Court Opinion

ID: 9843286
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 02:32:27.075919+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:16:37.282559
License: Public Domain

WARDLAW, Circuit Judge,
with whom GOULD, Circuit Judge, joins, and with whom O’SCANNLAIN and BEA, Circuit Judges, join with respect to Part I, concurring in part and dissenting in part:
The district court erred by treating the factual statements in the Presentence Report as presumptively accurate and placing the burden on Ameline to disprove them. See United States v. Howard, 894 F.2d 1085, 1090 (9th Cir.1990). I therefore concur in the majority’s decision to vacate Ameline’s sentence and to remand his case for a new sentencing hearing pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 32. I respectfully dissent, however, from the majority opinion because it improperly delegates to the district courts our discretionary appellate function to conduct plain error review of unpreserved claims of Booker error. The resulting wholesale remand of hundreds, possibly thousands, of sentencing appeals elevates our administrative concerns over the law as pronounced by the Supreme Court in United States v. Booker, — U.S. -, 125 S.Ct. 738, 160 L.Ed.2d 621 (2005), and over the interests of individual justice.
I.
Flaws in the Majority’s “Limited Remand” Approach
The majority accurately characterizes the Booker error. A constitutional infirmity arises only where a defendant’s sentence is enhanced under a mandatory Guidelines system as a result of factual *1087findings made by the sentencing judge beyond the facts admitted to by the defendant or found by a jury. The majority is also correct that, after Booker, such an error is plain. But those are only the first two prongs of the plain error test. We must also determine whether the plain error affected the defendant’s “substantial rights.” United States v. Cotton, 535 U.S. 625, 631, 122 S.Ct. 1781, 152 L.Ed.2d 860 (2002). If this third-prong is met, we may then exercise our discretion to notice the forfeited error, but only if the “error seriously affect[s] the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings.” Id. (quotations omitted).
Neither party to this litigation urged us to adopt the Second Circuit’s Crosby approach, which relegates to the district courts the determination of the third and fourth prongs of plain error review. See United States v. Crosby, 397 F.3d 103 (2d Cir.2005). Indeed, both parties advocated against our adoption of Crosby. Yet, after examining the analyses of our sister circuits, the majority selects Crosby for the reason that it is a “practical,” “short,” “easy,” “quick,” and “sure” way to dispose of unpreserved claims of Booker error. I agree that the majority’s approach is “short,” “quick,” and “easy,” at least for our court. It relieves our docket of “literally thousands of cases” (in the government’s words). It relieves us of our obligation to review each of those cases individually. It permanently disposes of at least some portion of those cases, such as where a defendant will have already served his unconstitutional sentence by the time the district courts, with their own heavy dockets, absorb the avalanche of simultaneous remands and are able to make the time to decide whether or not to resentence. We will have removed several appeals from our own crowded docket by requiring the district courts to further crowd theirs, as they do our job. Although the burden-shifting approach the majority arrives upon may be “short,” “easy,” and “quick,” it is neither correct nor just.
The majority’s delegation of the third and fourth prongs of plain error review to the district courts has several flaws: (1) it contradicts what the Supreme Court said and did in Booker; (2) it abdicates our obligation as a reviewing court to conduct plain error review; (3) the question it poses for the district courts is not an accurate inquiry under the prejudice prong of plain error review; (4) it fails to make provision for the number of district judges who have left the bench or who have become otherwise incapacitated since imposing the unconstitutional sentences under review, and who, therefore, are incapable of answering its question; and (5) any efficiencies that it purportedly promises will prove illusory.
1. Booker
The majority’s approach is at odds with what the Supreme Court said and did in Booker. There, the Court instructed “reviewing courts to apply ordinary prudential doctrines, determining, for example, whether the issue was raised below and whether it fails the ‘plain-error’ test.” Booker, 125 S.Ct. at 769 (emphasis added). The Court directed appellate courts to fulfill their review function, and did not even hint that delegating that function, to the district courts might be appropriate. “The Supreme Court phrased its instructions to reviewing courts in terms of what has long been accepted practice in the federal courts and did not suggest that this accepted practice must change in the wake of Booker.” United States v. Milan, 398 F.3d 445, 454 (6th Cir.2005).1
The majority’s approach also conflicts with what the Supreme Court did in Book*1088er. The Court reviewed Booker’s ease and found that the district court “imposed a sentence higher than the maximum authorized solely by the jury’s verdict,” a Sixth Amendment violation. Booker, 125 S.Ct. at 769. The Court remanded the case for resentencing, ordering that “[o]n remand, the District Court should impose a sentence in accordance with today’s opinions, and, if the sentence comes before the Court of Appeals for review, the Court of Appeals should apply the standards set forth in this opinion.” Id. The Court saw no need to ask the district court to determine in the first instance whether resen-tencing was warranted. It thus made clear that appellate courts should review an unpreserved claim of Booker error for whether it is plain error, and remand for resentencing in appropriate cases. Nor did the Court incorporate the remedial portion of its decision into the question of whether there was error — i.e., it did not ask whether the sentence would have been different under advisory Guidelines, reviewing the error in Booker’s case without regard to its contemporaneous announcement that the Guidelines were advisory.
