Court Opinion

ID: 9492275
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:37:10.805696+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:13.640296
License: Public Domain

EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
My colleagues discard a decision of this court on the basis of an amendment to the Sentencing Guidelines that is unrelated to the issue at hand. Even if I agreed with the majority’s view of the merits, I would not think this an appropriate step. Neither the amendment nor any subsequent decision has undermined the analysis of United States v. Belton, 890 F.2d 9 (7th Cir.1989), the case now interred. Moreover, no matter what we do, a conflict will persist. Compare United States v. Marrone, 48 F.3d 735, 740-41 (3d Cir.1995) (following Belton), with United States v. Kenyon, 7 F.3d 783, 787 (8th Cir.1993) (conflicting with Belton, but apparently unaware of it). Overruling a decision to move from one side of a conflict to another is not sound. Contrast United States v. Hill, 48 F.3d 228 (7th Cir.1995). The conflict remains, and eventually either the Sentencing Commission or the Supreme Court must put things to rights. Now is a bad time to stir the pot, for the Sentencing Commission cannot respond. (All seats on the Commission have been vacant since October 1998.)
Garecht must be sentenced as a career offender if he has “two prior felony convictions”. He was convicted in 1981 of aggravated battery in Illinois and in 1992 of possessing cocaine in Texas with intent to distribute that drug. Both are felonies, but the guidelines use “two prior felony convictions” as a term of art. Guideline 4B1.2(c) defines this phrase:
(c) The term “two prior felony convictions” means (1) the defendant committed the instant offense of conviction subsequent to sustaining at least two felony convictions of either a crime of violence or a controlled substance offense (he., two felony convictions of a crime of violence, two felony convictions of a controlled substance offense, or one felony conviction of a crime of violence and one felony conviction of a controlled substance offense), and (2) the sentences for at least two of the aforementioned felony convictions are counted separately under the provisions of § 4Al.l(a), (b), or (c). The date that a defendant sustained a conviction shall be the date that the guilt of the defendant has been established, whether by guilty plea, trial, or plea of nolo contendere.
Garecht meets the requirements of part (c)(1): he was released from his imprisonment for the battery and cocaine offenses before committing his marijuana offense. The rub is (c)(2): “the sentences for at least two of the aforementioned felony con*679victions are counted separately under [§ 4A1.1]”. What is the referent of “separately”? Does it mean “separately from each other” or “separately from the current conviction”? If the former, then Ga-recht’s sentence must be affirmed, because it is undisputed that his 1981 conviction for aggravated battery in Illinois and his 1992 conviction for selling cocaine in Texas are not related to each other. My colleagues say (183 F.3d at 677) that it means both: the priors must be separate not only from each other but also from the offense of conviction. This leads to reversal because the distribution of cocaine in Texas is “relevant conduct” to the current conviction for conspiracy, for Garecht dealt with the same confederates in a continuing criminal organization.
Belton holds that for purposes of § 4B1.2(c)(2) the right question is whether the prior offenses are separate from each other, which to simplify I call horizontal separateness. (“Vertical” then means separate from the “instant offense of conviction”.) Belton follows the text. To write “the aforementioned felony convictions are counted separately” is to imply “separately from each other,” That’s how normal English works. The sentence “X and Y are counted separately” means “X is counted separately from Y.” It does not mean “Y is counted separately from Z,” as my colleagues would have it. (In this construction, X and Y are the priors, Z is the “instant offense of conviction”.) Context could lead to a different reading, but here it doesn’t. Subsection (c)(1) contrasts the “instant offense” with the priors, a vertical approach. Subsection (c)(2) does not mention the “instant offense” but instead refers to “the aforementioned felony convictions” — which is to say, the “two prior felony convictions.” This asks whether the priors are counted separately from each other, quite different from the question posed by (c)(1) whether the “instant offense of conviction” came after the other two convictions.
Here’s another reason why (c)(2) refers to horizontal separateness: it speaks of “sentences,” not “convictions.” Recall the language: “(2) the sentences for at least two of the aforementioned felony convictions are counted separately under the provisions of § 4A1.1(a), (b), or (c).” It is possible to talk about whether the “sentences” for Garecht’s 1981 and 1992 convictions are counted separately from each other; when the district judge comes to apply § 4B1.2 it is not possible to ask whether the “sentence” for the 1992 cocaine conviction is counted separately from the “sentence” for the 1998 marijuana conspiracy, because Garecht has not been sentenced yet for that crime. The only sentences in the picture are those for the priors; thus subsection (c)(2) must present the question whether the priors are counted separately from each other. Nothing else makes linguistic sense of the text. Suppose the guideline said: “Treat defendant as a career offender if two of his prior sentences are counted separately under [some other provision].” That would pose the question whether the prior sentences are counted separately from each other. But this is almost exactly what subsection (c)(2) does say! Subsection (c)(1) asks whether the “instant offense of conviction” occurred after the prior “convictions”; that’s a vertical issue. The use of “sentences” in subsection (c)(2) is necessarily a horizontal (prior-to-prior) comparison in this context. Garecht’s priors count separately from each other. That should be the end of the case.
