Court Opinion

ID: 9481531
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:21:56.930238+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:22.893489
License: Public Domain

BOYCE F. MARTIN, Jr., Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
Although I join the majority’s opinion in concluding that Feinman’s conviction should be affirmed, I dissent with respect to that portion of the majority’s opinion which affirms the district court’s upward departure of Feinman’s criminal history category. Under § 4A1.1 of the Sentencing Guidelines, a defendant’s criminal history is computed by assigning a given number of points to that defendant’s prior criminal activity and then simply adding up those points. United States Sentencing Commission, Sentencing Guidelines, § 4A1.1 (Nov.1990). For example, a defendant is assigned three points “for each prior sentence of imprisonment exceeding one year and one month.” Sentencing Guidelines, § 4Al.l(a). In this case, the district court calculated that Feinman’s pri- or criminal involvement resulted in an accumulation of twelve points. It is important to note that all of Feinman’s previous convictions were counted in calculating his criminal history points. Applying this number to the Guidelines’ sentencing table, Feinman’s criminal history points corresponded to level V.
The district court found that a criminal history level of Y did not accurately reflect Feinman’s criminal history and thus increased his criminal history to category VI. The majority upheld this departure as being justified under the Guidelines. I do not think the reasons given by the district court were sufficient under the Guidelines. In fact, I feel that the language of the Guidelines specifically prohibits such a departure. The district court increased Fein-man’s criminal history category because it felt that a criminal history category of V did not accurately reflect Feinman’s criminal record. Specifically, the district court noted that Feinman found the drug business to be very profitable and had a “long-term association with the drug culture .... ”
Section 4A1.3 of the Guidelines permits a district court to upwardly depart from a defendant’s criminal history category when that criminal history category “significantly under-represents the seriousness of the defendant’s criminal history or the likelihood that the defendant will commit further crimes.” Sentencing Guidelines, § 4A1.3. This section goes on to list examples of situations which warrant departure under this section:
[A] defendant who (1) had several previous foreign sentences for serious offenses, (2) had received a prior consolidated sentence of ten years for a series of serious assaults, (3) had a similar instance of large scale fraudulent misconduct established by an adjudication in a Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement proceeding, (4) committed the instance offense while on bail or pretrial release for another serious offense or (5) for appropriate reasons, such as cooperation in the prosecution of other defendants, had previously received extremely lenient sentence for a serious offense.
Id. What is apparent from these examples provided by the drafters of the Guidelines is that departure under this section is justified only when a defendant’s criminal *504record is somehow not taken into consideration in determining that defendant’s criminal history. In this case, it is undisputed that all Feinman’s prior criminal activity was considered and counted in determining his original criminal history category of V. For it is only when past criminal activity is not counted by the Guidelines that a defendant’s criminal history could be under-represented.
The majority opinion reasons that the economic benefit Feinman has found in the drug trade coupled with his past history of criminal involvement provide a strong likelihood that Feinman will continue to be involved in the drug trade after his time is served. This, in fact, might be true. However, the majority has neglected to explain how this likelihood of recidivism was not adequately taken into consideration by the original calculation of Feinman’s criminal history category. As one might expect, as the criminal history category increases, so too does the possible length of incarceration. One reason for this is the high likelihood of recidivism among those individuals who have a long criminal history. The Guidelines note, “[rjepeated criminal behavior is an indicator of a limited likelihood of successful rehabilitation.” Sentencing Guidelines, § 4A1.1, intro, comment. Thus, the very nature in which the criminal history category is calculated takes into consideration the increase in the likelihood of recidivism in those individuals who have an extensive criminal history.
The fact that an individual finds criminal activity to be profitable would probably increase the likelihood of that individual’s engagement in criminal activity. As a matter of course, I do not dispute this assertion. I do, however, dispute whether the Guidelines permit such a fact to be used to justify a departure under § 4A1.3. The Guidelines make one factor relevant in determining a defendant’s criminal history category, that defendant’s past criminal activity. Specifically, the Guidelines look to both the number and length of the defendant’s prior sentences, the status of the defendant when he committed the instant offense, and the time between the instant offense and the defendant’s prior offenses. Id. The Guidelines recognize that other factors might exist to predict the likelihood of recidivism:
[t]he specific factors included in § 4A1.1 and § 4A1.3 are consistent with the existent [sic] empirical research assessing correlates of recidivism and patterns of career criminal behavior. While empirical research has shown that other factors are correlated highly with the likelihood of recidivism, e.g., age and drug abuse, for policy reasons they were not included here at this time.
Id. Although the drafters of the Guidelines specifically decided “for policy reasons” not to include other relevant indicators of recidivism, i.e. age and drug abuse, the majority has felt authorized to make criminal profitability relevant to the calculation of a defendant’s criminal history category.
The district court also justified its departure under § 4A1.3 because Feinman had a long history of involvement with the drug culture. The majority felt this to be adequate under § 4A1.3 because a long-term association with the drug trade is of a more serious nature than random unrelated criminal activity. This presents the same problem as the court’s previous justification; under § 4A1.1 the fact that all of Fein-man’s convictions were for drug related activities is irrelevant. What is relevant is that all of those convictions were counted in calculating his criminal history points. See United States v. Kennedy, 893 F.2d 825, 828 (6th Cir.1990) (“long history of violation of the law” insufficient to justify departure). The Guidelines judge the seriousness of criminal activity by the length of the defendant’s prior sentences. If a defendant received a prior sentence of imprisonment exceeding one year and one month he receives three points toward his criminal history, for a sentence of at least sixty days, he receives two points, and so on. See Guidelines Manual, § 4A1.1.
The seriousness of a defendant’s criminal history would be under-represented in those cases where for some reason the sentence the defendant received did not adequately reflect the seriousness of the *505criminal activity. The Guidelines list some of these situations, such as when a defendant receives an extremely lenient sentence or when the defendant committed a number of different crimes but received only one long sentence. In this case, there is nothing in the record to indicate that Fein-man’s criminal activity was underrepresented by his prior convictions. The Guidelines do not make the nature of criminal activity relevant, in and of itself; the nature of the criminal activity only becomes relevant when it is compared to the sentence the defendant received for it.
It is important to realize that the district court did not depart in this case under § 5K2.0. That section authorizes departure in those cases where “there exists an aggravating or mitigating circumstance of a kind, or to a degree, not adequately taken into consideration by the Sentencing Commission in formulating the guidelines that should result in a sentence different from that described.” Id. at § 5K2.0. Accordingly, under § 5K2.0, a sentencing judge is authorized to depart from the Guidelines when there is a specific characteristic of the offense which is not adequately taken into consideration by the Guidelines. In this circumstance, the sentencing judge has wide discretion in determining which relevant factors justify departure. The only limitation placed upon the sentencing judge is that factor cannot already be adequately taken into consideration by the Guidelines. This court has upheld such upward departures in a variety of situations, for example, in United States v. Lucas, 889 F.2d 697 (6th Cir.1989), we concluded that a district court may depart upward to account for psychological injury to robbery victims because the Guidelines address psychological injuries. Id. at 701; see also United States v. Pulley, 922 F.2d 1288 (6th Cir.1991) (departure appropriate based upon defendant’s action in persuading family members to commit perjury). A sentencing judge does not enjoy this level of freedom in departing under § 4A1.3; the Guidelines have already determined what factors are “relevant” to the calculation of criminal history.
Therefore, for the foregoing reasons, I dissent from this portion of the majority’s opinion.