The significance of thé Supreme Court’s decision to remand in Booker is not undermined by the government’s failure to argue plain error principles in that case. According to the majority, because the government had waived the argument that Booker’s appeal was governed by the plain error standard of review, Booker provides no guidance for assessing unpreserved claims of Booker error. The majority’s refusal to turn to Booker for guidance, however, disregards our law that to vacate and remand a sentence requires some determination of prejudice whether or not the issue is preserved; plain error principles change only the identity of the party who bears the burden of persuasion. See United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 784, 113 S.Ct. 1770, 123 L.Ed.2d 508 (1993) (substantial rights prong of plain error analysis mirrors harmless error analysis but shifts the burden of persuasion with respect to prejudice to the defendant). Inherent in the Court’s decision to remand Booker’s case for resentencing is necessarily a decision that the error in his case was prejudicial, i.e., was not harmless and affected Booker’s substantial rights. See Fed.R.Crim.P. 52(a) (“Any error ... that does not affect substantial rights must be disregarded.”). If the Court had not found the Booker error to be prejudicial, it could not have found that error to properly form the basis for vacating and remanding for resentencing.
Nor did the Court find any impediment to reversing Fanfan’s sentence and allowing “the Government (and Fanfan should he so choose) [to] seek resentencing under the system set forth in [Booker ].” Booker, 125 S.Ct. at 769. In Fanfan’s case, the district court imposed a sentence lower than the sentence authorized by the jury’s verdict and thus lower than what the then-mandatory Guidelines dictated. The Court understood that resentencing might be an undesirable option for Fanfan, as he risked the imposition of a higher sentence. Nevertheless, it readily permitted a remand for a full resentencing, even in the absence of a Sixth Amendment violation. Id.
2. Abdication of Our Appellate Review Function
Although the majority labels its approach a “limited remand,” the approach is *1089in fact an abdication of our appellate review function. “We have used the term ‘limited remand’ to describe a remand to the district court for proceedings prior to this court’s consideration of the merits of an appeal.” United States v. Washington, 172 F.3d 1116, 1118 (9th Cir.1999) (emphasis added). Under the majority’s approach, the district court conducts the third and fourth prongs of plain error review, resentences if it deems necessary, and reenters judgment. If a notice of appeal is filed, that judgment may become the subject of a new appeal, but our consideration of the merits of the defendant’s original appeal is eliminated. Contrary to the majority’s asserted reason for the remand — “to permit the sentencing judge to inform the reviewing court’s analysis” of the third prong of plain error review, ante at 1079 — the sentencing judge is under no obligation to actually inform us as to whether he “would have imposed a materially different sentence had he been aware of the now-advisory nature of the sentencing guidelines.” Ante at 1079. Nor do we retain jurisdiction of the case. As a result, we will never make an informed appellate decision as to whether the Booker error affected the defendant’s original sentencing proceeding, and the fourth, discretionary, decision with which we are charged under plain error review simply vanishes. Therefore, despite its best effort to make it appear otherwise, the majority is simply relinquishing to the district courts the last two prongs of plain error review.
As part of its efforts to justify its abdication of our appellate review function, the majority discusses at length several ways in which district judges create “potentially misleading records.” Whether or not district judges create “potentially misleading records,” it is a fact of life that appellate courts must review cold records; that’s their job and the argument is no justification for abandoning that important work. This argument also conflicts with the majority’s description of “The Process to be Followed,” which requires that a three-judge panel review the entire “potentially misleading” record before ordering a “limited remand.” Only “[i]f that analysis leads to the same dead end that [the majority] reaeh[es] here, where it is not possible to reliably determine from the record whether the sentence imposed would have been materially different” under the now-advisory Guidelines, ante at 1084-85, may the panel issue a “limited remand.” The majority never describes at what point a panel may reach a “dead end,” or when it will be impossible for a panel “to reliably determine” “whether the sentence imposed would have been materially different” under the now-advisory Guidelines. Ante at 1084-85. Unbelievably, the majority, acting in haste to dispose of unpreserved claims of Booker error, has left wide open the nature and extent of review in which any subsequent panel should engage before ordering a “limited remand.”2
The majority also ignores our precedents that demonstrate that the limited *1090remand device is used not to assign our traditional review function to the district court, but to elicit the district court’s decision on a question it earlier missed, or to permit the district court to engage in its own traditional fact-finding function. In United States v. Gunning, 339 F.3d 948 (9th Cir.2003) (per curiam), cited by the majority, Gunning argued that he was entitled to a two-level minor role adjustment under U.S.S.G. § 3B1.2(b). The district court made no findings regarding the adjustment. “Because it is for the district court to rule on sentencing issues in the first instance,” we remanded for the court to make additional findings and to resen-tence if necessary. Id. at 949. We did not remand to the district court to allow it to determine whether it had committed a legal error in sentencing in the first place. Therefore, the majority’s reliance on Gunning in support of its novel approach to plain error review is inapposite.
Similarly, in United States v. Hovsepian, 359 F.3d 1144 (9th Cir.2004), we held that because the district court did not consider appellees’ convictions or their possible affiliations with terrorist groups, the court failed to undertake a complete analysis of their naturalization applications. Id. at 1168. We remanded the case to the district court for additional fact-finding — a task well within the traditional province of district courts, see Fed.R.Civ.P. 52(a)-not for a determination of whether the district court committed legal error. Id. at 1169. To the contrary: We not only retained jurisdiction over the appeal, we further ordered:
Within 120 days of the issuance of the mandate, or such further time as this court may allow, the district court shall forward its additional findings of fact and conclusions of law to this court, with copies to the parties, so that we may review the district court’s assessment of all the relevant facts in reaching a final disposition. Within 30 days after the district court forwards its findings and conclusions, any party may request this court’s further review of the naturalization issue.
Id. (first emphasis added).
