Court Opinion

ID: 9498226
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:11:48.389667+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:58:42.163442
License: Public Domain

HANSEN, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I fully, but reluctantly, concur in the court’s opinion and judgment. The reason for my reluctance is my belief that our prior panel opinions addressing the fourth prong of the plain-error test in Booker cases are — with the utmost respect for the views of my colleagues who sat on -those panels- — irreconcilable with this circuit’s en banc precedent and the United States Supreme Court’s precedent. Nonetheless, those prior panel opinions -bind this panel, and the error I perceive can only be corrected through a petition for rehearing en banc or a petition for certiorari.
*834Some of the prior panel opinions state or imply that, when a defendant satisfies the first three prongs of the plain-error test by showing that there was plain error which affected his substantial rights, he should be granted relief without being required to demonstrate anything more at the fourth prong of the test. See United States v. Aldridge, 413 F.3d 829, 835-36 (8th Cir.2005) (granting relief after finding the third prong satisfied, without analyzing the fourth prong); United States v. Rodriguez-Ceballos, 407 F.3d 937, 941 (8th Cir.2005) (“Given Rodriguez-Ceballos’s success in handily meeting the first three Olano conditions, we conclude Rodriguez-Ceballos also has established the fourth condition for plain error, such that we may exercise our discretion to remand for re-sentencing.”).
In my view, these cases are not faithful to binding Supreme Court precedent. The Supreme Court could not have been clearer when it held that “a plain error affecting substantial rights does not, without more, satisfy the [plain-error] standard, for otherwise the discretion afforded by Rule 52(b) would be illusory.” United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 737, 113 S.Ct. 1770, 123 L.Ed.2d 508 (1993). In addition to showing plain error affecting substantial rights, a defendant must show that the error seriously affects the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of the judicial proceedings. Under Olano, without such a showing, we are not authorized to exercise our discretion to correct the error.
Some of the prior panel opinions state that a defendant makes a sufficient showing at the fourth prong if he would spend additional time in prison due to the error. See United States v. Brown, 414 F.3d 976, 978 (8th Cir.2005) (“We conclude, too, that this is a case in which plain error relief should be granted because we think that Mr. Brown’s sentence may well have very significantly exceeded the sentence that the district court would have pronounced if it had applied the correct rule of law. In other words, to let the sentence stand in the present circumstances would be a miscarriage of justice.”); United States v. Killingsworth, 413 F.3d 760, 765 (8th Cir.2005) (“The prospect that Mr. Williams’s sentence is much more severe than what the district court would have imposed pursuant to the advisory guidelines and the other considerations set out in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) satisfies this last element of plain error.”); United States v. Fleck, 413 F.3d 883, 897 (8th Cir.2005) (“Because Ken has shown a reasonable probability that he would have received a more favorable sentence had the district court treated the guidelines as advisory, refusing to allow him to be resentenced would leave Ken incarcerated for a longer period than that to which the district court would have sentenced him under an advisory regime. We find that this would seriously affect the fairness, integrity, and public reputation of the judicial proceedings that placed Ken in prison.”); United States v. Valdivia-Perez, 133 Fed.Appx. 347, 349 (8th Cir.2005) (“[B]ecause Valdivia-Perez would spend additional time in prison as a result of the imposed sentence, the fairness,, integrity, and public reputation of judicial proceedings are seriously affected.”); United States v. Plumman, 409 F.3d 919, 932 (8th Cir.2005) (“Based on the district court’s comments at sentencing, the district court more than likely would not have imposed life sentences on Counts I through VI under an advisory Guidelines scheme. Under these circumstances, affirming the life sentences would ‘seriously affect the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of the judicial proceedings.’ ” (quoted source and internal marks omitted)).
In my view, these cases are not faithful to binding Eighth Circuit precedent an*835nounced by our court en banc. In United States v. Pirani, 406 F.3d 543, 553-54 (8th Cir.2005) (en banc), the court acknowledged “that the fairness, integrity, and public reputation of judicial proceedings are seriously affected when a defendant must spend additional time in prison on account of an illegal sentence,” such as “when the district court applied the wrong mandatory guidelines range because of clerical or other errors” (emphasis added). The court held that “Booker error, on the other hand, presents a different situation!;] ... the sentence itself is not illegal under the advisory regime mandated by Booker, only the process the district court used in arriving at that sentence.” Id. at 554 (emphasis added). As a result, in cases involving Booker error, the court prescribed a “fourth-factor inquiry ... more akin to United States v. Cotton, [535 U.S. 625, 122 S.Ct. 1781, 152 L.Ed.2d 860 (2002)].” Id.
Cotton addressed the Apprendi error of failing to allege drug quantity in the indictment and failing to submit the issue to the petit jury, in violation of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments. The effect of this error was severe: the maximum lawful sentence was 20 years in prison, but the district court had sentenced some defendants to 30 years of imprisonment and other defendants to life in prison. Nonetheless, even finding that the first two factors of the plain-error test had been satisfied and assuming arguendo that the third factor had also been satisfied, the Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the sentences, including life in prison, holding that “the error did not seriously affect the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings.” Cotton, 535 U.S. at 632-33, 122 S.Ct. 1781. The Supreme Court scoured the record as a whole and concluded that the evidence of drug quantity was “overwhelming” and “essentially uncontro-verted.” Id. at 633, 122 S.Ct. 1781.
Likewise, in Booker cases, I believe that we should review the existing record on appeal to determine whether there is a basis within the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors for the district court to impose a lower but still reasonable sentence under advisory Guidelines. See United States v. Ryder, 414 F.3d 908, 919-20 (8th Cir.2005) (in conducting the fourth-prong analysis, identifying the § 3553(a) factor of age and the § 3553(a)(2)(D) factor of the need for medical care as factors the district court determined were present but was unable to fully take it into account due to the mandatory nature of the Guidelines); United States v. Whipple, 414 F.3d 887, 890-91 (8th Cir.2005) (same); cf. Rodriguez-Ceballos, 407 F.3d at 941-42 (mentioning during the fourth-prong discussion that the district court had identified the § 3553(a)(6) factor of the need to avoid unwarranted sentence disparities among defendants with similar records who have been found guilty of similar conduct, but was unable to fully take it into account due to the mandatory nature of the Guidelines). If no mitigating § 3553(a) factors were articulated by the district court at sentencing or are apparent elsewhere in the record, the defendant is not entitled to relief at the fourth-prong of the plain error test. It does not seriously affect the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of the judicial proceedings to affirm a sentence within the statutory range and imposed under Congressionally approved mandatory Guidelines, as has been done tens of thousands of times between the Congress’s enactment of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 and the Supreme Court’s 2005 decision in Booker, when there is no apparent basis within the § 3553(a) factors for a lower sentence under advisory Guidelines. See United States v. Gonzalez-Huerta, 403 F.3d 727, 736-39 (10th Cir.2005) (en banc).
In the instant case, I can discern nothing in the record that would suggest a *836reasoned basis within the § 3553(a) factors for imposing a lower sentence on Better-ton if the case were remanded for resen-tencing under advisory Guidelines. To the contrary, everything in the record relevant to the § 3553(a) factors suggests that Bet-terton richly deserved a sentence at least as harsh, if not harsher, than the one he received for these — his fourth, fifth, and sixth felony-grade drug-trafficking offenses — which he committed while on state parole. If we were writing on a clean slate, I would affirm Betterton’s sentence.
However, our panel, including me, is bound by the prior panel opinions until and unless the Supreme Court, or this court en banc, overturns them. With these observations, I join the court’s opinion and judgment.