U.S. v. Williams, No. 05-13205.
| Decision Date | 21 July 2006 |
| Docket Number | No. 05-13205. |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Aaron Eric WILLIAMS, Defendant-Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida.
Before BLACK, PRYOR and COX, Circuit Judges.
The Government appeals Aaron Eric Williams' 204-month sentence imposed for possessing crack cocaine with intent to distribute, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). We conclude the district court erred in mitigating Williams' sentence based on (1) its generalized disagreement with Congress's policy of punishing crack cocaine offenders more severely than powder cocaine offenders through the 100-to-1 crack-to-powder drug quantity ratio, (2) its generalized disagreement with the Guidelines career offender enhancement, U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1, and (3) its belief that the Government manipulated Williams' sentence by arranging to purchase crack cocaine instead of powder cocaine. We further conclude that these errors are not harmless because Williams has failed to meet his burden of showing that, considering the record as a whole, the errors did not have a substantial effect on the court's choice of sentence. We, therefore, vacate the sentence as unreasonable and remand for the district court to sentence Williams based on the individualized facts and circumstances of Williams' case bearing upon the sentencing considerations enumerated in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a).
In April 2003, a confidential informant told Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents and Osceola County Sheriff's Deputies that Williams was selling crack cocaine from his home in Kissimmee, Florida. Based on this tip, DEA agents initiated a sting operation to purchase crack cocaine from Williams with the help of the confidential informant. In three separate transactions in April, May, and July of 2003, an undercover DEA agent purchased a total of 34.8 grams of crack cocaine from Williams.1 A grand jury subsequently indicted Williams for one count of possessing crack cocaine with intent to distribute, in violation of § 841(a)(1) and (b)(1)(C), and two counts of possessing five or more grams of crack cocaine with intent to distribute, in violation of § 841(a)(1) and (b)(1)(B)(iii). On the day of trial, but before the jury was empaneled, the Appellant filed a notice pursuant to § 851(a) of its intent to rely on Williams' prior felony drug convictions to seek enhanced punishment. On February 1, 2005, the jury found Williams guilty of all three counts in the indictment, making specific findings of the drug quantities involved in each transaction.
At the sentencing hearing, the district court adopted, without objection, the facts and Guidelines calculation set out in Williams' presentence investigation report (PSI). According to the PSI, Williams has an extensive criminal history, which began in 1991, when he was sixteen years old. His scored criminal history includes five convictions for possession of crack cocaine (two of which were committed with the intent to sell), four convictions for offenses involving possession of marijuana, one conviction for possession with intent to sell MDMA (a controlled substance also known as Ecstasy), and two convictions for battery of two women, one of whom was pregnant at the time. As a result, Williams had a total of 22 criminal history points, well above the 13 points needed to place him in the highest criminal history category, category VI.
The PSI calculated Williams' base offense level at 28, pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 2D1.1(c)(6).2 Williams' multiple prior felony convictions for drug offenses qualified him as a career offender under § 4B1.1(a). Because the statutory maximum for his offenses was life imprisonment, see 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(B), § 4B1.1 enhanced Williams' offense level to 37, see U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1(b)(A). Williams' advisory Guidelines range was, therefore, 360 months to life imprisonment.
The district court sentenced Williams to 204 months' incarceration on all counts, to run concurrently. The district court explained its choice of sentence at the sentencing hearing and in its subsequent "Memorandum Sentencing Opinion," which is published at United States v. Williams, 372 F.Supp.2d 1335 (M.D.Fla.2005). In explaining the sentence, the district court purported to track the sentencing factors outlined in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a).
At the sentencing hearing, the district court expressed "concern about the discrepancy between powder and crack cocaine"—referring to Congress's policy of punishing crack cocaine offenders more severely than powder cocaine offenders— and viewed the cocaine sentencing disparity as bearing on "the nature and circumstances of the offense." See id. § 3553(a)(1). The district court suggested the harsher penalties for crack offenses "smacks of discrimination against blacks, African-Americans." It said crack cocaine and powder cocaine are "the same drug" with the same effects and that the different form of the drug "has never justified the substantial disparity in sentences." The court also condemned the DEA's conduct in investigating Williams, characterizing the sting operation as "basically set up by the Government to snare Mr. Williams." The district court stated, without elaboration, that this was also relevant to "the nature and circumstances of the offense."
