Court Opinion

ID: 9483204
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:14:22.578685+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:40:01.037252
License: Public Domain

DAVID A. NELSON, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I share some of the dissenters’ reservations about the wisdom of the current sentencing guideline system, but I concur in the judgment of the court and in Judge Kennedy’s opinion. Unlike the dissenters, I do not believe that the Sentencing Commission violated any statutory or constitutional limitation in prescribing the sentencing range normally applicable to cases such as the one before us here. Neither do I believe that defendant Davern’s rights were violated by the application of the sentencing guidelines to him. The importance of the issues presented prompts me to explain the reasons for my conclusions in some detail.
I
Congress has made it a crime for any person knowingly or intentionally to possess cocaine with intent to distribute it. 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). Any person who violates § 841(a) in the way defendant Davern did, Congress has declared, “shall be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of not more than 20 years.” 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(C). There can be no doubt at all as to the intent of Congress with respect to the maximum sentence for Mr. Davern’s crime: Congress intended a sentence of up to 20 years.
Mr. Davern was well aware of the 20-year maximum sentence when he entered his plea of guilty:
“THE COURT: Do you know what the maximum penalties required by law are in relation to this case, sir?
*1496THE DEFENDANT: Yeah.
THE COURT: Tell me.
THE DEFENDANT: Zero to 20 years and a million dollars fine.
THE COURT: 20 years and a million dollar fine. Three years supervised release.
[ASST. U.S. ATT’Y.]: Correct, your Honor.
THE COURT: And an assessment of $50. Do you understand all of those matters?
THE DEFENDANT: Yes.
THE COURT: Does the fact, that you know that change your mind in any manner about entering a plea of guilty here today?
THE DEFENDANT: No.”
In addition to setting a 20-year maximum sentence, Congress has provided in some situations for minimum sentences as well. In the case of a violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a) involving 500 grams or more of a mixture containing a detectable amount of cocaine, for example, Congress has said that the defendant “shall be sentenced to a term of imprisonment which may not be less than 5 years_” 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(l)(B)(ii)(II).
The Assistant United States Attorney who prepared the indictment for the grand jury in this case was concerned that the sentencing court might have no choice but to impose a mandatory minimum sentence of imprisonment for 5 years.1 In drafting the indictment, therefore, she omitted any reference to the quantity of cocaine involved. The indictment charged simply that "JOHN P. DAVERN did knowingly, intentionally, and unlawfully possess with intent to distribute a mixture and substance containing a detectable amount of cocaine, a Schedule II narcotic drug controlled substance; in violation of Title 21, Section 841(a)(1), United States Code.”
The record is clear that the indictment was deliberately drafted this way for defendant Davern’s benefit. As the Assistant U.S. Attorney explained in open court,
“I could have, and we normally would have, written that which would have given him a mandatory minimum five years and that was expressly drafted for the benefit of the defendant so that he could get credit for the minus two of acceptance of responsibility under the guideline and get under the mandatory statutory 60 months.”
It is doubtless true that “there are many ‘games to be played’ ” in indicting defendants and in plea bargaining, United States v. Harrington, 947 F.2d 956, 964 (D.C.Cir.1991) (Edwards, J., concurring), but the case at bar happens to be one in which the game-playing was intended to work to the defendant’s advantage. And it did work to his advantage, of course; Mr. Davern was sentenced not to 5 years, but to a little over 4 years.
The attempt by the United States Attorney’s office to circumvent a possible mandatory minimum 5-year sentence did not offend the trial judge, and it does not offend me. Prosecutors have always enjoyed a wide measure of discretion under our system — they do not have to seek indictments at all, for example, if they see some legitimate reason for not prosecuting — and I do not believe there was any abuse of discretion in this case. The dissenters note that defendant Davern’s education, lack of a prior criminal record,2 and strong ties to *1497a good family and to the community make Mr. Davern somewhat atypical as defen-' dants go, and it is only natural for prosecutors and judges to want to do what was evidently done here — i.e., take such factors into account. Under the guidelines, nonetheless, the extent to which a defendant’s personal characteristics can warrant special consideration by the courts is rather circumscribed. Congress clearly intended this.
The statutory penalties apply to “any person” who violates 21 U.S.C. § 841(a). Young or old, college-educated or illiterate, white or non-white, from a good family or no family, “any” person who does what John Davern did faces a maximum sentence of 20 years. And he faces that sentence regardless of whether he happens to have enjoyed Mr. Davern’s advantages in life.
In the statute establishing guideline sentencing, Congress directed the Sentencing Commission to “assure that the guidelines and policy statements are entirely neutral as to the race, sex,, national origin, creed and socioeconomic status of offenders.” 28 U.S.C. § 994(d). The Commission, as far as I can tell, has faithfully followed this Congressional directive.
