. U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual § 4A1.2, Application Note 3. In this case, Martin stole four cars in twenty-three days using the sainé mo-dus operandi — using a fake drivers license to secure permission for a test drive of a new automobile and then stealing it. The Court’s opinion points out that Martin has the burden of proving that the thefts were part of a “single common scheme or plan,” which he could sustain by establishing that “his crimes were jointly planned or that the commission of one entailed the other.” United States v. Irons, 196 F.3d 634, 638-39 (6th Cir.1999).
I do agree that “offenses are not necessarily related merely because they were committed within a short period of time,” United States v. Horn, 355 F.3d 610, 615 (6th Cir.2004), but I fear that, as Judge Jones predicted, the inquiry in these cases has become “so narrow that it now exists only as a nebulous concept.” Brady, 988 F.2d at 674 (Jones, J., dissenting). We have reached the point, I believe, that only truly simultaneous crimes — which rarely, if at all, exist — or' those crimes with explicit evidence that they were planned together, will render offenses “related.” I believe that this approach contravenes Congress’s intent to enhance the punishment of those habitual and incorrigible offenders who continue to commit crimes over extended periods of time. By judicially broadening the category of those crimes that are not considered related, the Guidelines often have the effect of aggregating offenses occurring within a short period of time and that any reasonable person would consider related, and leading to greater and often’ excessive punishments. Provisions such as these have led to, in no small part, the problem of over-punishment in our system of criminal justice.
In fact, at oral argument counsel for the United States was asked if he could explain to the Court what types of offenses or common planning the government would concede to be related for the purposes of sentencing. Counsel had no idea. Instead, counsel spoke of such sophisticated planning that it believes is required under our case law that, in my opinion, only two types of criminals would be able to benefit from it: (1) perhaps a white collar criminal who keeps detailed records Of the entire plan or (2) the James Bond movie villain, who prior to carrying out some grand scheme of world domination/annihilation, feels compelled to explain to anyone who will listen and in great detail (with intermittent villainous guffaws), each of the steps necessary to *641achieve his plan.1
It seems to me that we apply the antithesis of common sense in these cases. The defendant was addicted to drugs. In order to feed his habit, he stole four cars in the exact same way over a short three week period. Any reasonable observer would consider, under any dictionary definition, these crimes to be related. Instead of applying logic and common sense, our Court’s precedent seems to require us to look for reasons why these crimes are not related. We end up coming up with reasons like these: Martin drove the cars to different buyers and the thefts took place in two different states. Holmes did write that “[t]he life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience.” The Common Law 1 (1881); see also United States v. O’Neill, 437 F.3d 654, 658, 2006 WL 306928, at *5 (7th Cir.2006) (Posner, J.) (“I know that the life of the law has not been logic, but logic does have its claim, which in this case seem to me compelling.”). But, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t use a little common sense now and again. See Koons Buick Pontiac GMC, Inc. v. Nigh, 543 U.S. 50, 65, 125 S.Ct. 460, 160 L.Ed.2d 389 (2004) (Stevens, J., concurring) (“Thus we cannot escape this unambiguous statutory command by proclaiming that it would produce an absurd result. We can, however, escape by using common sense.”).
My point, now, however, does have renewed relevance. In United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 125 S.Ct. 738, 160 L.Ed.2d 621 (2005), of course, the Supreme Court invalidated the mandatory use of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines and the remedial opinion declared them “effectively advisory.” We have stated that “[o]nce the appropriate advisory Guideline range is calculated, the district court throws this ingredient into the section 3553(a) mix.” United States v. McBride, 434 F.3d 470, 476 (6th Cir.2006); 18 U.S.C. § 3553. Pri- or to Booker, sentences outside of the Guideline range were severely limited; now, “with greater latitude” a “district court need only consider [the Guideline range] along with its analysis of the section 3553(a) factors.” Id.
Now that section 3553(a) is the focal point, and the Guidelines sentence is merely advisory, the fact that the district court calculated Martin’s criminal history score to be seven based on its separate counting of his four car thefts, is “not the end of the sentencing inquiry; rather, it is just the beginning.” Id.; see also United States v. Mickelson, 433 F.3d 1050, 1055 (8th Cir.2006) (“As we recognized in United States v. Haack, 403 F.3d 997, 1002-03 (8th Cir.2005), calculation of the appropriate guideline sentence is only the first step in sen*642tencing decisions under Booker, for the court must also consider the § 3553(a) factors before making its ultimate determination.”)- Section 3553(a) instructs district courts to impose “a sentence sufficient, but not greater than necessary, to comply with the purposes” set forth in section 3553(a). Now, although the calculation of Martin’s criminal history score under the Guidelines was seven and led to a sentencing range of 168 to 210 months imprisonment, the district court is not bound to adhere to the Guideline range. A district court’s explicit textual responsibility is to impose “a sentence sufficient, but not greater than necessary to comply with the purposes” set forth in section 3553(a). See also United States v. Foreman, 436 F.3d 638, 644, 2006 WL 287365, *5 (6th Cir.2006).
Appellate courts then review sentences for reasonableness — reasonableness in light of the factors set forth in section 3553(a), but also in light of whether the district court complied with its own textual responsibility to impose “a sentence sufficient, but not greater than necessary to comply” with these purposes. Id. In appropriate cases, and I refrain from opining as to whether Martin’s is one, a district court may conclude that the criminal history category overstates the severity of the defendant’s criminal history or that a lower sentence would still comply with and serve the mandates of section 3553(a). That is, a district court may look beneath the specific criminal history score and determine whether Martin’s four car thefts merit the increased sentence that the Guidelines suggest. In such circumstances, there is nothing that would preclude a Guidelines sentence from being declared unreasonable. If the district court determines that section 3553(a) does not permit it to impose the Guideline-recommended sentence based on an over-inflated significance attributed to Martin’s criminal history, this Court will later review that decision for reasonableness.
With these observations, I concur in the Court’s opinion.

. See also Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (New Line Cinema 1997).
DR. EVIL: Scott, I want you to meet Daddy’s nemesis, Austin Powers.
SCOTT EVIL: Why are you feeding him? Why don’t you just kill him?
DR. EVIL: In due time.
SCOTT EVIL: But what if he escapes? Why don’t you just shoot him? What are you waiting for?
DR. EVIL: I have a better idea. I'm going to put him in an easily-escapable situation involving an overly-elaborate and exotic death.
SCOTT EVIL: Why don’t you just shoot him now? Here, I’ll get a gun. We’ll just shoot him. Bang! Dead. Done.
DR. EVIL: One more peep out of you and you’re grounded. Let’s begin.
Prior to this exchange and then again following it, Dr. Evil describes in great detail the separate crimes necessary to achieve his plan for world domination. Thus, if our Government ever does find Dr. Evil (or chooses to prosecute him despite his recent decision to be "less evil,” see Austin Powers in Goldmem-ber (New Line Cinema 2002)), he will be one of the few, if any, criminal defendants, able to argue, consistent with this Circuit's precedent, that all of his various crimes were "related” for purposes of the Guidelines.