The majority cites no Supreme Court authority to support its delegation of the last two prongs of plain error review to the discretion of the district courts. Nor can it, because review for error, plain or otherwise, is an exclusive function of appellate courts. Booker itself makes this clear, as do a host of other Supreme Court decisions. See United States v. Dominguez Benitez, 542 U.S. 74, 124 S.Ct. 2333, 2340, 159 L.Ed.2d 157 (2004) (a defendant who seeks reversal on the ground that the district court committed plain error must satisfy the judgment of the “reviewing court” that the probability of a different result is sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome of the proceeding); United States v. Vonn, 535 U.S. 55, 59, 122 S.Ct. 1043, 152 L.Ed.2d 90 (2002) (a “reviewing court” must consider the effect of any error on substantial rights); Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 763-64, 66 S.Ct. 1239, 90 L.Ed. 1557 (1946) (in deciding the prejudice prong of plain error, “appellate courts” must consider what effect the error had or reasonably may have had upon the outcome of the proceedings). As the Eleventh Circuit has recognized, “[t]he determination of plain error is the duty of courts of appeal, not district courts.” Rodriguez, 398 F.3d at 1305; see also United States v. Mares, 402 F.3d 511, 522 (5th Cir.2005) (“[W]e find no support for [the Crosby approach] in the Supreme Court plain error cases. Those cases place the obligation on the appellate courts — rather than the district courts — to determine the third prong of the plain error test.”).
The majority’s misreading of 18 U.S.C. § 3742(f) leads it to adopt the Second Circuit’s erroneous rationale that “the power *1091to remand for resentencing [under § 3742(f)] necessarily encompasses the lesser power to order a limited remand.” Section 3742 governs appellate review of criminal sentences. As Justice Scalia noted in Booker: “Even the most casual reading of this, section discloses that its purpose — its only purpose — is to enable courts of appeals to enforce conformity with the Guidelines.” Booker, 125 S.Ct. at 791 (Scalia, J., dissenting).3 Thus, § 3742 imposes an obligation on appellate courts to review district courts’ sentencing decisions. The majority misuses § 3742 by drawing an inference from that section, which was designed to curtail district courts’ discretion,4 to support relinquishing to district courts our appellate review function.
The plain language of § 3742 demonstrates that it cannot carry the weight the majority assigns to it. Section 3742(f) provides, in pertinent part:
If the court of appeals determines that—
(1) the sentence was imposed in violation of law or imposed as a result of an incorrect application of the sentencing guidelines, the court shall remand the case for further sentencing proceedings with such instructions as the court considers appropriate.
18 U.S.C. § 3742(f)(1). This section mandates that “the court of appeals” make the determination that the sentence “was imposed in violation of the law.” Id. The majority instead invites the district courts — the very courts whose decisions are under review — to participate in the predicate finding of legal error. Sending the third and fourth prongs of the plain error determination to the district court abrogates the very obligation of appellate review that § 3742(f) mandates. Ordering a “limited remand” is not a lesser power inherent in § 3742(f); it is an entirely different remedy that conflicts with congressional directives as to the review and disposition of sentencing appeals.
The Eleventh Circuit has also found il-logic in the Second Circuit’s — and now our own — reasoning that, because § 3742(f) authorizes remands for resentencing to remedy a sentence imposed in error, appellate courts necessarily have the “lesser” power to remand for a determination of whether the original sentence was contrary to law:
*1092That conclusion does not follow at all. In cases of non-preserved error appellate courts lack the authority to remand for resentencing where the requirements of the plain error rule have not been met. The remands being ordered are not, as Crosby suggests, for the purpose of determining “whether to resen-tence,” but for the purpose of determining whether the third prong of the plain error test has been met so that the unpreserved error may be noticed and the appealed sentence vacated. Neither § 374.2(f) nor any other part of the Sentencing Reform Act purports to give appellate courts the authority to delegate the decision of whether there has been plain error to the very court whose judgment is being reviewed.
Rodriguez, 398 F.3d at 1306 (emphasis added).
By characterizing its approach as a “sure” and “certain” way to determine prejudice, the majority demonstrates its misapprehension of the correct standard for determining whether Booker error affected a defendant’s substantial rights. As the Supreme Court most recently stated in Dominguez Benitez, to meet the third prong of the plain error test, “[a] defendant must ... satisfy the judgment of the reviewing court, informed by the entire record, that the probability of a different result is sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome of the proceeding.” Dominguez Benitez, 124 S.Ct. at 2340 (quotations and citations omitted). Applying this prejudice test to Booker error, the correct inquiry is whether a reasonable probability exists that, but for the Booker error, the outcome of the defendant’s sentencing proceeding would have been different so as to undermine our confidence in the sentence. Kotteakos, 328 U.S. at 764, 66 S.Ct. 1239 (a reviewing court must determine “what effect the error had or reasonably may be taken to have had upon the outcome of the proceedings” (emphasis added)).
The majority’s failure to grasp that the inquiry is objective, rather than subjective, leads to its notion that it is appropriate “to ask the sentencing judge.” The majority clings to its erroneous view of the prejudice inquiry to defend the “limited remand” procedure as merely a last resort, after the appellate panel cannot find the answer to whether the district judge “would have imposed a materially different sentence” had the Guidelines been advisory. But that is an irrelevant question under the prejudice inquiry and invites the district judge himself to speculate about what he would have done in a different world. It is doubtful that most judges will even recall the circumstances of every sentencing hearing over which they have presided since Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000). As appellate judges, we can and should objectively determine, based on a review of the record, whether it is reasonably probable that the defendant’s sentence would have been different but for the Booker error. We do not need, nor is it appropriate to obtain, the subjective views of the sentencing judge. Because the inquiry is not subjective, the views of the sentencing judge are irrelevant. See United States v. Hughes, 401 F.3d 540, 551 (4th Cir.2005) (“[T]he proper focus is on what actually happened as a result of the error, not what might happen in a subsequent proceeding on remand.”).