Congress also directed the Commission to consider whether certain factors listed in the statute have any relevance to the nature and extent of an appropriate sentence. 28 U.S.C. § 994(d)(1) through (11). Among the factors listed are “age,” “education,” “physical condition, including drug dependence,” “family ties and responsibilities,” and “community ties.” To the extent that the-Commission finds that one or more of these factors have any relevance at all, Congress directed the Commission to “take them into account only to the extent that they do have relevance_”
The Commission has considered the things that Congress told it to consider and has exercised its informed judgment on these matters. With respect to age, education, family ties and responsibilities and community ties, the Commission has concluded that the factors are “not ordinarily relevant in determining whether a sentence should be outside the guidelines....” U.S.S.G. §§ 5H1.1, 5H1.2, 5H1.6. With respect to drug dependency and alcohol abuse, the Commission is more emphatic:
“Drug dependence or alcohol abuse is not a reason for imposing a sentence below the guidelines. Substance abuse is highly correlated to an increased pro-, pensity to commit crime.” § 5H1.4.3
*1498I fully agree with the dissenters that it is important, in this case, to understand not only the exact nature of Mr. Davern’s crime, but something about him as an individual. The nature of the crime is relatively easy: Mr. Davern paid $10,500 that he claimed to have saved from his unemployment benefits for what he thought was half a kilogram of cocaine. He told the undercover agent from whom he made the purchase that “he was going to sell the cocaine in one ounce portions4 and that he intended to ‘cut it’ except for that cocaine he would sell to close friends.” He told the sentencing judge, on the other hand, that he planned to use some of the cocaine himself, selling the rest to a “[f]ew friends, just to support my habit.” It is undisputed that Mr. Davern intended to distribute at least part of the cocaine to others. It is also undisputed that Mr. Davern was still addicted to cocaine at the time of his arrest.
Mr. Davern told the sentencing judge that the undercover agent had “enticed” him into buying more than he would have bought ordinarily by offering “this great bargain price.” The judge — who has probably seen enough of these cases to have a pretty good idea of the going price for cocaine in Northeastern Ohio — obviously did not accept this part of Davern’s story as true. If he had believed it, the judge could have used the government's offer of a “bargain price” as a basis for a downward departure — i.e,, a sentence below the 51-month floor of the guideline range. But the judge could not depart downward on the basis of a representation that was not true.
Neither could the judge depart downward on the basis of Mr. Davern’s being a 25-year-old college student, or because Mr. Davern was a member of a large, closely-knit family, or because he had strong ties to the community. Factors such as these may be weighed by the sentencing judge in deciding what sentence to impose within the guideline range — 51 months as opposed to 63 months, e.g. — but the Sentencing Commission, discharging a responsibility vested in it by Congress, has decided that such factors may not ordinarily be used to justify a sentence below the guideline range. If the government did not in fact entice Mr. Davern into contracting to buy half a kilogram by offering him a bargain price, therefore, the guidelines dictate a minimum sentence of 51 months. I am certainly not prepared to say that a 51-month sentence — less than one-fourth the statutory maximum of 240 months — is out of proportion to Mr. Davern’s crime.
II
Inviting our attention to the statutory construction argument advanced in the original panel opinion, reported at 937 F.2d 1041, the dissenters suggest that the en banc court has disregarded the mandate of 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). Paragraph 2 of that section of the statute requires a sentencing court to impose a sentence sufficient to, among other things, reflect the seriousness of the offense, promote respect for the law, provide just punishment, afford adequate deterrence, and protect the public from further crimes of the defendant. At the same time, however, the sentence is “not [to be] greater than necessary ... to comply with [these] purposes.... ” Id.
As Judge Kennedy demonstrated very effectively in her dissent from the original panel opinion, § 3553(a) does not stand alone. It must be read in conjunction with § 3553(b), which makes it mandatory that the court impose a sentence within the range established under the guidelines “unless the court determines that there exists an aggravating or mitigating circumstance of a kind, or to a degree, not adequately *1499taken into consideration by the Sentencing Commission in formulating the guide-lines_” See 937 F.2d at 1051 et seq.
Many federal district judges would probably prefer to be able to decide for themselves what sentence would be sufficient, in a particular case, to comply with the purposes of § 3553(a)(2). Congress, however, has seen fit to delegate to the Sentencing Commission responsibility for determining what range of sentences will comply with the statutory purposes for various types of offense and various types of defendant.5 The Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of this delegation. Mistretta v. United States, 488 U.S. 361, 109 S.Ct. 647, 102 L.Ed.2d 714 (1989). Although a sentencing court must doubtless consider the elements of § 3553(a) in deciding what particular sentence to impose within a given guideline range, therefore, the court is not free to second-guess the Commission on what the range ought to be. Perhaps, in time, Congress will heed the urging of the New York Bar Association and others to adopt amendments transforming the guidelines from “compulsory prescriptions” to “general standards.” Unless and until Congress acts, however, it is obvious that we must live with the law now on the books.
