Court Opinion

ID: 9487338
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:14:17.546288+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:13.168800
License: Public Domain

EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
After being arrested for distributing crack cocaine, Sheila Wills turned informer and made some “buys” that inculpated other dealers. The prosecutor asked the judge to reward her for this aid by imposing a term lower than the range provided by the Sentencing Guidelines (87-108 months), but not below the minimum sentence specified in the statute (60 months). The district judge agreed with the idea of reward for assistance but bridled at the limitation the prosecutor sought to place on its magnitude. He imposed a sentence of 24 months’ imprisonment, and the question on this appeal by the United States is whether a motion under U.S.S.G. § 5K1.1 to depart from the guidelines necessarily authorizes the judge to disregard the statutory minimum as well.
That the prosecutor may authorize such departures cannot be doubted.
Upon motion of the Government, the court shall have the authority to impose a sentence below a level established by statute as minimum sentence so as to reflect a defendant’s substantial assistance in the investigation or prosecution of another person who has committed an offense. Such sentence shall be imposed in accordance with the guidelines and policy statements issued by the Sentencing Commission pursuant to section 994 of title 28, United States Code.
18 U.S.C. § 3553(e). That the prosecutor’s motion is essential also cannot be doubted. Wade v. United States, — U.S. —, 112 S.Ct. 1840, 118 L.Ed.2d 524 (1992), holds that the decision to make (or withhold) a motion under § 3553(e) is no different from the decision to charge the suspect with a less serious crime (or no crime at all). As prosecutorial discretion informs the selection of the charge, so it informs the decision whether a defendant’s assistance is sufficiently valuable to justify a bargain sentence. No matter how much the judge believes that the defendant’s assistance should be rewarded, the statutory minimum must be enforced unless the prosecutor shares the judge’s assessment.
The prosecutor has a parallel power under 28 U.S.C. § 994(n) and U.S.S.G. § 5K1.1 to authorize a departure from the guidelines. Neither Congress nor the Sentencing Commission has addressed the question whether these two powers are fused, so that it is impossible to exercise one without the other. One may infer from § 5K1.1 that a single motion suffices, but a motion may have many objectives or just one. If the Rules of Criminal Procedure provided that many procedural requests could be combined in a single motion, it would not follow that a motion in limine seeking to exclude evidence necessarily waived the right to trial by jury. Because the Sentencing Commission has not insisted that the two requests are locked together, we need not decide whether this would be within its power. What we have for now are: (i) a vague policy statement in § 5K1.1; (ii) a ■statutory requirement in § 3553(e) conditioning departure on the prosecutor’s request; and (iii) an analogy between these motions and the exercise of prosecutorial discretion. Because courts cannot control the exercise of such discretion unless the prosecutor violates the Constitution — and Wills does not argue that by insisting on a minimum sentence of 60 months the prosecutor violated the Constitution — it follows that the district court lacked authority to impose a sentence lower than 60 months. Accord United States v. Rodriguez-Morales, 958 F.2d 1441 (8th Cir.1992); United States v. Keene, 933 F.2d 711, 715-23 (9th Cir.1991) (Alarcon, J., dissenting). The contrary position of four circuits, including the majority in Keene, takes little if any account of the close relation between a motion under § 3553(e) and the exercise of prosecutorial charging discretion, an equation that after Wade is dispositive.
*1198If we were to ponder the question of linkage, the issue I would pose would be whether simultaneous departure from both statutory minimum and guideline range is appropriate. Recall the second sentence of § 3553(e): “Such sentence shall be imposed in accordance with the guidelines and policy statements issued by the Sentencing Commission pursuant to section 994 of title 28, United States Code.” I understand this to mean that the prosecutor’s authorization to impose a sentence below the statutory minimum does not permit the judge to throw out the guidelines and impose any term that strikes his fancy. Section 3553(e) reads as if designed to deal with statutory minima that lie above the range of sentences the Sentencing Commission thinks best. In exchange for assistance, the prosecutor can remove the barrier to the use of the guideline range. Similarly, when the guideline range exceeds the statutory minimum, the prosecutor by motion under § 5K1.1 may facilitate departure from the guidelines. We know from 28 U.S.C. § 994(n) that the prosecutor may authorize a judge to depart from statute and guideline in the same case. Still, treating one motion as inevitably dispensing with all criteria, so that judges may act as they did in the days of uncabined sentencing discretion that preceded the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, is sufficiently contrary to the themes animating that statute that we should avoid imputing that conclusion to the Sentencing Commission — especially since we know that the Executive Branch wants nothing of the sort.
Sheila Wills has received a boon from the district court. Future defendants and society at large will pay the price. Section 3553(e) and Guideline 5K1.1 permit a prosecutor to offer a reward for assistance. This process works best if the amount of the reward can be graduated to the value of the assistance — a value the prosecutor (who sees the full menu of crimes and potential cases in the district) can assess better than a judge. By holding that a motion under either § 3553(e) or § 5K1.1 permits the judge to give any sentence he deems appropriate, the majority curtails the prosecutor’s ability to match the reward to the assistance. When cooperation can be procured for a modest reduction, a lower sentence overcompensates the defendant, at the expense of the deterrent force of the criminal law. Another consequence is that there will be fewer motions of any kind. If filing a motion under § 5K1.1 permits the judge to cut the sentence by three-quarters (as happened here), the prosecutor will insist on a great deal of assistance. Many defendants are unlucky enough to have little of value to offer. See United States v. Brigham, 977 F.2d 317 (7th Cir.1992). They are now condemned to serve the full authorized sentence, even though a prosecutor possessed of power to differentiate might reward slight aid with a slight reduction. The majority’s approach leads to sentencing inversions: big fish who have many subordinates to turn upon receive low sentences, and little fish with nothing to offer receive high sentences. Modest departures under § 5K1.1 for modest assistance mitigate this effect. By converting the motion into an all-or-none affair, the majority ensures that for many defendants the allowed departure will be “none.” Neither the legislature nor the Sentencing Commission has ordained this result, and I would not strain to attain it.