3. Sentencing Post -Booker
. Even if the majority could cite any legal precedent supporting its approach, the abbreviated sentencing determination it requires of the district court is not a substitute for the sentencing proceeding required after Booker. In the post-Booker world, district courts must consider the factors provided in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) in fashioning the appropriate sentence for the individual defendant. As stated by *1093Justice Breyer in his remedial opinion for the Court:
Without the “mandatory” provision, the [Sentencing Reform Act] nonetheless requires judges to take account of the Guidelines together with other sentencing goals. See 18 U.S.C.A. § 3558(a) (Supp.2004). The Act nonetheless requires judges to consider the Guidelines “sentencing range established •... for the applicable category of offense committed by the applicable category of defendant,” § 3553(a)(4), the pertinent Sentencing Commission policy statements, the need to avoid unwarranted sentencing disparities, and the need to provide restitution to victims, §§ 3553(a)(1), (3), (5)-(7) (main ed. and Supp.2004). And the Act nonetheless requires judges to impose sentences that reflect the seriousness of the offense, promote respect for the law, provide just punishment, afford adequate deterrence, protect the public, and effectively provide the defendant with the needed educational or vocational training and medical care. § 3553(a)(2) (main ed. and Supp.2004).
Booker, 125 S.Ct. at 764-65.
District courts now also have the discretion to weigh a multitude of mitigating and aggravating factors that existed at the time of mandatory Guidelines sentencing, but were deemed “not ordinarily relevant,” such as age, education and vocational skills, mental and emotional conditions, employment record, and family ties and responsibilities. See U.S.S.G. § 5H1.1-6; see also Koon v. United States, 518 U.S. 81, 95, 116 S.Ct. 2035, 135 L.Ed.2d 392 (1996) (“Discouraged factors ... are those not ordinarily relevant to the determination of whether a sentence should be outside the applicable guideline range. Examples include the defendant’s family ties and responsibilities, his or her educational and vocational skills, and his or her military, civic, charitable, or public service record.”' (quotations and citations omitted)). Indeed, district courts may even consider factors that were precluded from consideration altogether prior to Booker, such as drug and alcohol dependence, lack of guidance as a youth, and personal financial difficulties and economic pressures. See U.S.S.G. §§ 5H1.4, 5H1.12, and 5K2.12; see also Koon, 518 U.S. at 95, 116 S.Ct. 2035 (“The Commission lists certain factors that never can be bases for departure, [such as] lack of guidance as a youth; drug or alcohol dependence; and economic hardship .... ” (citations omitted)).
The majority leaves open the possibility that these factors — now essential to sentencing consistent with 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) and its directive that the sentence be “sufficient but not greater than necessary to comply with the purposes of sentencing”— might come to light in a sentencing hearing, but it does not require that a district court hold a hearing before deciding against resentencing the defendant. Indeed, “[i]n all too many instances, the process scripted by the [majority] will serve as an invitation for [a] district court to give only a superficial look at [an] earlier unconstitutional^ ] imposed sentence.” United States v. Paladino, 401 F.3d 471, 486 (7th Cir.2005) (Ripple, J., dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc). Because under the majority’s approach the appellate court will not perform plain error review, such a “quick look” sentencing decision would be subject only to the lesser “reasonableness” standard of review.
Defendants should be accorded the benefit of the complete discretion district courts now enjoy. They should have the opportunity to be heard on § 3553 and its newly relevant factors. Briefs of counsel are not a substitute for testimony, evidence, and argument. The majority fails to explain how, without an evidentiary hearing and briefing tantamount to resen-*1094tencing by normal vacatur and remand procedures, a district judge could ever accurately answer the question as to whether he would have imposed a materially different sentence had he known that the Guidelines were advisory.
For example, Ameline’s trial counsel made the strategic decision to focus on drug quantity and gun possession at Ame-line’s sentencing hearing because only those factors could have significantly decreased Ameline’s offense level under the mandatory Guidelines. By contesting drug quantity and gun possession, Ameline potentially could have reduced his sentence by over 10 years because the drug quantity and gun possession determinations fixed the range within which Ameline was sentenced. By contrast, evidence as to Ameline’s “background, character and conduct,” see U.S.S.G. § 1B1.4, could have only affected the point within the Guidelines range at which Ameline would be sentenced. After Booker, however, a defendant’s “background, character and conduct” are the very factors that might convince a judge to exercise his discretion to disregard the advisory Guidelines range, but only if, upon plain error review, we notice the error, vacate the defendant’s sentence, and remand for resentencing. “In short, what the panel substitutes for the usual judicial reaction to an unconstitu-tionallyf] imposed sentence is a process that simply is inadequate to the task.” Paladino, 401 F.3d at 486 (Ripple, J., dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc).
4. Practical Problems
Chief among the practical problems presented by the majority’s approach is that it fails to account for the fact that several district judges have retired, become disabled, or passed away since imposing the unconstitutional sentences currently under review. The recent retirement of the Honorable Lourdes G. Baird from the United States District Court for the Central District of California to become a private mediator is but one of many examples. See The Third Branch, Judicial Milestones, Vol. 37, Number 4 (April 2005), available at http://www.uscourts.gov (last visited May 1, 2004). A glaring imperfection in the majority’s “quick” and “easy” approach is: What happens when we cannot “ask the sentencing judge?” The answer is that the Chief Judge of the district court will reassign the remanded case to a currently serving judge who cannot possibly answer the question the majority poses because he was not the original sentencing judge. The new sentencing judge will face additional practical problems in resolving how to handle the case. This will necessarily result in inconsistent applications of sentencing law, which will likely generate future due process and equal protection claims.