Expanding on an argument that was put forth somewhat tentatively in the original panel opinion (“[b]y using the word ‘convicted,’ Congress may well have intended to prevent the Commission from ordering judges to sentence for unconvicted crimes for which the defendant has not received notice in the indictment and an opportunity to defend in the traditional way,” 937 F.2d at 1051), the dissenters now insist categorically that “[t]he statute does not authorize incremental penalties when a defendant is convicted only of a single offense during a time period in which he may also have committed other offenses if he is not charged and convicted for those offenses.” 6 With respect, I must say that I do not find this argument persuasive.
In the first place, I do not believe that Mr. Davern was subjected to an “incremental penalty” for offenses of which he was not convicted. He was convicted of possessing a controlled substance (cocaine) with intent to distribute it, and that is all he is being punished for. Using a formula that may be convoluted but that certainly is not ambiguous, the Sentencing Commission has made the range of permissible sentences that may be imposed within the 20-year statutory cap a function of the amount of cocaine the defendant intended to possess. This is clearly not beyond the Commission’s power, and I do not understand why a sentence within the prescribed range should be thought to represent an incremental penalty for some offense other than possession with intent to distribute.
In the second place, 28 U.S.C. § 994(Z)(1)(A) appears to have been designed to guard against the Commission’s establishing too low a sentence range for situations where a defendant has been convicted of multiple offenses. It was not designed to impose an upper limit, and I see no reason to suppose that this section was intended to prevent the Commission from ordering judges to take into account unconvicted offenses, committed in the same course of conduct as the offense of conviction, when determining the sentence range for the crime with which the defendant was charged and of which he was found guilty.
*1500III
The dominant theme of Part III of Judge Merritt’s dissent — a theme echoed elsewhere as well — is that because Mr. Davern did not have adequate notice of the charges and the prospective sentence, it was unfair and unconstitutional to measure his sentence by the quantity of cocaine he intended to purchase. But Mr. Davern had been fully advised how the sentencing guidelines would operate in his case and what the government contended his minimum guideline sentence should be. If ever a defendant entered a guilty plea with his eyes wide open, that defendant was John Da-vern.
The record of Mr. Davern’s plea hearing shows that this defendant was hardly the sort of uninformed, friendless, and uncoun-seled individual sometimes encountered in criminal proceedings. Mr. Davern had a very supportive sister who happened to be a probation officer, and he was represented by two prominent and experienced criminal lawyers. These lawyers, as Mr. Davern testified, had gone over the features of the federal guideline sentencing system with him, and Davern has never contended that he was unaware of how the guidelines might be applied to him.
Any such contention would be precluded by the record of the plea hearing. That record shows that Mr. Davern was in court when the Assistant U.S. Attorney told the judge that the low end of the guideline range, as computed by the government, would be a sentence of 51 months. Mr. Davern also heard the Assistant U.S. Attorney state that under the plea agreement she had negotiated with defense counsel, the government would agree that the appropriate sentence was the 51 months at the bottom of the guideline range.
Addressing Mr. Davern directly, the trial judge told him that the government was “indicating to me that they will recommend to the Court at the time of sentencing that the Court sentence at the bottom of the guideline range. Do I make that clear to you?
THE DEFENDANT: Yes.
THE COURT: The range here is what?
[ASS’T. U.S. ATT’Y.]: 51 to 63 months.
THE COURT: 51 to 63. They’re going to recommend 51. Do you understand that?
THE DEFENDANT: Yes.”
And there is more. Prior to the court’s acceptance of the plea, one of Mr. Davern’s lawyers stated on the record that notwithstanding the plea agreement, “the defendant certainly in no way stipulates that the guideline range should in fact be 51 to 64(sic) months.” Again addressing Mr. Da-vern directly, the judge explained to him that his attorneys, meeting with the court and the prosecutor in chambers, had raised a question as to what quantity of cocaine should be used in determining the part of the guideline grid to which the court should look in determining the sentence. The judge went on to explain to Mr. Davern that there would be a hearing on this matter, following which the court would make a determination. The judge explicitly informed Mr. Davern that he should not assume that his attorneys’ argument would be accepted:
“Now, it may be that I will say that they’re wrong. It may be that I’ll say that they’re right. That is an appealable issue by you to the Circuit Court.”
The judge then asked Mr. Davern if this was satisfactory to him. Mr. Davern responded “Yes.” It was only after all this that the judge asked Mr. Davern how he pleaded to the indictment and Mr. Davern responded “Guilty.”
It is self-evident, I should have thought, that this record bespeaks no violation of Mr. Davern’s rights under the Due Process Clause. In some other case, with some other defendant, we may find a trial court accepting a guilty plea under circumstances which, because of the defendant’s unfamiliarity with the guidelines, could arguably create a problem of constitutional magnitude. Surely, however, that possibility cannot justify our treating the guidelines as unconstitutional in their application to John Davern, a defendant whose consti*1501tutional rights have been scrupulously honored.

