Court Opinion

ID: 9478964
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:04:34.625753+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:44.614337
License: Public Domain

MERRITT, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the result reached by the Court that the United States Sentencing Guidelines are not facially invalid under the due process clause, but I believe the Court’s language is too broad. I conclude that the guidelines do not violate due process on the ground asserted by the defendant: that the guidelines on their face overly restrict the discretion of the sentencing judge.
The guidelines have broad departure principles. For example, the Commission Report says:
The Commission intends the sentencing courts to treat each guideline as carving out a ‘heartland,’ a set of typical cases embodying the conduct that each guideline describes. When a court finds an atypical case, one to which a particular guideline linguistically applies but where conduct significantly differs from the *967norm, the court may consider whether a departure is warranted.
United States Sentencing Commission Guidelines Manual, § A4(b) at 1.6 (October 1987). The Commission then goes on to explain its reasoning:
The Commission has adopted this departure policy for two reasons. First is the difficulty of foreseeing and capturing a single set of guidelines that encompasses the vast range of human conduct potentially relevant to a sentencing judge....
Id. at 1.7. This reasoning has led the Commission in § 5K2.0 of its rules to say:
Under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(b) the sentencing court may impose a sentence outside the range established by the applicable guideline.... Circumstances that may warrant departure from the guidelines pursuant to this provision cannot, by their very nature, be comprehensively listed and analyzed in advance. The controlling decision as to whether and to what extent departure is warranted can only be made by the court at the time of sentencing.
Id. § 5K2.0 at 5.36 (June 15, 1988).
Because the current guidelines have these departure provisions allowing a broad range of discretion to the sentencing judge, I would decline to hold that the guidelines violate due process on the grounds asserted by defendant: namely, that they place rigid and arbitrary restrictions on the sentencing judge’s authority to reach a just and fair sentence. District judges retain a wide range of discretion under the guidelines. The guidelines should be viewed as just that — “guidelines.” They should not be viewed as mandatory sentencing rules. If the guidelines did not contain the departure provisions which leave broad discretion in the District Court, the due process question would be a much more difficult question for me. Because the guidelines do continue to vest broad discretion in the District Court as a result of the departure provisions, I do not believe we need reach the question whether the guidelines would be invalid under due process if there were no departure provisions.