Seventh Circuit Case of the Week: Sentencing Judges, You’ve Got Some ‘Splaining to Do

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David Morrow was sentenced to an eye-popping 504 months in prison for conspiring to sell crack cocaine.  This extraordinary punishment was ordered despite the fact that Morrow was diagnosed with diabetes in 2006 and had a leg amputated a few months later.  At sentencing, counsel identifed Morrow’s health concerns as a mitigating factor, as did the presentence investigation report prepared by a probation officer.  Yet, the sentencing judge said nothing about Morrow’s health problems in imposing a sentence twelve years above the minimum recommended by the federal sentencing guidelines.

Not so fast, said the Seventh Circuit last week in United States v. Harris (Nos. 08-1192, 08-1543, & 08-1694).  The court, per Judge Williams, vacated Morrow’s sentence because the sentencing judge failed to address the health argument, which was not an argument “clearly without merit”:

[W]e cannot assure ourselves that the district court weighed Morrow’s health complications against other factors when it imposed the 504-month sentence, as we see no indication that the district court considered it.  We therefore remand Morrow’s case for resentencing.

In emphasizing the importance of thorough sentence explanations, particularly to demonstrate that the defendant’s arguments for lenience were at least considered, Harris indicates (contrary to an earlier prediction of mine) that the Seventh Circuit’s important decision in United States v. Cunningham, 429 F.3d 673 (7th Cir. 2005), is still alive and well.  Sometimes it is nice to be proven wrong. 

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Supreme Court Weighs in on Issue Preclusion in Criminal Cases

supreme_court_buildingThe Supreme Court managed to reach a unanimous decision today in a death penalty case, Bobby v. Bies. Back in 1996, while reviewing Bies’ sentence, the Ohio Supreme Court noted that the defendant’s “mild to borderline mental retardation merit[s] some weight in mitigation,” but affirmed his sentence anyway.  Six years later, of course, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Atkins v. Virginia that the Eighth Amendment bars execution of the mentally retarded.  The Ohio courts sensibly responded to Atkins by ordering a hearing to determine whether Bies was indeed retarded for Eighth Amendment purposes.  But Bies preempted the hearing by persuading a federal court that the issue had already been decided in his favor by the Ohio Supreme Court and that relitigation was precluded by the Double Jeopardy Clause.  After this decision was affirmed by the Sixth Circuit, the Supreme Court today reversed, holding there was no Double Jeopardy bar to the proposed Atkins hearing.

A couple of reactions.  First, as a unanimous decision in such a politically charged area as the death penalty, Bies is a nice reminder — amidst the high emotions and free-flowing hyperbole surrounding the Sotomayor nomination — that justices from across the ideological spectrum can and (at least at times) do set aside policy preferences to reach consensus right answers.

Second, although I’m pretty well convinced the Court got the right answer with respect to Bies, the opinion swept more broadly than it had to, perhaps unnecessarily limiting the Double Jeopardy issue preclusion doctrine. Is this one of those instances of “easy cases make bad law”?

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