Court Opinion

ID: 9565831
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:28:42.382238+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:54.529256
License: Public Domain

PREGERSON, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
Once in 1990 and again in 1998, U.S. District Judge Robert J. Bryan of the Western District of Washington imposed multiple-decades-long sentences on defendants at a time when the United States Sentencing Guidelines’s constitutionality was accepted. At the time he imposed *896those sentences, he stated in open court that both Guidelines sentences were, in his view, unjust and unconstitutional. In 2005, the Supreme Court in United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 125 S.Ct. 738, 160 L.Ed.2d 621, vindicated Judge Bryan’s view that the mandatory Guidelines were unconstitutional. Now Judge Bryan, still troubled years later by the Guidelines sentences imposed in these two cases, implores us to allow him to redress the injustices inflicted on both men by recalling our mandates in their appeals so that Judge Bryan may re-sentence them to a just and constitutional sentence. I believe that these two cases present extraordinary circumstances as required by Calderon v. Thompson, 523 U.S. 538, 550, 118 S.Ct. 1489, 140 L.Ed.2d 728 (1998) (holding that “the power [to recall the mandate] can be exercised only in extraordinary circumstances”); and accordingly, I would recall our mandates and remand for re-sentencing.1
I. ADDITIONAL FACTUAL BACKGROUND
In 1990, District Judge Bryan sentenced Craig Carrington pursuant to the then-mandatory Sentencing Guidelines. After calculating the appropriate Guidelines range, Judge Bryan determined that, under the Guidelines, a downward departure was not warranted. Before he imposed sentence, Judge Bryan, moved by his conscience, told Carrington:
You know, let me just say something, I guess, for the record or the benefit of people that are interested.
I hear the plea all the time from defense lawyers ... that the guidelines are not fair as applied to an individual case and there ought to be a different result .... I’m stuck with bad law and criminal defendants are stuck with bad law and the rest of society is stuck with bad law.... And I feel frustrated by these long sentences. It’s contrary to the idea that one can pay a penalty for a crime and put it behind them within a reasonable time....
I have been sentencing felons for 21 years, and in the last couple of years I’m faced with these guidelines, and it’s very frustrating because it has diminished my responsibility and my authority. But the reason for these guidelines is to do exactly that. That is, to diminish the judge’s discretion. I think that I must, if I am to do my job right, I’ve got to find the facts as I find them and apply the guidelines, being the law, to those facts....
Judge Bryan, constrained by the Guidelines, then imposed a sentence of 324 months imprisonment — -the low end of the applicable Guidelines range.
The injustice of these harsh Guidelines sentences continued to frustrate and trouble Judge Bryan. In 1998, when Judge Bryan sentenced Robert Tillitz, the judge before imposing sentence stated:
It might interest you to know, Mr. Til-litz, that I ruled in this court a long time ago that it was my opinion that these guidelines were contrary to the United States Constitution. That issue has been laid to rest contrary to my view by the United States Supreme Court. So these guidelines, in spite of your view on the legality of them and my view on it, they are part of the law of the land that bind me and I must follow that.
Judge Bryan then sentenced Tillitz to 360 months imprisonment — the low end of the applicable Guidelines range.
After the Supreme Court decided United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 125 S.Ct. 738, 160 L.Ed.2d 621 (2005), Judge Bryan again demonstrated that Carrington’s and *897Tillitz’s cases continued to trouble him. When Carrington and Tillitz each brought petitions to modify their sentences, Judge Bryan turned down their requests. Rather than leave it at that, Judge Bryan took the extraordinary — indeed, unprecedented — measure of considering sua sponte whether recall of the mandate would be appropriate.
