Court Opinion

ID: 9631902
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:54:55.774008+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:08:03.564921
License: Public Domain

CLAY, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I agree with the analysis presented and the conclusion reached by Judge Cox in his opinion for the panel, which I join in full. However, I write separately to respond to Judge Merritt’s criticism of the result reached in this case.
In his dissent, Judge Merritt suggests that this case is an example of what he calls “the problem of guidelineism or ‘gui-delinitis.’ ” Merritt, J., dissenting at 829. While I fully appreciate Judge Merritt’s concern about the failure of many sentencing judges to engage an “individualized assessment based the facts presented,” Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. —, 128 S.Ct. 586, 597, 169 L.Ed.2d 445 (2007), I do not find that the sentencing judge in this case was derelict in his duty to tailor Defendant’s sentence based upon all of the sentencing considerations found in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), and not just upon the advisory Guidelines range.
I also find Judge Merritt’s explanation of the ideal sentencing procedure to be inconsistent with the Supreme Court’s most recent sentencing pronouncements. Contrary to what Judge Merritt suggests, the Supreme Court in Gall did not direct district court judges to start only with the Guidelines base offense level and then make adjustments to that level based upon his or her own sentencing discretion. See Merritt, J., dissenting at 833. Rather, the Supreme Court directed district judges to “begin all sentencing proceedings by correctly calculating the applicable Guidelines range” which would then serve as the “starting point and the initial benchmark” for sentencing. Gall, 128 S.Ct. at 596. This “applicable Guidelines range” includes not only the base offense level recommended by the Guidelines, but also any applicable adjustments to that level which the Sentencing Commission has recommended in the Guidelines. Thus, contrary to what Judge Merritt claims, post-Booker, sentencing judges must begin their sentencing deliberations by properly calculating the entire recommended Guidelines sentencing range, including any sentencing enhancements, not just the Guidelines-recommended base offense level. However, Judge Merritt is correct in emphasizing that after judges have determined this advisory Guidelines range, they must “then consider all of [the other] § 3553(a) factors” and “make an individualized assessment based on the facts presented.” Id. at 596-97. In this process, judges must use their discretion and should not unreflec-tively impose a within-Guidelines sentence. During this “individualized assessment” process, sentencing judges should not permit the Guidelines to be a strait-jacket which compel a particular sentence, but rather, as their name suggests, a helpful “guide” for crafting a sentence which is “sufficient but not greater than necessary to comply with the purposes” of sentencing set forth in § 3553(a).
Inasmuch as the judge in this case engaged in such an “individualized assessment” after properly calculating the advisory Guidelines range, including the applicable sentencing enhancements under the Guidelines, I am not persuaded that he committed a reversible sentencing error and, accordingly, I join Judge Cox in affirming Defendant’s sentence.