. Chapman v. United States, 500 U.S. -, 111 S.Ct. 1919, 114 L.Ed.2d 524 (1991), suggested that the weights of containers and packaging materials should generally not be included in the weight of a mixture or substance containing an illicit drug, "because those items are ... clearly not mixed or otherwise combined with the drug.” 500 U.S. at -, 111 S.Ct. at 1926, 114 L.Ed.2d at 536. Chapman was not decided, however, until more than a year after Mr. Da-vern was indicted.

. Although Mr. Davern was a first offender, as pointed out in the text accompanying footnote 7 of Chief Judge Merritt's dissent, the statutory provision to which the footnote refers in this connection, 28 U.S.C. § 994(j), does not suggest that prison sentences are inappropriate for first offenders who commit crimes of the sort to which Mr. Davern pleaded guilty. Section 994(j) directs the Sentencing Commission to "insure that the guidelines reflect the general appropriateness of imposing a sentence other than imprisonment in cases in which the defendant is a first offender who has not been convicted of *1497a crime of violence or an otherwise serious offense. ..." (Emphasis supplied.) The crime of which Mr. Davern has been convicted is one that Congress obviously considers a very serious offense indeed.

. My own view, if anyone should think it material, is that drug dependence or alcohol abuse ought not be treated as a reason for imposing a sentence below the guideline range, but that other personal offender characteristics — including successful efforts to-overcome chemical dependency — might well have been taken into account by the Sentencing Commission to a greater extent. Two years ago, in response to a call from the Commission’s Chairman for comments on areas of the guidelines that might be improved, I urged the Commission "to re-examine the policy of ignoring characteristics that could be indicative of the likelihood that a particular defendant will engage in future criminal behavior.” And demonstrating that I am no less capable than the next judge of overlooking relevant statutory text — see the last sentence of 28 U.S.C. § 994(d) — my letter to the Commission continued as follows:
“To illustrate the sort of thing that concerns me, suppose that a judge is called upon to sentence a woman of mature years who has strong family ties and responsibilities and whose offense seems to have been a one-shot affair. I should have thought, in such a case, that it would be appropriate for the sentencing judge to consider the defendant's age, sex, and family situation in deciding whether to depart from the guideline range.”
I think Congress was wrong in demanding that the guidelines be entirely neutral as to the sex of the offender. I think the Sentencing Commission was wrong in not according more relevance to the factors that Congress, in 28 U.S.C. §-994(d), told the Commission to consider. But I do not think my personal views give me a veto power over Congressional legislation, or entitle me to second-guess the Sentencing Commission on matters that Congress has clearly committed to the Commission’s discretion.
It is apparently Judge Merritt’s view (see pages 1502-03 of his dissent) that if a court disagrees with the extent to which the Sentencing Commission has taken the § 994(d) characteristics into account, the court should feel free to substitute its judgment for the Commission’s. Why does Judge Merritt believe that a court has such power? The guidelines are not a statute, *1498of course, but the Sentencing Reform Act is— and what the Act says is that “[t]he Commission” shall consider whether the matters listed in 28 U.S.C. § 994(d) have any relevance. Having considered them, the Act says, the Commission shall take them into account only to the extent that they do have relevance. This court is not the Commission, and Congress has not authorized us to act as if we were.

. There are more than 17 one ounce portions in half a kilogram, so Mr. Davern could conceivably have intended to put cocaine in the hands of up to 17 or more different people.

. In discharging its responsibility, the Commission has been told to "establish a sentencing range that is consistent with all pertinent provisions of Title 18, United States Code.” 28 U.S.C. § 994(b)(1) (emphasis supplied.) . Among the pertinent provisions of Title 18, of course, is 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(2).

. The relevant portion of 28 U.S.C. § 994(/) reads as follows:
"The Commission shall insure that the guidelines promulgated pursuant to subsection (a)(1) reflect—
(1) the appropriateness of imposing an incremental penalty for each offense in a case in which a defendant is convicted of—
(A) multiple offenses committed in the same course of conduct that result in .the exercise of ancillary jurisdiction over one or more of the offenses.... ” 28 U.S.C. § 994(/)(l)(A).