Wednesday, September 11, 2019

9/11/19: BERZON, Circuit Judge, dubitante:

This is a weird one.

In United States v. Campbell, --- F.3d ---, No. 17-10561 (9th Cir. 2019), the Court considered the district court's ability to impose consecutive terms of imprisonment following revocation of concurrent supervised release terms.

The majority affirmed, holding: "The district court acted within the discretion conferred upon it by 18 U.S.C. § 3584(a) when it imposed consecutive terms of imprisonment following revocation of multiple [concurrent] supervised release terms."

Judge Berzon filed a dubitante opinion (a dubitante opinion is when the judge is doubtful, but can't say the majority is wrong).   She wrote:

Today’s result is baffling. Roger William Campbell was initially sentenced to concurrent terms of imprisonment and supervised release. After he admitted to a single violation of the terms of that supervised release, the district court revoked his supervised release and sentenced him to consecutive terms of imprisonment. The result was that Campbell’s prison sentence was longer for the revocation than his original sentence and could have been much longer as the majority opinion interprets the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines. 
***
I very much doubt, in light of supervised release’s role in our criminal justice system, that the Sentencing Commission meant to recommend revocation sentences measured by the number of “terms of supervised release” rather than by the violations of the uniform conditions of supervised release and the nature of the underlying offense. The Sentencing Commission, which promulgates the Sentencing Guidelines, has underscored that “it views the guideline-writing process as evolutionary.” Sentencing Guidelines, Ch. 1, pt. A; Ch. 7 pt. A. Yet, I have seen no indication that the Commission has confronted this anomaly. On this matter, the time to evolve is now