It’s almost like Judge Easterbrook read my article.  I have a forthcoming piece in the Marquette Law Review arguing that appellate courts ought generally to demand more rigor of trial judges in explaining their sentences and specifically to require greater attention to objective benchmarks.  Not surprisingly, I was quite pleased to read the Seventh Circuit’s opinion earlier this week in United States v. Kirkpatrick (No. 09-2382) (Easterbrook, J.), in which the court called for “intellectual discipline” at sentencing and vacated a sentence because the district judge failed to use the sentencing guidelines as an initial benchmark.

Here’s what happened.  Following his arrest for unlawful gun possession, Kirkpatrick confessed to four murders and then told his cellmate that he had arranged a contract hit on a federal agent.  After more than 200 hundred hours of investigation, law enforcement officials determined that all of these claims were false.  (Why Kirkpatrick would confess to four murders he did not actually commit is a mystery to me.)  With a conviction only for the gun-possession crime, Kirkpatrick’s guidelines range was calculated to be 37-46 months.  The district judge, however, felt he deserved more because of the false statements and the wasted law enforcement effort they caused.  So the sentence actually imposed was 108 months — more than twice the guidelines maximum.