The long awaiting, at least by us appellate people, en banc decision is in.
In United States v. Gasca-Ruiz, --- F.3d ---, Nos. 14-50342, 14-50343 (9th Cir. 2017) (en banc), the Court resolved an intra-circuit conflict over the standard of review that applies on appellate review of a district court’s application of the Guidelines to the facts of a given
case.
The Court separated the Guidelines analysis into three components:
First, the district court must identify the correct legal standard, a task that typically entails selecting and properly interpreting the right Guidelines provision. Second, the court must find the relevant historical facts, meaning the facts that answer primarily “what happened” types of questions (who, what, when, where, why, etc.). And third, the court must apply the appropriate guideline to the facts of the case—that is, decide whether the set of historical facts as found satisfies the governing legal standard.
As to the first and second components, "Our cases uniformly hold that we review the district
court’s identification of the correct legal standard de novo and
the district court’s factual findings for clear error." Of note, the first component (identification of the correct legal rule) includes not only identifying the correct Guidelines provision, but also any generalized rules of application such as a district court deciding "the Guidelines’ vulnerable victim
enhancement applies regardless of whether the
defendant specifically targeted the victims because they were
vulnerable."
As to the third component (the true subject of the opinion), the Court held, as a general rule, the district
court’s application of the Sentencing Guidelines to the facts
of a given case should be reviewed for abuse of discretion. But there is at least one exception. The district court's decision as to whether a defendant’s
prior conviction is for a “crime of violence,” as required
under some provisions of the Guidelines, remains subject to
de novo review.