In considering "the seriousness of the offense" and the need for the sentence "to provide just punishment," see id. § 3553(a)(2)(A), the district court disagreed with what it called the "compounding effects" of the Guidelines, which it said causes "incongruity and unjust results." The district court was referring to the interplay between the Guidelines career offender enhancement, U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1, and the enhanced statutory maximum provided in 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(B) for offenders with at least one prior felony drug conviction. The enhanced offense levels set out in § 4B1.1(b) for career offenders vary depending on the statutory maximum for the offense of conviction. See U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1(b). Because Williams had a prior conviction for a felony drug offense, his statutory maximum sentence under § 841(b)(1)(B) increased from 40 years' imprisonment to life imprisonment. See 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(B). The § 841(b)(1)(B) "enhancement" had the corresponding effect under § 4B1.1(b) of increasing Williams' offense level from 28 to 37. The district court saw the interaction between § 841(b)(1)(B) and § 4B1.1(b) as a "totally inappropriate way to consider the individual nature of an offense or a defendant's individual background" and stated it was "not going to do it."
With respect to the "history and characteristics of the defendant," see id. § 3553(a)(1), the district court noted Williams' "long history of criminal conduct" and stated Williams was, therefore, "going to be spending a bunch of time in prison." Turning to the need for the sentence "to afford adequate deterrence," see id. § 3553(a)(2)(B), the district court opined that sending a "petty drug dealer" like Williams to prison for 30 years was not the way to deter the illegal drug trade.
In its subsequent "Memorandum Sentencing Opinion," the district court again addressed the cocaine sentencing disparity. The district court stated it was "mindful of the substantial criticism" the disparity had garnered and that evidence suggested the disparity had a "discriminatory impact on African Americans of whom Williams is one." Williams, 372 F.Supp.2d at 1339 n. 8. The district court's disdain for the disparity factored into its choice of sentence in another way as well. Echoing its earlier statement that the DEA had snared Williams, the district court concluded a Guidelines sentence would not "promote respect for the law," see id. § 3553(a)(2)(A), because the DEA arranged a sting purchase of crack cocaine instead of powder cocaine to obtain a longer prison sentence. Williams, 372 F.Supp.2d at 1339. Without referring to any facts in the record, the district court found that a powder cocaine sale would have been consistent with Williams' prior drug sales. Id. To highlight the injustice it perceived in the Government's decision to purchase crack cocaine from Williams, the district court compared Williams' Guidelines range with the range applicable to defendants who, though not career offenders, have a criminal history category of VI and are convicted of selling the same quantity of powder cocaine.3 Id.
The district court then explained, as it did at the sentencing hearing, that a Guidelines sentence was inappropriate for another reason, namely its disagreement with the career offender provision in § 4B1.1. Id. According to the district court, Williams' past criminal conduct was already accounted for in his category VI criminal history. Id. The "layering of Chapter 4 enhancements," the district court reasoned, "results in a double-compounding effect, increasing Williams' minimum guideline sentence . . . in light of the same criminal conduct." Id. The district court stated this "arbitrary compounding results in a guideline sentence much greater than that necessary" to achieve the sentencing goals enumerated in § 3553(a). Id.
Finally, the district court explained that although "Williams is a low-level drug dealer . . . convicted of selling relatively small amounts of crack cocaine," the "substantial term" of 204 months' incarceration was warranted by "the circumstances (crack versus powder cocaine) and Williams' long history of selling illegal drugs." Id. The Appellant subsequently appealed Williams' sentence as unreasonable.
Our review of sentences after United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 125 S.Ct. 738, 160 L.Ed.2d 621 (2005), has two...
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