Judge Bryan observed that our court has authority to recall the mandate under United States v. Crawford, 422 F.3d 1145 (9th Cir.2005) (recalling the mandate where the district court had expressed reservations about fairness of the defendant’s sentence at the defendant’s sentencing hearing), and that Judge Bryan’s express reservations about Carrington’s and Tillitz’s sentences sufficed to distinguish those cases from United States v. King, 419 F.3d 1035 (9th Cir.2005) (order) (declining to recall the mandate because of Booker error alone). As Judge Bryan also commented, it was only by an “accident of timing” that Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. 296, 124 S.Ct. 2531, 159 L.Ed.2d 403 (2004) (holding that a state mandatory sentencing guidelines regime violated the Sixth Amendment) had not been decided before our court issued the mandate in Carrington’s and Tillitz’s appeals.
II. EXTRAORDINARY CIRCUMSTANCES
We have inherent authority to recall the mandate to “prevent injustice.” Zipfel v. Halliburton Co., 861 F.2d 565, 567 (9th Cir.1988) (quoting Aerojet-Gen. Corp. v. Am. Arbitration Ass’n, 478 F.2d 248, 254 (9th Cir.1973)); see also Verrilli v. City of Concord, 557 F.2d 664, 665 (9th Cir.1977) (per curiam). I agree with Judge Callahan that we may only recall the mandate “in extraordinary circumstances.” Calderon v. Thompson, 523 U.S. 538, 550, 118 S.Ct. 1489, 140 L.Ed.2d 728 (1998). For the reasons stated below, this case presents extraordinary circumstances that require us to exercise our discretionary authority to recall the mandate to prevent injustice.
A. District Court’s Comments at Sentencing
In Crawford, we outlined a situation where a sentence violating Booker may warrant recall of the mandate even though Booker is not retroactive. There, we found two grounds for recalling our mandate. We stated in Crawford:
This case involves “extraordinary circumstances” sufficient to justify our recall of the mandate because: (1) the sentencing judge expressed explicit reservations on the record about the sentence required under the previously mandatory Sentencing Guidelines; and (2) the Supreme Court’s decision in [.Blakely ], foreshadowing its holding in [.Booker ], was rendered before the mandate issued.
Crawford, 422 F.3d at 1145-46 (internal citations omitted).2 Crawford recognized that while the existence of Booker error is not, by itself, sufficient to recall the mandate, see King, 419 F.3d at 1036, Booker was nevertheless an extraordinarily important decision that, when combined with *898other factors, may warrant recall of the mandate.
Applying Crawford, it is clear that the two cases before us are “exceptional case[s] requiring recall of the mandate[s] in order to prevent an injustice.” See Verrilli, 557 F.2d at 665. Like District Judge William Nielsen of the Eastern District of Washington in Crawford, Judge Bryan expressed his frustration with the lack of discretion afforded to district court judges by the Guidelines when he sentenced Carrington and Tillitz. If anything, Judge Bryan’s expressed concerns at Carrington’s and Tillitz’s sentencing hearings were even stronger than Judge Nielsen’s concerns in Crawford. In Crawford, Judge Nielsen complained that the sentencing ranges were “extraordinarily high,” but — at least according to the facts provided in Crawford — Judge Nielsen did not claim that the mandatory Guidelines were themselves unjust and unconstitutional. See 422 F.3d at 1146 n. 1. Here, however, Judge Bryan challenged both the severity of the sentencing ranges and the constitutionality of the mandatory Guidelines when he sentenced Carrington and Tillitz.
That Judge Bryan made these statements at a time when the Guidelines were firmly entrenched only makes his remarks more extraordinary. The year before Judge Bryan sentenced Carrington, the Supreme Court upheld the Sentencing Commission’s authority to promulgate mandatory sentencing guidelines. See Mistretta v. United States, 488 U.S. 361, 412, 109 S.Ct. 647, 102 L.Ed.2d 714 (1989). Nevertheless, Judge Bryan’s words at Carrington’s sentencing presaged the fault the Supreme Court found with the Guidelines in Booker: that the Guidelines unconstitutionally “diminish[ed] the judge’s discretion” to sentence the defendant to an appropriate sentence, and required the judge to “find the facts ... and apply the [Guidelines, being the law, to those facts.”
