{"id":11773,"date":"2010-10-05T16:47:22","date_gmt":"2010-10-05T21:47:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=11773"},"modified":"2010-10-05T16:47:22","modified_gmt":"2010-10-05T21:47:22","slug":"sentence-explanation-in-the-seventh-circuit-what%e2%80%99s-good-for-the-goose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2010\/10\/sentence-explanation-in-the-seventh-circuit-what%e2%80%99s-good-for-the-goose\/","title":{"rendered":"Sentence Explanation in the Seventh Circuit: What\u2019s Good for the Goose . . ."},"content":{"rendered":"

Ever since the Supreme Court converted the federal sentencing guidelines from mandatory to advisory in 2005, I\u2019ve followed with particular interest the case law on how sentences must be explained in the new regime. \u00a0Even more specifically, I have focused on the question of when sentencing judges are required to respond expressly to defendants\u2019 arguments for lenience. \u00a0(See, for example, my post here<\/a>.) \u00a0I\u2019ve also wondered about the flipside of that question \u2014 when must judges respond expressly to prosecutors\u2019 arguments in aggravation? \u2014 but cases on this seem far less common. \u00a0Last week, though, the Seventh Circuit addressed an issue that seems closely related to my hypothetical question.<\/p>\n

In United States v. Glosser<\/a> <\/em>(No. 08-4015), the judge made a promise to the defendant at his change-of-plea hearing that he would impose the statutory minimum 120-month sentence in the case, notwithstanding the prosecutor\u2019s suggestion that the government might seek more.\u00a0 And, indeed, it turned out that the government sought a 210-month sentence in light of firearms found at Glosser\u2019s resident. \u00a0The judge, however, mostly stuck to his promise and imposed a 121-month sentence. \u00a0The government appealed.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Although predetermining the sentence before hearing a party\u2019s arguments is not exactly the same thing as passing over a party\u2019s arguments in silence, they seem functionally much the same. \u00a0And, in Glosser<\/em>, the Seventh Circuit indeed indicated that the former is a reversible procedural error. \u00a0The government\u2019s success in Glosser <\/em>thus\u00a0suggests the government has much the same opportunity to challenge sentence explanations as defendants.<\/p>\n

Another aspect of Glosser <\/em>also\u00a0strikes me as noteworthy, that is, the court\u2019s consideration of whether the error was harmless. \u00a0The sentence explanation cases do not often include express consideration of harmlessness, which is not surprising because a failure to address a party\u2019s sentencing arguments does not lend itself to a harmlessness analysis \u2014 post-Booker<\/em> federal sentencing is so discretionary that it is difficult to see how harmlessness could be either proven or disproven.<\/p>\n

The Glosser <\/em>court seemed ambivalent about whether harmless error analysis was appropriate. \u00a0On the one hand, the court did conclude (in a rather conclusory way) that the error was not harmless (\u201cAlthough the district court have several reasons at the sentencing hearing for imposing a below-guidelines sentence of 121 months, we are not confident that it would have done so if it had not decided it would impose the mandatory minimum sentence when Glosser changed his plea to guilty.\u201d (14)). \u00a0On the other hand, the court also suggested that the error might be more properly analyzed as \u201cfundamental procedural error\u201d that would not require harmless error analysis (15). \u00a0Because the outcome would be the same either way, the court did not need to definitively resolve whether the error was fundamental or not \u2014 an interesting open question.<\/p>\n

Cross posted at Life Sentences<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ever since the Supreme Court converted the federal sentencing guidelines from mandatory to advisory in 2005, I\u2019ve followed with particular interest the case law on how sentences must be explained in the new regime. \u00a0Even more specifically, I have focused on the question of when sentencing judges are required to respond expressly to defendants\u2019 arguments […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,74,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-criminal-law-process","category-federal-sentencing","category-seventh-circuit","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11773\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}