My reading makes practical as well as linguistic sense of the guideline. Someone who is convicted,. imprisoned, released, convicted of a new crime, imprisoned, released, and then convicted of a third crime committed after the second release has marked himself as a “career” criminal. That is exactly what Garecht has done. He was convicted of aggravated battery, imprisoned and released, convicted of selling cocaine in Texas, imprisoned and released, and then returned to his life of crime, committing a third offense. That *680he continued dealing with his old confederates (and thus committed a third offense “related” to the second one) does not make this sequence of events any the less serious, or imply that Gareeht is less of a recidivist. Subsection (c)(2) creates a horizontal separation requirement to guard against treating as a career criminal someone whose priors are all variations on the same crime; then the current conviction realistically is a second rather than a third offense. Thus, for example, conviction for the cocaine sales in Texas, the cocaine conspiracy, and toting a gun as part of that conspiracy, would be related to each other and count as only one prior conviction in the event Gareeht later were convicted of an additional crime. But someone who joins a criminal conspiracy, is convicted and imprisoned for acts related to that conspiracy, and on release immediately rejoins the conspiracy — which Gareeht did— has committed two distinct crimes in this episode. If he has also committed a third (here, aggravated battery), then he is a career criminal.
Belton dealt with an almost identical case of someone who after release from prison returned to his former confederates in crime. We observed: “A career criminal is incorrigible, undeterrable, reci-divating, unresponsive to the ‘specific deterrence’ of having been previously convicted — and that is a good description of a man who continues trafficking in narcotics after having been arrested and convicted of a similar crime. If Belton had joined the conspiracy to sell cocaine in Milwaukee after his conviction in California, he would have no argument at all, yet it can hardly be thought that by entering the conspiracy earlier rather than later he showed himself to be less incorrigible, more deterrable, less likely to commit further crimes upon release from prison. The guidelines should not be interpreted to give criminals an incentive to enter conspiracies at the earliest possible opportunity. ... Continuing to participate in the drug conspiracy after having been convicted of a drug offense manifests a propensity for recidivism as plainly as if the conspiracy had been started from scratch. The only practical effect of the interpretation for which Belton contends would be to give the government an incentive to seek conviction for only so much of the defendant’s participation in the continuing conspiracy as postdated his prior conviction.” 890 F.2d at 10-11. Substitute “Gareeht” for “Belton,” “Texas” for “California,” and “Illinois” for “Milwaukee,” and the point is equally strong.
Today’s majority does not contend that the vertical-separateness approach that it adopts is wise either as a matter of sentencing policy or as a matter of textual interpretation. Instead my colleagues say that the Sentencing Commission required us to hew a new path because, “[wjhen Belton was argued, § 4A1.2(a) was not included as one of the sections applicable to the counting of convictions”, and the Sentencing Commission now has made it applicable. 183 F.3d at 675. There are two shortcomings with this proposition: first, it does not matter whether, in the abstract, § 4A1.2 is “applicable.” The question is not whether but how it applies. Second, there has been no relevant change since Belton.
The majority relies on Amendment 268, which modified what is today Application Note 3. (Until recently this was Note 4; I refer to it as Note 3 to avoid confusion.) My colleagues point to differences in the language of the note, but not to any change in the language of the guideline— and the text of § 4B1.2 shows that § 4A1.2 has always been “applicable.” When the guidelines were first adopted, § 4B1.2 said this directly. Anyone in doubt on this score has only to read Belton, which quoted the text it was construing: “So far as is relevant to this case, a ‘career offender’ is a convicted defendant who ‘has at least two prior felony convictions of either a crime of violence or a controlled substance offense.’ § 4B1.1. The guidelines define ‘two prior convictions’ to mean that ‘(A) the defen*681dant committed the instant offense subsequent to sustaining at least two felony-convictions of either a crime of violence or a controlled substance offense ... and (B) the sentences for at least two of the aforementioned felony convictions are counted separately under the provisions of Part A’ of Chapter 4 of the guidelines.” Belton, 890 F.2d at 10 (emphasis added). At the time Belton was argued, Application Note 3 stressed that this made two particular parts of § 4A1.2 applicable; it did not say that the other parts were not applicable, a statement that would have contradicted the text of § 4B1.2. Belton itself did not rely on Note 3 for a negative implication that these other parts were inapplicable; indeed Belton did not mention the note. Thus it is untenable to assert that Amendment 268 for the first time made § 4A1.2 applicable to relatedness decisions under § 4B1.2.