By the time Judge Bryan sentenced Til-litz, the Supreme Court had repeatedly reinforced the validity of mandatory sentencing guidelines, see, e.g., Stinson v. United States, 508 U.S. 36, 42, 113 S.Ct. 1913, 123 L.Ed.2d 598 (1993), and Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 490, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000) (holding that “[o]ther than the fact of a prior conviction, any fact that increases the penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory maximum must be submitted to a jury and proved beyond a reasonable doubt”), was not yet on the horizon. Yet Judge Bryan continued to criticize the Guidelines’s constitutionality and their constraint on his ability to give Tillitz a just sentence.
Judge Callahan believes that Judge Bryan’s statements at the time of both Carrington’s and Tillitz’s sentencing are not enough to recall the mandate. In so deciding, the majority erroneously assumes that Crawford held that a district judge’s express reservations at sentencing are not enough to justify recall of the mandate. To be sure, Crawford did point out the existence of two extraordinary circumstances justifying relief. Crawford did not hold, however, that either factor was alone insufficient to justify recall of the mandate. Rather, in Crawford we merely noted that there were two special circumstances present in that case, and that those factors together sufficiently distinguished Crawford from King. See id. at 1145-46 & n. 2. Crawford certainly does not compel Judge Callahan’s conclusion that neither of the two factors identified in Crawford can alone be sufficient to recall the mandate. Moreover, Judge Callahan’s position creates considerable tension with Crawford’s admonition that “future panels will necessarily evaluate the existence of ‘extraordinary circumstances’ warranting the recall of the mandate based on the facts of their individual cases.” See id. at *8991146 n. 2 (emphasis added). Thus, I would not hold that we may not recall the mandate solely because only one of the Crawford factors is present.
B. District Court’s Sua Sponte Request that We Recall the Mandate
In any event, there is also an additional circumstance not present in Craiuford that compels our attention — Judge Bryan’s impassioned plea to this court. Even though the parties did not raise the issue and Judge Bryan lacked authority to recall the mandate, he nevertheless implored us to recall our mandates. Judge Bryan told us:
A Sentencing Guidelines scheme was adopted by Congress and implemented by the United States Sentencing Commission on November 1, 1987. Many judges, including the undersigned, believed that the Sentencing Guidelines were contrary to the requirements of the U.S. Constitution. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court, in its wisdom, found that the guidelines passed constitutional muster.
Many defendants, including Mr. Tillitz and Mr. Carrington, were sentenced under the mandatory guidelines scheme, and many, including Mr. Tillitz and Mr. Carrington, are still incarcerated under mandatory guideline sentences.... During the period of the guidelines’ mandatory life — 1987 to 2005 — judges, like the undersigned, did their best to apply the law, assuming the constitutionality of the guidelines, and often sentencing defendants to sentences that were inappropriate under any law or theory of sentencing except the guidelines. District judges, in other words, tried to follow the law, even if it appeared to lead to injustice.
Now, under Booker, it is clear that the guidelines sentencing scheme was unconstitutional all along. It follows that defendants, still incarcerated under an unconstitutional sentencing scheme, would seek resentencing, even knowing that, on resentencing, longer sentences might be imposed. Yet, because of ret-roactivity rules, defendants serving unconstitutional sentences are offered no relief, no remedy, and no justice.
Trial judges, more than anything, want to do the right thing. We understand our obligation to follow the law, but deeply — and even desperately — hope that the law will lead to justice. If we are part of an injustice, we want to set it right, even if it involves a great deal of extra work. To quote Gerry Spence:
[Sjometimes a judge doesn’t know how to get justice.... [T]he judge has to just sit up there and watch justice fail right in front of him, right in his own courtroom, and he doesn’t know what to do about it, and it makes him feel sad.... Sometimes he even gets angry about it.
Gerry H. Spence, Of Murder and Madness: A True Story, 490 (1983).
This judge, sad and a little angry, would welcome an opportunity to resentence these defendants to a constitutional and legal sentence.
