U.S. Supreme Court 06-23-11
by: Grapkoch • June 22, 2011 • no comments
Read the full article for details about the following new cases:
- Applying Post-Plea Changes to the US Sentencing Guidelines
In Freeman v. United States, the Court addressed whether a defendant is ineligible for a sentence reduction under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2), which allows a district court to reduce a term of imprisonment after it has been imposed if the defendant was sentenced based on a sentencing range that the U.S. Sentencing Commission subsequently lowered, because the district court accepted a plea agreement pursuant to Rule 11(c)(1)(C), which binds the district court as to sentence once it accepts the plea. In a plurality opinion, supplemented by Justice Sotomayor's concurrence, the Court answers yes.
I'll let you sort out the more technical distinctions between the plurality and the controlling concurrence, but Justice Sotomayor agrees with the plurality on the pivotal principle that the sentence at issue here was "based on" § 3582(c)(2). The key distinction is that Justice Sotomayor appears to believe this to be the case only when "a [Fed.R.Crim.P 11(c)(1)(C)] agreement expressly uses a Guidelines sentencing range applicable to the charged offense to establish the term of imprisonment, and that range is subsequently lowered by the United States Sentencing Commission."
The dissent agrees and disagrees with both the plurality and the concurrence. In her concurrence, Justice Sotomayor had initially opined that "[i]n my view, the term of imprisonment imposed by a district court pursuant to an agreement authorized by Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(c)(1)(C) is 'based on' the agreement itself, not on the judge's calculation of the Sentencing Guidelines." The dissent believes that she got it right, and should have stopped there:
I agree with the concurrence that the sentence imposed under a Rule 11(c)(1)(C) plea agreement is based on the agreement, not the Sentencing Guidelines. I would, however, adhere to that logic regardless whether the agreement could be said to 'use' or 'employ' a Guidelines range in arriving at the particular sentence specified in the agreement. In that respect I agree with the plurality that the approach of the concurrence to determining when a Rule 11(c)(1)(C) sentence may be reduced is arbitrary and unworkable
That appears to be the crux of the argument between the opinions in this case. So, as noted above, for now I'll leave you with the task of sorting out the more particular details. More information on Freeman v. United States can be found at the SCOTUSblog case page, available here.
