Huerta-Rodriguez: reasonable doubt required

Judge Bataillon in the District of Nebraska has provided an opinion rich in analytic guidance on the meaning of Booker and the process required in post-Booker sentencing. After exploring the constitutional perils of sentencing based on facts only proved by a preponderance, the court, by express reference to the constitutional avoidance doctrine, found it necessary to require compliance with the reasonable doubt standard: "Whatever the constitutional limitations on the advisory sentencing scheme, the court finds that it can never be 'reasonable' to base any significant increase in a defendant's sentence on facts that have not been proved beyond a reasonable doubt."

Mr. Huerta-Rodriguez, represented by AFPD Jessica Milburn, plead staight up to an illegal reentry indictment, hoping Booker would invalidate the harsh guidelines that apply to aliens with prior crimes of violence. Before reaching any conclusion about the sentence in this defendant's case, Judge Bataillon (here) engaged in a careful review of Booker's effect on sentencing, providing a series of legal nuggets on the way to arriving at his requirement that facts be established beyond a reasonable doubt:

• after Booker, the court is not bound by the guidelines but must "consult" and "take them into account at sentencing;
• the measure of a "reasonable" sentence is neither the guideline range nor the statutory maximum;
• judicial discretion is more constrained post Booker than it was before the guidelines went into effect;
• Booker does not alter the due process constraint that requires a finding "beyond a reasonable doubt" if that factual finding would increase the punishment above the lawful sentence that could have been imposed absent that fact;
• the upper limit of a lawful sentence is not the statutory maximum but the highest point within that range that is "reasonable";
• to sentence in excess of the upper limit requires the procedural protections of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments;
• although jury rights can be waived, the defendant cannot waive the societal interest in the reasonable doubt standard, the importance of which is reflected in retroactivity doctrine (jury rights are not retroactive under Schriro while reasonable doubt is retroactive under Ivan V. and Hankerson);
• whether a sentence is "reasonable" depends on a wide array of section 3553(a) factors, including the manner in which the Sentencing Commission arrived at the guideline and charging practices;
• given the uncertainty of when a fact constitutes an element or a sentencing factor, "[j]ust as a court should construe a statute to avoid constitutional infirmity if possible, ...prudence dictates that the court should adopt sentencing procedures that lessen the potential that a sentence will later be found unconstitutional;
• the court will continue to require that facts "that enhance a sentence are properly pled in an indictment or information, and either admitted, or submitted to a jury (or to the court if the right to a trial by jury is waived) for determination by proof beyond a reasonable doubt."

Proceeding to Mr. Huerta-Rodriguez's case, the court balanced factors including the Probation Office's recommendation of a 16-level increase for a prior violent felony and the parties' agreement at Criminal History Category V. The bottom of the range using that calculation would have been 70 months. Providing careful individualized sentencing based on the section 3553(a) factors, including the rule of parsimony, the court imposed a 37 month sentence -- halfway between the top of the unenhanced guideline range and the bottom of the usual fast-track offer.

This case complements nicely the arguments federal defenders are making on the reasonable doubt standard here. Another bolstering argument can be fashioned based on the Supreme Court case of Glover v. United States. In Glover, the defendant asserted in a section 2255 motion that he received ineffective assistance of counsel regarding a two-level increase in his guideline range. In rejecting the lower court's finding of insufficient prejudice, the unanimous Court stated through Justice Kennedy: "Authority does not suggest that a minimal amount of additional time in prison cannot constitute prejudice. Quite to the contrary, our jurisprudence suggsts that any amount of actual jail time has Sixth Amendment significance." To the same extent, an advisory guideline increase with inadequate proof has constitutional significance.

As Professor Berman has stated here, the Huerta-Rodriguez opinion defies summary and is a "must-read" for all who are sorting out the post-Booker sentencing principles.

Steve Sady, Chief Deputy Federal Public Defender, Portland, Oregon.