Gall v. United States and sentencing guidelines

This is a summary of the facts and issue of Gall before the decision by the Court on December 10, 2007. Here is a summary of the Court's decision.

In order to understand the issue in Gall, which is to what extent the trial court judge has to make and declare "extraordinary" findings when departing significantly from federal Sentencing Guidelines in sentencing a person for a crime, it might be helpful to put this criminal sentencing case in perspective.

The United States has been wracked in the past generation by the problem of how judges sentence criminal offenders. Do we as a society give the trial/appellate judges complete discretion in sentence? Do we have sentencing guidelines or requirements for various crimes? If we have guidelines, can a judge depart from the guidelines? Under which circumstances? With what justifications? The dual imperatives of consistency of sentencing and individuality of consideration often seem to run counter to each other. If you have this general problem swirling around in your mind, you are in a good position to understand the confusion in the courts in the last decade on the sentencing question.

A Few Important Recent Cases

A complete review of the important modern Supreme Court cases on this question would include the Apprendi case (530 US 466 (2000)), the Blakely case (542 US 296 (2004)) and, most important for the case for today, the Booker case (543 US 220 (2005)). In Booker the Court allowed federal judges to impose a sentence outside of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines range [by the way, if you really want to understand criminal law, you need to sort through the issues involved in the history, formulation and criticism of the US Sentencing Guidelines. Starting at the web site of the US Sentencing Commission isn't a bad idea]. Booker also said that when a federal judge departed from the range, s/he had to consider the range of factors set forth in the federal sentencing law (28 USC sec. 3553(a), (c)). Appellate courts would review the lower court's findings for "reasonableness."

Well, as luck would have it, a case came along which would probe the concept of "reasonableness" more precisely. It is the Gall case. Let's tell Gall's story, and then you will see how this issue applies.

Gall, Some Facts

Gall was living in Iowa City, IA when his big problems began. In Feb. or March 2000 he entered into an agreement with one Luke Rinderknect and others to distribute MDMA, also known as "ecstasy." Gall's ("G") initial purchase of 100 tablets from Rinderknect ("R") worked well, and so they decided to "up" the amount. By May 2000 G was buying 5,000 tablets from R and distributing portions of those 5,000 tablets to his agents. But then, in September, 2000 G wanted out of the conspiracy and distribution schee so he could become a Hawkeye. Maybe he had taken to heart Rod Stewart's words in "Maggie May"--"It's late September and I really should be back at school..." Well, in any case, he returned to school, graduated in 2002, moved to Mesa, AZ, then to CO, set up a window business, employed a few guys and seemed to be getting his life together.

Until federal agents showed up and questioned him. Later, he turned himself in to face the music. He was charged in 2004 with conspiracy to distribute ecstasy. Both sides agreed that the 1999 Sentencing Guidelines applied (they became more severe after that). At trial, the PSR ('presentencing report') concluded that he had a total offense "level" of 19. This, including some priors on minor offenses, led to a Category I criminal history, and his Guidelines range was 30-37 months' imprisonment for the "ecstasy" crimes.

Then, the fun begins. Since the sentencing guidelines are really only "guidelines" under Booker, school is open for both sides to put on showings for why he should or should not receive imprisonment for however many months. G's family put on quite a showing about how he had "reformed," how people were now dependent on him for their livelihood (come to think of it, so were his drug agents, but that was different, I suppose), how his participation in the conspiracy was, to use former US Rep. Henry Hyde's language (the conservative pro-life Hyde had a four-year extra-marital "relationship" in the late 1960s), a "youthful indiscretion." Indeed, the prosecutor seemed to be affected by the testimony and only recommended 30 months imprisonment for G.

It must have been quite a show indeed, for the judge decided to sentence G only to 36 months probation. Why? Well, the court stated it had considered the appropriate factors in 18 USC 3553(a) and thought that the following factors recommended leniency:

"the defendant's voluntary and explicit withdrawal from the conspiracy in September of 2000; the defendant's exemplary behavior while on bond; the support manifested by family and friends who have attested to the defendant's character; the lack of criminal history, especially a complete lack of any violent criminal history; and the immaturity of the defendant," 446 F3d at 887.

Pretty nice endorsement by the court, don't you think? Only thing was that the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, when it reviewed the judge's findings, decided that this was an "extraordinary" departure from sentencing guidelines, and that extraordinary departures must be met with extraordinary justifications. But the court found that the justifications given by the district court weren't good enough. It concluded that the lower court placed too much emphasis, on G's post-offense rehabilitiation; the lower court also didn't consider whether a sentence of probation would result in unwarranted sentencing disparities. Yada yada. So, case remanded to the district court with the requirement that it try again--which means that it give him a harsher sentence.

To the Supreme Court

But the case never made it back to the district court. Gall appealed, and the US Supreme Court granted cert. Its issue: did the district court find circumstances that were extraordinary enough to give G probation? Of course, the case shows the problem with letting judges depart from federal sentencing guidelines--they might just do that. But, then again, if we don't permit them to depart from guidelines, why do we really need judges? Office managers will do. Hence, our dilemma.

Click here to see how the Supreme Court decided the case, on December 10, 2007.

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