Court Opinion

ID: 9557870
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 16:59:18.251822+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:07:36.517770
License: Public Domain

MERRITT, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
In this sentencing appeal, the sentencing court below at the beginning of the sentencing hearing said:
But the court is of the opinion in this particular matter that both a departure and a variance is certainly called for under the facts of this particular case. And I’ll set forth my reasons why.
An upward departure certainly is called for in this particular matter, and as well as a variance, under the circumstances.
(J.A. 71, emphasis added.)
Throughout the sentencing colloquy, the trial judge repeatedly made it clear that his theory of sentencing in this case was the need for a “departure found under 5K2.0, subparagraph A, of the Guidelines.” (J.A. 75.) He gave as his reasons for the three-year “upward departure” the following:
1. “Those addicted to methamphetamine, will do anything to feed their habit.”
2. “He needs drug treatment, and I am not certain that one year, or 12- to 18 months, under these advisory guidelines or the plea agreement, will be adequate time for the treatment....”
3. “I would certainly ... make reference to the fact that statutorily, the statutory penalty for this offense is 20 years, is the maximum that could be imposed. And I would find the sentence in the advisory range of 12 to 18 months to be disparate, simply because of the wide range and divergence between the statutory maximum.... ” (J.A. 77-78.)
The sentencing judge and my colleagues disagree with the Department of Justice and the defendant in the plea agreement that the defendant did not sell or distrib*640ute much of the meth he manufactured. They find as a fact without any evidence that I can find in the record supporting it that the defendant sold 180 grams of meth. They also disagreed with the Department of Justice that the defendant could be cured or rehabilitated from his drug addiction within the 18 months provided in the plea agreement and believe that an additional three years was necessary to cure the addiction and rehabilitate the defendant. Contrary to the sentencing judge’s conclusion, the government believed that a 5-year sentence would be much “greater than necessary” under § 3553 to serve the purposes of rehabilitation and deterrence and so advised the court in the plea agreement.
In situations such as this one where there is a large deviation from a plea agreement — in this case a tripling of the sentence — plus a sentence characterized throughout by the sentencing judge as an “upward departure,” the sentencing guidelines provide that “the Court of Appeals shall review de novo the district court’s application of the guidelines to the facts.” 18 U.S.C. § 3742(c)(1), (e). The Supreme Court has in no way overruled this congressional concept, as my colleagues insist. It only makes sense for the court of appeals to give de novo review when the district court both departs upward and triples the plea agreement sentence. Applying de novo review, I would remand the case to the district court with instructions to sentence the defendant within the plea agreement. I see no reason to disagree with the government that the defendant could not be rehabilitated and cured of his addiction within 18 months, and the sentencing judge and my colleagues give no reason whatever for their disagreement. I do not agree with them that the maximum sentence of 20 years is a factor that should be taken into account in this sentencing case. That is irrelevant, and constitutes reversible error in and of itself. Nor do I find in the record any evidence whatever that the defendant sold or distributed much of the meth he manufactured. The defendant is simply a poor soul with many physical ailments who is addicted to meth. Providence would not insist on the law’s vengeance in this case; and I do not understand what my colleagues and the sentencing judge are avenging by tripling the sentence that the government prosecutor believed was fair and reasonable.
Of course, as I have said now in many other cases, I do not agree that the sentencing judge or the courts of appeals are empowered after the Blakely-BookerCunningham line of cases to make findings of fact beyond the facts of the jury verdict or guilty pleas — new fact findings that ratchet up the sentence. See United States v. Thompson, 515 F.3d 556 (6th Cir.2008); United States v. Phinazee, 515 F.3d 511 (6th Cir.2008); United States v. Sedore, 512 F.3d 819 (6th Cir.2008); United States v. Sexton, 512 F.3d 326 (6th Cir.2008). This case is one more example of American “exceptionalism”: the fact that we continue to live through a period of harsh, irrational punishment, which has now produced a national prison population of 2.3 million — by far, the highest in the world — and an enormous increase in prison costs in the last 20 years since sentencing guidelines at the state and national levels went into effect.