Court Opinion

ID: 9484198
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:43:30.482235+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:50:04.860610
License: Public Domain

HEANEY, Senior Circuit Judge,
concurring.
Though I am compelled by this court’s precedents to concur in affirming the sentence in this case, I write to indicate my continuing belief that uses of relevant conduct such as that in this case violate the offenders’ rights to due process of law.
My dispute is not over whether a preponderance of the evidence supported a finding of attempted first-degree murder, but whether we, or any federal court, should be making any finding in this regard. The attempted murder alleged in this case is not a federal offense. This is not simply a case in which a federal prosecutor chose not to charge an offense, or the offense was charged and the offender acquitted, and then the prosecutor took a second bite of the apple by introducing the conduct as relevant to sentencing. Rather, the prosecutor could not even have charged Wilson with the alleged attempted murder. The proper place for this charge is in state court, where Wilson would have the right to a jury trial, to confront witnesses, and to have the necessary findings made beyond a reasonable doubt.
Instead Wilson has had his sentencing range increased from 27-33 months to 78-97 months, roughly a three-fold increase.1 The result closely approximates the real-offense sentencing that the Sentencing Commission claims to have rejected, see Stephen Breyer, The Federal Sentencing Guidelines and the Key Compromises on Which They Rest, 17 Hofstra L.Rev. 1, 10-12 (1988), and it raises all of the fairness and due process problems that caused real-offense sentencing to be rejected. Implemented in this manner, rather than “promoting justice under law, the guidelines are merely law without justice.” Boyce F. Martin, Jr., Advisory Guidelines and Constitutional Infirmities, 5 Fed.Sent.R. 192, 192 (1993).

. Wilson's base offense level moved from 18 to 28 through application of the cross-reference provision in the guidelines, but he received a two-level reduction for acceptance of responsibility. His adjusted offense levels were then either 16 or 26, and he fell into criminal history category III. He was sentenced to 88 months.