The Sentencing Commission explained Amendment 268 this way: “The purpose of this amendment is to clarify the definitions of crime of violence and controlled substance offense used in this guideline. The definition of crime of violence used in this amendment is derived from 18 U.S.C. § 924(c). In addition, the amendment clarifies that all pertinent definitions and instructions in § 4A1.2 apply to this section.” Only the third sentence of this rationale applies to the change in Application Note 3. (The rest explains changes in § 4B 1.2(b) and Application Notes 1 & 2.) The Commission says through Note 3 that the reference in § 4B1.2(c)(2) to “Part A of this Chapter” means all of Part A. Neither Application Note 3 nor the Commission’s explanation of the change implies that the word “separately” has been redefined, so that “separately from each other, as Part A defines separately” (the meaning Belton gave to the text of § 4B1.2(c)) has become “separately from the instant offense of conviction, as Part A defines separately,” or “separately from both each other and the instant offense of conviction” (the meaning my colleagues give to the text of § 4B 1.2(c)). The possibility of such a change was not on the table in 1989, and nothing in Amendment 268 accomplishes that alteration. Although the critical step in the majority’s decision today is its conclusion (183 F.3d at 677) that the priors must be separate not only from each other but also from the offense of conviction, my colleagues never explain why they adopt that position.
Perhaps they have been thrown off the scent by the final paragraph of Belton, in which (they say) the court “acknowledged that if § 4A1.2(a) had applied, then the conviction would not have been counted ... for career offender purposes.” 183 F.3d at 675. This misreads the passage in Belton (890 F.2d at 11, ellipsis in original):
Belton notes that the definition of “two prior convictions” refers to Part A of Chapter 4 of the guidelines, where we read that in adjusting a defendant’s sentence for his prior criminal history the judge may use as a “prior sentence” only a “sentence previously imposed ... for conduct not part of the instant offense.” § 4A1.2(a)(l). Therefore, as the first application note to section 4A1.2 makes explicit, “a sentence imposed after the defendant’s commencement of the instant offense, but prior to the sentencing on the instant offense, is a prior sentence [only] if it was for conduct other than conduct that was part of the instant offense.” If Belton were being sentenced under Part A of Chapter 4, the California conviction and sentence would not be a part of his criminal history usable to enhance his sentence. But he was sentenced under Part B, and as is plain from section 4B1.2(3), quoted earlier, the sentences that must be separate in this sense are the sentences imposed for the prior convictions: “two prior convictions” entails that “the sentences for at least two of the aforementioned felony convictions are counted separately under the provisions of Part A.” The two prior convictions must be separate from each other, and they were here.
*682I don’t find here any implication “that if § 4A1.2(a) had applied, then the conviction would not have been counted”. Belton made the point that relatedness for a criminal-history calculation presents the question whether an offense is related to the cñme of conviction, while § 4B1.2(c)(2) poses the question whether the priors are related to each other. Only by first rejecting Belton’s fundamental conclusion that § 4B1.2(c)(2) asks only whether the priors are related to each other can the majority find any comfort in this passage — but to return to my theme, Amendment 268 does not address this issue, and the majority does not give any reason for departing from Belton’s resolution of it.
United States v. Linnear, 40 F.3d 215, 223 (7th Cir.1994), which my colleagues read as undermining Belton, concerns subsection (c)(1), the sequence rule, rather than subsection (c)(2). The proper inquiry under subsection (c)(1) is vertical, just as the panel in Linnear treated it. True, the panel remarked in passing that Linnear had not argued that there was a relatedness issue under (c)(2), but this just stated the obvious; it did not reflect a legal ruling of any kind. So in this circuit the only relevant case is Belton, which holds that the right question is whether the priors are separate from each other, not whether the priors are separate from the offense of conviction. Neither today’s majority nor the eighth circuit in Kenyon explains why that conclusion is wrong. Restlessly shifting from one side of the Kenyonr-MaiTone conflict to the other does not promote either correct or stable law. Having reached a reasoned decision, we should stick to it until the Commission takes up the subject.