Tillitz v. United States, 2005 WL 2921957, at *12-* 13 (W.D.Wash. Nov. 3, 2005) (order) (internal citations omitted).
When considered in tandem with the district court’s statements at Carrington’s and Tillitz’s sentencing hearings, Judge Bryan’s impassioned statement demonstrates that the circumstances of this case are exceptional. Booker restored the role of the district court judge as the person uniquely suited to consider all the circumstances surrounding a criminal defendant and to fashion a sentence most just and appropriate for that individual. These two cases have weighed on Judge Bryan’s conscience for sixteen years (Carrington) and eight years (Tillitz). His conscience compelled him to sua sponte request that this *900court recall its mandates and allow him to assume the additional responsibility involved in re-sentencing these two defendants.
Judge Callahan dismisses the importance of this factor because, as she sees it, Judge Bryan merely “grumbled while enforcing the extant law.” Ante, at 893. This, however, rejects Judge Bryan’s comments too hastily. Because Judge Bryan was best positioned to determine whether the mandatory Guidelines’s constraints were extraordinarily harsh in a given case, we should put great stock in the fact that Judge Bryan tells us that Carrington and Tillitz were particularly worthy of resentencing.
In addition, Judge Bryan’s statements provide great assurance that the constitutional error in both Carrington’s and Tillitz’s sentences was not harmless. In Calderon, the Supreme Court rejected our claim of extraordinary circumstances because the mistake at issue — the failure of two judges out of thirty-five to make a timely request for a vote on whether to rehear a case en banc and thus “contribute their views to a determination that had been given full consideration on the merits by a panel of the court” — was relatively unlikely to have affected the appellant’s rights. See Calderon, 523 U.S. at 551, 118 S.Ct. 1489. Unlike Calderon, here we know that a different sentence would likely result had the district judge been permitted to impose a constitutional sentence.
Judge Bryan, exercising caution, unsurprisingly acknowledged that he cannot promise that Carrington’s and Tillitz’s sentences would be different upon re-sentencing. See Tillitz, 2005 WL 2921957, at *12 (“These sentences may have been appropriate at the time they were imposed, or they may not have been.”). Nevertheless, his statements at sentencing, the fact that he gave each defendant the lowest sentence possible within the applicable Guidelines range, and his subsequent suggestion to us that we recall the mandates provides a level of confidence that harmful error occurred here that will not be true in many other cases, if any.
C. Lapse of Time
Judge Callahan makes much of the fact that the second basis for recalling the mandate identified in Crawford — that Blakely had been decided when the mandate in Crawford’s appeal issued — is not present. As Judge Bryan aptly noted, however, that second basis is not present purely by the “accident of ... timing.” See Tillitz, 2005 WL 2921957, at *11. In Crawford, moreover, we emphasized that this combination of circumstances was not the only one that would justify recalling our mandate. See Crawford, 422 F.3d at 1146 n. 2 (“[W]e do not suggest that these same elements must always be present in order for a mandate to be recalled.”). Rather, we are to look at whether extraordinary circumstances exist based “on the facts of [defendants’] individual cases.” See id.
Rather than follow the express statements in Crawford, Judge Callahan chooses to adopt an unduly crabbed reading of the case. Judge Callahan would rely on what it terms a “unique question of timing” in Crawford and would only permit recall of the mandate where a sentence is not yet final. She gives no reason, however, why the mandate can never be recalled after the time for filing a petition for certiorari has expired. Indeed, to do so would essentially return us to the long-abandoned rule that our power to recall the mandate expires at the end of the court’s term. See Aerojet-Gen., 478 F.2d at 254 n. 6; see also 16 Charles Alan Wright, Arthur R. Miller & Edward H. Cooper, Federal Practice & Procedure § 3938 (2d ed.1996). Moreover, Judge Callahan’s effective imposition of a ninety-day time limit fails to recognize that time *901is but a factor affecting the decision whether to recall the mandate, and not a rigid constraint. See Patterson v. Crabb, 904 F.2d 1179 (7th Cir.1990) (noting that the power to recall the mandate is not limited by time); Aerojet-Gen., 478 F.2d at 254 n. 6 (explaining that “the lapse of time[is] significant only with respect to the court’s duty to ‘prevent injustice.’ ” (quoting Greater Boston Television Corp. v. FCC, 463 F.2d 268, 277 (D.C.Cir.1971))). I read Crawford’s second factor as nothing more than a recognition that the lapse of time is always a factor in determining whether to recall the mandate.
