Court Opinion

ID: 9481310
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:14:44.060407+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:13.407286
License: Public Domain

COFFIN, Senior Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I fully concur in my brother’s analysis of the law in this case. I write separately only to register my abiding concern with the career offender provision of the sentencing guidelines. Although it seems clear that Leavitt’s conviction for “Oral Threatening” is a “crime of violence” within the meaning of the guidelines, his criminal history does not reveal the kind of “career offender” that I believe should warrant an elevation of sentencing range from 27-33 months to 168-210 months. Both triggering offenses under the provision, an assault and battery and the oral threat conviction discussed here, occurred within two weeks of one another in 1975, when the defendant was only 21 years of age. In addition, the oral threat offense, while within the meaning of the guideline, punished just that — an oral threat — and the statute was repealed only a year after he committed the crime. It seems to me that removing all discretion from district judges in such cases substantially alters our notion of just punishment, both in absolute terms and relative to that of other offenders.