5. Illusory Efficiencies
The obvious attractiveness of the Crosby approach inheres in its purported efficiencies. As a reviewing court, however, our obligations under the Constitution are not always measured against a metric of efficiency or administrative convenience. See, e.g., Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. 296, 124 S.Ct. 2531, 2543, 159 L.Ed.2d 403 (2004) (“[Ojur decision cannot turn on whether or to what degree trial by jury impairs the efficiency ... of criminal justice.”); Universal Camera Corp. v. N.L.R.B., 340 U.S. 474, 490, 71 S.Ct. 456, 95 L.Ed. 456 (1951) (“Reviewing courts must be influenced by a feeling that they are not to abdicate the conventional judicial function.”). As the Supreme Court cautioned in Booker itself, “ ‘delays, and little inconveniences in the forms of justice, are the price that all free nations must pay for their liberty in more substantial matters.’ ” Booker, 125 S.Ct. at 756 (quoting 4 Commentaries on the Laws of England 343-44 (1769)). In light of the important *1095constitutional rights at issue, the minimal burdens that accompany individualized review of unpreserved claims of Booker error are worth bearing.
Moreover, any efficiency that the majority’s approach may seemingly promise is likely to prove illusory. If a district judge chooses on remand not to resentence a defendant, we may be required to review the standing sentence for reasonableness. Review for “reasonableness” is not limited to consideration of the length of the sentence. Instead, the Booker Court instructed appellate courts, in determining reasonableness, to consider not only the length of the sentence but also the factors evaluated and the procedures employed by the district court. See Booker, 125 S.Ct. at 765-66; see also United States v. Webb, 403 F.3d 373, 382-83 (6th Cir.2005) (after Booker appellate courts should “consider not only the length of the sentence but also the factors evaluated and the procedures employed by the district court in reaching its sentencing determination”). Ultimately, we may conclude that a sentence is unreasonable when the sentencing judge fails to explicitly consider the factors listed in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), or neglects to consult the applicable Guidelines range, and instead selects what he deems an appropriate sentence without such required consideration. In cases where a district judge elects not to hold a hearing before deciding not to resentence,5 however, it will be impossible for us to conduct a reasonableness review, for the judge’s “appropriate explanation” for his decision not to resentence cannot replace the insight into the factors evaluated and the procedures employed by the judge that a transcript of a sentencing hearing would provide. This is especially true in light of the majority’s failure to discuss what would be an “appropriate explanation.” See Paladino, 401 F.3d at 488 (Kanne, J., dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc) (“The record in the case in which there was no resentencing (or hearing on the issue) will be impossible for us to review for reasonableness, if reasonableness is to be determined with regard to all of ... ‘the numerous factors that guide sentencing.’” (quoting Booker, 125 S.Ct. at 765-66)).
In addition to hindering our ability to review reimposed sentences for “reasonableness,” the majority opens our docket to countless arguments that would be precluded if we had performed an individualized analysis. If we were to determine under an individualized analysis that a particular defendant did not meet his burden under the plain error standard, the case would not be remanded to the district court and there would be no second appeal. If we were to determine otherwise, the defendant’s sentence would be vacated and his case remanded for a full resentencing. However, because the defendant would be entitled to all the procedures that accompany a full resentencing, such as the op*1096portunity to “present all available accurate information bearing on mitigation of punishment,” see United States v. Mack, 200 F.3d 653, 658 (9th Cir.2000), the only issue on appeal likely would be the “reasonableness” of the defendant’s new sentence. By contrast, under the majority’s approach, if a district court elects not to hold a hearing before deciding to reimpose the ^re-Booker sentence, the defendant could raise a host of claims in addition to the reasonableness of his sentence, such as the district court’s failure to consider the factors set forth in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), and its violation of his right to allocution.
Therefore, while at first blush it may be enticing to an overworked and overscrutin-ized bench to rid ourselves of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of appeals, we may create much more work for ourselves down the road than if we had simply done it right in the first place. The Eleventh Circuit accurately describes Crosby as “requiring resentencing in order to determine whether resentencing is required.”6 Rodriguez, 398 F.3d at 1305. It correctly observes that the Crosby procedure “undermines the Supreme Court’s teaching that one of the principal purposes of the plain error rule is to avoid needless reversals and remands.” Id. By adopting Crosby, the majority creates “the real possibility of another appeal and another remand on top of that.” Id.
One of the reasons for plain error review is to reduce the burden on the judicial system. See Johnson v. United States, 520 U.S. 461, 468, 117 S.Ct. 1544, 137 L.Ed.2d 718 (1997). The majority’s approach will necessarily increase the workload of courts, first, at the district court level, and then, inevitably, at the appellate level. The better approach is to review these appeals as the Supreme Court instructed and as our appellate duty requires.
II.
Individualized Review of Unpreserved Claims of Booker Error
Where the majority and I part company is with respect to the third and fourth prongs of the plain error test. The majority improperly delegates to the district courts the tasks of determining whether Booker error affected defendants’ substantial rights, and whether to notice the forfeited error. As the First, Fifth, and Eleventh Circuits have held, however, we must analyze these aspects of plain error at the appellate level by reviewing the entire record of the sentencing proceedings. See United States v. Antonakopoulos, 399 F.3d 68, 75 (1st Cir.2005); Mares, 402 F.3d at 522; Rodriguez, 398 F.3d at 1304.