Judge Callahan, relying on United States v. Cruz, 423 F.3d 1119 (9th Cir.2005) (per curiam), also suggests that recall of the mandate is inappropriate because Booker is not retroactive. I agree that Cruz holds that Booker is not retroactive to cases on collateral review, but that is all that Cruz holds. Contrary to Judge Callahan’s assertion, Cruz does not limit Crawford’s holding. To say that Booker is not generally retroactive under Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 109 S.Ct. 1060, 103 L.Ed.2d 334 (1989), is not to say that equity may never demand that we provide relief to a defendant whose sentence would be unconstitutional under Booker when special circumstances suggest that failure to do so would result in a grave injustice. That is why Booker error alone was not enough to warrant recall of the mandate in King, but Booker error in addition to other extraordinary circumstances permitted recall in Crawford. The decisions of our sister circuits are not to the contrary. See United States v. Saikaly, 424 F.3d 514, 517-18 (6th Cir.2005) (refusing to recall the mandate for Booker error alone); United States v. Fraser, 407 F.3d 9, 11 (1st Cir.2005) (same); United States v. Ford, 383 F.3d 567, 568 (7th Cir.2004) (same).
Unlike Judge Callahan, I believe that the circumstances involved in Carrington's and Tillitz’s cases — the judge’s strong reservations at the time of sentencing and the judge’s sua sponte plea for relief from our court — are both unusual and extraordinary. In addition, I do not agree that the absence of the second factor identified in Crawford precludes relief.
III. FINALITY
At its heart, the majority opinion rests on a concern that a contrary decision would undermine the finality of judgments. I agree that finality is an important value. It is not, however, the only relevant consideration. When the injustice is sufficiently great, we should not allow our concerns with repose to obviate our obligation to do justice.
Granting relief would place only a limited burden on the interests underlying finality. In Calderon, the Court placed a very high value on repose because recall of the mandate threatened “to frustrate the interests of a State ... in enforcing a final judgment in its favor.” See 523 U.S. at 552, 118 S.Ct. 1489. Unlike Calderon, however, we deal here with federal convictions. And although there is a weighty interest in finality because it “is essential to both the retributive and the deterrent functions of criminal law,” see id. at 555, 118 S.Ct. 1489, that interest is not absolute. The interest in repose is lessened all the more because we deal not with finality of a conviction, but rather the finality of a sentence. There is no suggestion that Carrington or Tillitz be set free or that the government be forced to retry these cases. The district court asks only for an opportunity to re-sentence in accordance with the Constitution.
Of course, another interest underlying finality is judicial efficiency: “the interests of stable adjudication and judicial administrative efficiency, on which growing caseloads place a growing premium.” Calder*902on, 523 U.S. at 569, 118 S.Ct. 1489 (Souter, J., dissenting). Implicit in the majority’s opinion is a concern that a contrary decision would open the floodgates of litigation. On closer examination, however, this concern proves baseless.
