Court Opinion

ID: 9491025
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:01:49.118985+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:36.831639
License: Public Domain

ALAN E. NORRIS, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
In arriving at its decision today, the majority misconstrues the district court’s findings and eviscerates our recent decision in United States v. Gaines, 122 F.3d 324 (6th Cir.1997), thereby ignoring this circuit’s well-established rule that one panel of this court may not overrule a prior decision of another panel. Timmer v. Michigan Dep’t of Commerce, 104 F.3d 833, 839 (6th Cir.1997). I therefore dissent.
In Gaines, we were asked to decide whether a district court has the statutory authority to depart downward from the Sentencing Guidelines on the ground that the Sentencing Commission, as opposed to Congress, decided that the 100:1 quantity ratio for powder and crack cocaine should be eliminated. Gaines at 329. We held that a district court lacks that authority. Id. at 331. In so doing, we aligned our court with every other circuit that has decided the issue.
By its decision today, the majority essentially renders meaningless our opinion in Gaines. Although it concedes that the disparity in treatment of crack and powder cocaine alone is not sufficiently powerful to remove a case from the “heartland” of drug offenses, the majority holds that the 100:1 ratio, coupled with evidence of “improper targeting and inducement” may well be enough to allow for a downward departure pursuant to Koon v. United States, 518 U.S. 81, 116 S.Ct. 2035, 135 L.Ed.2d 392 (1996). The majority arrives at this conclusion even though the district court noted that the evidence proffered in support of Coleman’s argument that he was improperly targeted was inconsequential.
Most troubling is the impact today’s holding will have on future litigation. The holding, seems to say that two legally insufficient grounds for a downward departure — in this case'the ratio and alleged targeting — can add up to a sufficient ground. Not only do I disagree with this conclusion but I can only imagine the Pandora’s box of meritless couplings that will be brought before this court in an attempt to circumvent otherwise insufficient arguments.
' Moreover, I do not agree with the majority’s conclusion that the district court did not properly consider Coleman’s request for a downward departure based upon the “investigative techniques” employed by the ATF. The majority bases its conclusion upon its view that the district court “found that Coleman’s argument was not a sentencing issue, but instead a selective prosecution issue and thus an improper legal basis for a downward departure.” A review of the record points to a different conclusion. The district court initially, observed that it thought the argument regarding the 'ATF’s investigative techniques was “not a downward departure issue” but more properly a selective prosecution issue that should have been raised in a motion to dismiss.1 Coleman’s attorney then reminded the court that he was not arguing selective prosecution'but was instead asking for a downward departure:
[TJhis is not a claim of selective prosecution, and the reason it was not brought by motion to dismiss indictment is wé are not claiming this as a ease of selective prosecution .... It’s more of á case of selective law enforcement---- The reason this is a grounds for departure is simply because this takes this ease out of the heartland of your typical drug ease. That is where perhaps there’s someone who is actively involved in dealing narcotics and the government then investigates and catches him in the act. This is a ease where Mr. Secretti was out soliciting for drug cases and firearm cases____ [T]he departure section in the guidelines is not meant to be an all-inclusive section, and I think the courts have been inclined to look at the various factors that have been listed by the *624Sentencing Commission in the original guidelines, but the [Guidelines also allow] that if there is a circumstance, mitigating circumstances of a kind that is not included in your normal ease, your general case, that the Court can consider that for departure, and it’s strictly a matter for discretion.
The district court then proceeded to consider the merits of that argument, announcing:
I understand that the guidelines make exceptions for exceptional circumstances but I think there, I think you need more to bring this into that realm than your assertion that Mr. Coleman was being solicited by Agent Secretti. In fact, you know the government’s position is exactly the opposite, and there isn’t enough to warrant having a hearing on it. I mean, all you’ve given me as an exhibit here is the business card, no affidavit — nothing in terms of hard evidence of this, and even if you did, I still don’t — I still don’t see it as an issue which would entitle this defendant to a departure, so motion denied.
It is apparent that the district court considered whether Coleman’s assertion amounted to a proper basis for a downward departure but concluded that his claim was so lacking in merit that it deserved summary rejection2. The court did not, as asserted by the majority, believe it “lacked the authority and discretion to depart downward.” The majority notes that its conclusion is reached under our abuse of discretion standard of review. I fail to see how the district court’s conclusion can be said to be the product of an abuse, of discretion when one considers the Supreme Court’s admonition that sentencing courts must “bear in mind the Commission’s expectation that departures based upon grounds not mentioned in the Guidelines will be highly infrequent.” Koon, 518 U.S. at 96, 116 S.Ct. at 2045 (punctuation omitted).
Accordingly, I am unable to say that the district court abused its discretion when it acknowledged Coleman’s argument and then rejected it as baseless.
For these reasons, then, I respectfully dissent.

. This preliminary exchange from the sentencing hearing is the same one alluded to in the first paragraph of the Discussion section in the majority opinion, including footnote two. The majority, .however, seems unwilling to consider the subsequent dialogue between Coleman's attorney and the court.

. Surely, the record before us lends little support to the thought that the ATF needed to employ improper “targeting” methods to "induce” Coleman to deliver it crack cocaine. Coleman sold crack cocaine to an ATF special agent on five separate occasions. The five occurrences spanned more than eight months, as Coleman was incarcerated for nearly' seven of those months by the State of Michigan for violation of an earlier parole for armed robbery.