1. “Substantial Rights”
For an error to affect “substantial rights,” “the error must have been prejudicial: It must have affected the outcome of the district court proceedings.” Olano, 507 U.S. at 734, 113 S.Ct. 1770. “It is the defendant rather than the Government who bears the burden of persuasion with respect to prejudice.” Id.
The Supreme Court has articulated several different formulations of a defendant’s burden under the substantial rights test. See Dominguez Benitez, 124 S.Ct. at 2342 (Scalia, J. dissenting) (“By my count, this *1097Court has adopted no fewer than four as-sertedly different standards of probability relating to the assessment of whether the outcome of trial would have been different if error had not occurred, or if omitted evidence had been included.”)- Most recently, in the context of a Rule 11 violation, the Court explained that a defendant “must show a reasonable probability that, but for the error, he would not have entered the plea.” Id. at 2339. More generally, the Court stated:
A defendant must thus satisfy the judgment of the reviewing court, informed by the entire record, that the probability of a different result is sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome of the proceeding.
Id. at 2340 (quotations and citations omitted).
Applying this prejudice test to Booker error, we must determine whether there is a reasonable probability that, but for the Booker error, the outcome of the defendant’s sentencing proceeding would have been different so as to undermine our confidence in the sentence. Because the Booker Court held that an enhancement based on judge-found facts would not have implicated a constitutional violation if the Guidelines were advisory rather than mandatory, Booker, 125 S.Ct. at 750, in determining the prejudicial effect of the Booker error, we must focus upon the mandatory nature of the system under which the district judge enhanced the defendant’s sentence rather than upon the use of judge-found facts in sentencing. See Rodriguez, 398 F.3d at 1303 (“The prejudice inquiry must focus on what has to be changed to remedy the error.”).
We must also consider the profound impact of the Supreme Court’s decision in Booker on federal sentencing, because the nature of the error may affect the application of the substantial rights prong. See Olano, 507 U.S. at 735, 113 S.Ct. 1770. To understand the transforming nature of Booker, it helps to consider the nature of sentencing proceedings before the implementation of the mandatory federal Guidelines in 1987, which drastically altered the practice of sentencing in the federal criminal justice system.
Before the Guidelines were implemented, Congress had delegated virtually “unfettered discretion to the sentencing judge to determine what the sentence should be within the customarily wide range” of potential sentences prescribed by • statute. Mistretta v. United States, 488 U.S. 361, 109 S.Ct. 647, 102 L.Ed.2d 714 (1989). The role of probation officers was to facilitate, rather than to circumscribe, judicial discretion. To this end, the primary purpose of the presentence report was to “ ‘aid the court in determining the appropriate sentence,’ ” and included “ ‘[a]n assessment of the problems of the defendant and a consideration for the safety of the community.’ ” Kate Stith and José A. Ca-bruñes, Judging Under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, 91 NW U.L.Rev. 1247, 1250 (1997) (quoting Probation Div. Admin. Office of the U.S. Courts, Pub. No. 105, The Presentence Investigation Report 1 (1987)). The presentence report suggested a particular term of imprisonment, based on national sentencing statistics and the officer’s informed judgment, but the role of the probation officer in sentencing was purely advisory. See id. at 1251. The sentencing judge could make use of the information in the presentence report or disregard it; the judge had complete discretion to balance the “various goals of sentencing, the relevant aggravating and mitigating circumstances, and the way in which these factors would be combined in determining a specific sentence.” United States Sentencing Commission, Report to Congress: Downward Departures From the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, I, B-l (2003) (quotations and citation omitted). The sentencing judge was free to impose a *1098sentence anywhere within the statutory range, and could usually replace imprisonment with probation, if he so chose. See Mistretta, 488 U.S. at 365, 109 S.Ct. 647. Finally, judicial discretion was “unfettered” primarily because appellate review of the district judge’s discretion was virtually non-existent. See Dorszynski v. United States, 418 U.S. 424, 431, 94 S.Ct. 3042, 41 L.Ed.2d 855 (1974) (“[Ojnce it is determined that a sentence is within the limitations set forth in the statute under which it is imposed, appellate review is at an end.”). Judicial sentences that fell within the prescribed range “were virtually unreviewable on appeal.” Mistretta, 488 U.S. at 363, 109 S.Ct. 647.
Booker is a signal event in the development of the law. It restored the complete discretion of sentencing judges to sentence anywhere within the statutory l-ange, so long as the sentence is tethered to the congressional goals of sentencing set forth in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). As the D.C. Circuit recently stated, a sentencing court will have “committed no error ... so long as the sentence was within the prescribed statutory range and is otherwise reasonable.” United States v. Coles, 403 F.3d 764, 768-69 (D.C.Cir.2005). Similarly, the Fourth Circuit, concluding that the district court engaged in “careful deliberation,” held in a recent case that “because the district court sentenced [the defendant] within the statutory guidelines ... we are of opinion [that] the sentence ... is reasonable.” United States v. Bartram, 407 F.3d 307, 311 (4th Cir.2005). Moreover, the Sixth Circuit, also reviewing a sentence for post-Booker reasonableness, has adopted an abuse of discretion standard, thereby explicitly reverting to the standard applicable in the pre-Guidelines era. See United States v. Dalton, 404 F.3d 1029, 1032 (8th Cir.2005) (stating that Booker “extended unreasonableness — the pre-PROTECT Act standard for reviewing departure sentences — to the review of all sentences,” and proceeding to review the district court’s sentencing decision for abuse of discretion).
