Court Opinion

ID: 9480161
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:40:04.220811+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:47:31.408496
License: Public Domain

EDMONDSON, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I concur in the court’s judgment and in its opinion, except part III. In part III, today’s court creates a detailed procedural guideline — to be enforced by remands— about how district courts are to handle sentencing hearings. The procedure described in part III may well be a good practice, but I distrust such judicially created guidelines that are to govern in the future cases of a certain kind. The adjudicating process is poorly suited for sweeping pronouncements. And I think that, when we dictate too much to district courts, we lose the benefit of creativity that different district judges working independently can bring to solving a problem.
Justice Harlan summed up my view on guideline decisions when he wrote this:
I seriously doubt the wisdom of these “guideline” decisions. They suffer the danger of pitfalls that usually go with judging in a vacuum. However carefully written, they are apt in their application to carry unintended consequences which once accomplished are not always easy to repair. Rules respecting matters daily arising in the federal courts are ultimately likely to find more solid formulation if left to focused adjudication on a case-by-case basis, or to the normal rule-making processes of the Judicial Conference, rather than to ex cathedra pronouncements by this Court, which is remote from the arena.
In dealing with cases of this type, I think we do better to confine ourselves to the particular issues presented....
Sanders v. United States, 373 U.S. 1, 32, 83 S.Ct. 1068, 1085-86, 10 L.Ed.2d 148 (1963) (Harlan, J., dissenting).