Cases where a district court expresses reservations about the validity of a Guidelines sentence are rare. See United States v. Labrada-Bustamante, 428 F.3d 1252, 1262 (9th Cir.2005) (describing such cases as “rare”). As Tillitz observes in his response to the government’s petition for rehearing, only two decisions — both by district courts — have cited Judge Bryan’s decision in Tillitz, and neither relied on the language seeking recall of the mandate. See United States v. Scott, Criminal Action No. 5:02CR47, 2006 WL 3488932 (N.D.W.Va. Aug. 10, 2006); United States v. Gettings, No. CR. S-00-535 WBS, 2006 WL 1795112 (E.D.Cal. June 28, 2006). A WESTLAW search reveals that only five cases citing our first decision in this case, 470 F.3d 920 (9th Cir.2006) (Carrington I), involved attempts to recall the mandate or seek resentencing on Carrington I’s authority. None of these cases appear to involve facts similar to those in Crawford or this case, and the courts in all four eases rebuffed the request for re-sentencing. See United States v. Blankenship, No. 06-36039, 2007 WL 1742483 (9th Cir. June 14, 2007) (unpublished memorandum); United States v. Woodruff, No. 93-0438, 2007 WL 2123735 (N.D.Cal. July 23, 2007); United States v. Velarde, No. 89-CR-50009-MJR, 2007 WL 853983 (S.D.Ill. Mar. 16, 2007); Dillon v. Smith, No. 1:07-CV-00118 AWI SMS HC, 2007 WL 781455 (E.D.Cal. Mar. 13, 2007); United States v. Walker, No. 96-cr-40094-JPG, 2007 WL 458201 (S.D.Ill. Feb. 7, 2007). Moreover, I am aware of no appellate decision — published or unpublished, in any circuit — that involves recall of the mandate for Booker error in circumstances even remotely similar to those in Crawford and this case.3
Crawford has been on the books for nearly two years, and yet this case is the only one nationwide that appears to raise similar facts. Permitting the district court to re-sentence would place only a limited burden on the government given the unusual circumstances involved. Finality is important, but I fear the majority is too willing to let repose triumph over justice.
IV. CONCLUSION
I would recall the mandates in Carring-ton’s and Tillitz’s appeals. Judge Bryan stated at their sentencing hearings that he believed their sentences were unconstitutional and unjust. Years later, Judge Bryan singled out these two men as individuals to whom the constraints of the old mandatory Guidelines caused particular harm. While I recognize that the passage of time has somewhat cemented the government’s interest in finality, that interest is still not so strong that I would deny a district court judge the opportunity to remedy what the judge considers to be an “injustice” and to resentence a defendant to a sentence that is just, proper, and constitutional. See Gondeck v. Pan Am. World Airways, Inc., 382 U.S. 25, 26-27, 86 S.Ct. 153, 15 L.Ed.2d 21 (1965).4 Accordingly, I dissent.

. I join Parts I and II of Judge Callahan’s opinion.

. In Crawford we emphasized that these are not the only circumstances that support recall of the mandate. Specifically, we cautioned:
[I]n stressing that our decision here rests on both the sentencing judge’s expressed misgivings about the sentence required by the mandatory Guidelines as well as the relative timing of the Supreme Court’s Blakely decision and the termination of our appellate jurisdiction, we do not suggest that these same elements must always be present in order for a mandate to be recalled. Rather future panels will necessarily evaluate the existence of "extraordinary circumstances” warranting the recall of a mandate based on the facts of their individual cases.
Id. at 1146 n. 2.

. Tillilz's response to the government's petition for rehearing provides a mostly comprehensive list of cases addressing recall of the mandate for Booker or Blakely error. None of the cited cases have facts similar to either Crawford or this case.

. Judge Callahan is also concerned that re-sentencing Carrington and Tillitz would be “unfair” to defendants for whom relief would not be available. On this point, I agree with Professor Douglas A. Berman, who, providing commentary on this very case, responded to *903this concern by suggesting that it represents, as Justice Brennan once put it, a "fear [of] too much justice.” See Sentencing Law & Policy, http://sentencing.typepad.com/sentencing— law — and—policy/2006/12/what—wrong— with.html (Dec. 14, 2006); see also McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U.S. 279, 339, 107 S.Ct. 1756, 95 L.Ed.2d 262 (1987) (Brennan, J., dissenting).