Given that we have reverted to a sentencing system very close to that which existed before the Guidelines, it would be fundamentally unfair to require that a defendant demonstrate with 100 percent certainty that the district judge would have sentenced him differently. Rather, the relaxed inquiry of Dominguez Benitez is appropriate: we should determine whether there is a reasonable probability that, but for the Booker error, the outcome of the defendant’s sentencing proceeding would have been different so as to undermine our confidence in the sentence.
Ameline, himself, has met this burden. Setting aside the Howard error, the Booker error so infected Ameline’s sentencing hearing that Ameline’s burden of showing a reasonable probability that without the judicial fact-finding and mandatory enhancements there would have been a different sentence is easily met. We need not seek the district court’s guidance as to whether the Booker error affected Ame-line’s substantial rights. In Ameline’s case, the sentencing judge made factual findings by a preponderance of the evidence and'mandatorily enhanced Ameline’s sentence above the Guidelines range applicable to the facts as admitted by Ameline in his plea agreement. Moreover, Ameline was sentenced under an unconstitutional mandatory scheme that forbade the exercise of the full measure of discretion that, after Booker, should be accorded to sentencing judges. And, due to the mandatory nature of the Guidelines when Ameline was sentenced, the district judge was precluded from complying with 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)’s directive to “impose a sentence sufficient, but not greater than necessary,” to comply with the statutory purposes of sentencing set forth in § 3553(a)(2). In addition, Ameline vigorously disputed the *1099amount of methamphetamine that the government and the probation officer sought to attribute to his offense conduct. Ame-line did not argue for reductions based on his “background, character and conduct,” U.S.S.G. § 1B1.4, because, at that time, such factors were irrelevant to a determination of his Guidelines range. Finally, the record reflects that this was Ameline’s first serious drug conviction and that, at the time of allocution before the district judge, he expressed remorse for his wrongful conduct. These circumstances are sufficient to satisfy the prejudice inquiry and to establish a violation of Ameline’s substantial rights.
The Eleventh Circuit asked the right question in Rodriguez in determining whether Booker error affected Rodriguez’s substantial rights: whether there is a reasonable probability that there would have been a different sentencing disposition had the sentencing judge been aware that the Guidelines were advisory. Nonetheless, it came up with the wrong answer, holding that, because in most cases the answer will be “we don’t know,” except in extraordinary circumstances, a defendant will not be able to meet his burden of showing that his substantial rights have been affected. Rodriguez, 398 F.3d at 1301. The Dominguez Benitez prejudice test is not limited to what the district judge said on the record; rather, our decision must be “informed by the entire record.” Dominguez Benitez, 124 S.Ct. at 2340. Review of the entire record, including the presentence report, should in most cases reveal objective data from which we can determine to a reasonable probability whether a sentence would have differed but for the Booker error.
The Eleventh Circuit’s overly demanding approach derives from a misapplication of the Supreme Court’s plain error analysis in Jones v. United States, 527 U.S. 373, 119 S.Ct. 2090, 144 L.Ed.2d 370 (1999), in which the Court considered an unpre-served jury instruction error. As noted above, the Supreme Court redefined the prejudice inquiry in Dominguez Benitez. See Dominguez Benitez, 124 S.Ct. at 2339. Furthermore, in applying Jones, the Eleventh Circuit failed to consider the unique nature of the sentencing process, which involves a choice of a point within a broad range of discretion rather than an either- or choice, like guilt or innocence. See Paladino, 401 F.3d at 482 (“Guilt is either- or; the defendant is either guilty or innocent. ... But sentencing is not either-or; it is the choice of a point within a range-established by Congress, and normally the range is a broad one.”).
Under the Eleventh Circuit’s approach, a pre-Booker defendant’s right to resen-tencing depends largely upon whether the district court stated on the record that it felt constrained by the Guidelines or that it would have sentenced the defendant to a lower sentence if the Guidelines were advisory rather than mandatory. See Rodriguez, 398 F.3d at 1301 (holding that Rodriguez failed to meet his burden under the third prong of the plain error test because “[t]he record provides no reason to believe any result is more likely than the other”); see also United States v. Shelton, 400 F.3d 1325, 1333-34 (11th Cir.2005) (applying Rodriguez and finding plain error only because the record reflected the sentencing judge’s frustration with the constraints imposed by the Guidelines). Although explicit statements of frustration or similar sentiments in the record would facilitate a finding of prejudice, such statements by the sentencing judge are not required to show prejudice.
To the contrary: Because district judges were required to follow the mandatory Guidelines, it would be unreasonable to require defendants to point to criticism of, or disagreement with, the Guidelines to establish a violation of their substantial *1100rights. Before Blakely, we, along with other courts, had repeatedly instructed sentencing courts to impose sentences within the applicable mandatory Guidelines range, with limited exceptions. “This well-established case law substantially undermined any need or incentive for sentencing courts [pre-Blakely 1 to note their objections and reservations in sentencing defendants under the then-mandatory Guidelines.” United States v. Barnett, 398 F.3d 516, 528 (6th Cir.2005).
Finally, at bottom, the Rodriguez court failed to meaningfully recognize Booker’s profound impact on federal sentencing— restoring the discretion to the sentencing court that the mandatory Guidelines had stripped away. Nor did the Eleventh Circuit discuss the nature of the constitutional violation, which the Supreme Court has said can only be remedied by making the Guidelines advisory. The Eleventh Circuit gives short shrift to the very nature of the sentencing process and imposes a fundamentally unfair burden on .defendants by requiring a defendant to demonstrate certainty in a different outcome under the new sentencing scheme to gain the benefit of a constitutionally sound sentencing process.
2. “Fairness and Integrity”
Unlike the majority, I believe we are required as an appellate court to analyze the fourth prong of the plain error test. I would hold that the Booker error affected the fairness and integrity of Ameline’s sentencing proceedings. Although Ame-line admitted to only a detectable amount of methamphetamine, and vigorously challenged the reliability of the hearsay evidence presented in the Presentence Report to increase his base offense level, the district court, under the mandatory Guidelines, imposed a sentence that violated Ameline’s Sixth Amendment rights. As I have emphasized, the sentencing judge was constrained by the mandatory features of the Guidelines and had no opportunity to exercise the full measure of discretion that was restored by Booker. Letting Ameline’s sentence stand “simply because it may happen to fall within the range of reasonableness unquestionably impugns the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings.” United States v. Hughes, 396 F.3d 374, 381 n. 8 (4th Cir.2005), amended on denial of reh’g en banc by 401 F.3d 540 (2005). “Moreover, declining to notice the error on the basis that the sentence actually imposed is reasonable would be tantamount to performing the sentencing function ourselves.” Id. Therefore, I would hold that the district court’s imposition of a 150-month sentence under the mandatory Guidelines in violation of Ameline’s Sixth Amendment rights as construed by Booker was plain error under Cotton, and that the error is a ground independent of the Howard error for vacating Ameline’s sentence and remanding his case for a new sentencing hearing.
III.
Conclusion
' I, therefore, dissent from the majority’s “limited remand” approach to analyzing whether unpreserved claims of Booker error constitute reversible plain error. Although I agree that Ameline is entitled to a new Rule 32 sentencing hearing on the basis of the Howard error, I believe that he is entitled to that remedy, apart from the Howard error, because the Booker error in his case was plain error, reversible under Cotton.

. Since Booker, the Supreme Court has vacated every one of our judgments that touches *1088upon a Booker issue and remanded them for "further consideration in light of [Booker].” See, e.g., Alizondo v. United States, - U.S. -, 125 S.Ct. 1000, 160 L.Ed.2d 1019 (2005). It has not remanded them with instructions to remand to the district courts for participation in the appellate review function.

. Under the majority’s analysis, panels of our court remain free to review the record, apply the proper prejudice inquiry, find that prejudice exists, and remand for resentencing. The majority emphasizes that "the limited remand is invoked only when it cannot be determined from the record whether the judge would have imposed a materially different sentence had he known that the Guidelines are advisory rather than mandatory." Ante at 1083. The majority continues, stating that "[o]nly after determining that the record did not sufficiently inform the reviewing court's analysis,” is the "limited remand” triggered. Ante at 1083. This appears to leave open the process utilized by the Eleventh Circuit in United States v. Rodriguez, 398 F.3d 1291, 1301 (11th Cir.2005), where if the district judge openly indicated that he would not have imposed the sentence he did but for the mandatory Guidelines, then prejudice is found.

. The continued viability of § 3742(f) itself is subject to question. As Justice Scalia wrote in Booker:
If the Guidelines are no longer binding, one would think that the provision designed to ensure compliance with them would, in its totality, be inoperative. The Court holds otherwise. Like a black-robed Alexander cutting the Gordian knot, it simply severs the purpose of the review provisions from their text, holding that only subsection (e), which sets forth the determinations that the court of appeals must make, is inoperative, whereas all the rest of § 3742 subsists — • including, mirabile dictu, subsection (f), entitled "Decision and disposition,” which tracks the determinations required by the severed subsection (e) and specifies what disposition each of those determinations is to produce. This is rather like deleting the ingredients portion of a recipe and telling the cook to proceed with the preparation portion.

Id.

. To further constrain the exercise of discretion by district courts, appellate review of district courts’ sentencing decisions was broadened by the Prosecutorial Remedies and Tools Against the Exploitation of Children Today Act of 2003 ("PROTECT Act”), Pub.L. No. ' 108-21, 117 Stat. 650 (2003). See Booker, 125 S.Ct. at 786-87 (Stevens, J., dissenting) ("Congress has rejected each and every attempt to ... vest judges with more sentencing options.... Most recently, Congress' passage of the [PROTECT Act] reinforced the mandatory nature of the Guidelines by expanding de novo review of sentences to include all departures from the Guidelines....”).

. Decisions in the aftermath of the Second Circuit's Crosby decision prove that district courts will elect not to hold hearings before deciding not to resentence. In one case, for example, a district judge for the Southern District of New York denied a defendant's request for a hearing, stating:
Crosby provides specific guidance to the District Courts of this Circuit concerning cases remanded for possible re-sentencing. In deciding whether a defendant should be re-sentenced, the District Court should obtain the views of counsel, at least in writing, but need not require the presence of the Defendant. Moreover, the question of whether to re-sentence may be resolved with or without a hearing. Accordingly, defense counsel's current request for a conference is DENIED. The parties are directed to file any written submissions concerning the possible re-sentencing of defendant by May 15, 2005.
United States v. Jasper, 2005 WL 774519 (S.D.N.Y. April 6, 2005) (citations and quotations omitted).

. The Second Circuit has responded to this criticism by stating that ''[t]he remand is for a determination of whether the original sentence would have been materially different, and only in that event does the remand lead to resentencing.” United States v. Williams, 399 F.3d 450, 461 (2d Cir.2005) (emphasis in original). This response misses the point, for the inquiry into whether the original sentence would have been "materially different” necessarily involves consideration of what sentence the district court would apply if it were to resentence under the advisory Guidelines.