US v. Ortega Lopez
| Decision Date | 05 May 1988 |
| Docket Number | CR 88-133-MRP,CR 88-087-RMT,CR 88-0,CR 88-075-HLH,CR 88-109-FFF,CR 88-002-JSL,CR 87-1035-WJR,CR 88-007-TJH,CR 87-974-SVW,CR 88-117-SVW,CR 87-1034-CBM,No. CR 88-050-R,CR 88-012-SVW,CR 87-998-PAR,CR 88-114-KN,CR 87-986-SVW,CR 88-095-CBM,CR 88-050-R |
| Citation | 684 F. Supp. 1506 |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Central District of California |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. Margarito ORTEGA LOPEZ, Defendant. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. Oscar Alberto HUEZO-QUEZADA, Alfredo Medina-Ortega, Raul Ortiz-Flores, Cesar Cruz-Platero, Juan Francisco Felix-Sosa, Alfredo Martinez-Martinez, Thomas Melesio-Salazar, Defendants. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. Paul Bernard Rushton ROSS, Defendant. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. Sirous SADAFI, Siew Meng Lui, Defendants. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. Randolph De CARO, Defendant. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. Bryan Maurice ROGER, Defendant. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. William BLAIR, Defendant. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. Vagan SAMVELIAN, Defendant. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. Jerry Raymond ALLEN, Jr., Defendant. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. Bobby Ray FINCH, Sidney Boddie, Defendants. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. Jack Ernest CONKLIN, Jr., Martha Gaines Conklin, Defendants. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. Felesio N. BYRD, Defendant. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff v. Esparaza R. BATELLO, Defendant. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. Donald O. ZALESKI, Defendant. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. Rigoberto PELLEGAUD, Defendant. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. Wade Joseph DRIGGERS, Defendant. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. Ron Mack EMMETT, Defendant. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. Carlos Mario MONTOYA, a/k/a Roman Alboran, a/k/a Mauro Lopez; Defendants. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. Mark Nevin BOWDEN, Defendant. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. Douglas SHARP, Defendant. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. Julio RENGIFO-SANCHEZ, Defendant. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. Alvaro GIRALDO, Defendant. |
Carlton F. Gunn., Deputy Federal Public Defender, Central Dist. of Cal., Los Angeles, Cal., for all defendants.
David Anderson, Federal Programs Branch, Civil Div., U.S. Dept. of Justice, Washington, D.C., for the government as plaintiff, and the separate Asst. U.S. Attys. in each case.
Donald A. Purdy, Jr., Deputy Gen. Counsel, U.S. Sentencing Commission, Washington, D.C., for the Commission, as amicus curiae.
Before the Court EN BANC.
Before this en banc panel of the Court are motions of the defendants in the abovecaptioned cases to declare the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 ("Act") and sentencing guidelines ("Guidelines") promulgated thereunder by the United States Sentencing Commission ("Commission") to be unconstitutional. This en banc panel was authorized by the Court in its Order of April 22, 1988, to determine the facial constitutionality of the Act and Guidelines by way of transferring this issue from each of the cases listed in the caption to the Court as a whole, with the understanding that the remaining issues in each case remain with the Judge to whom the case was originally assigned.
Defendants contend that the Act is invalid primarily because the placement of the Commission in the judicial branch and mandatory service of three Article III judges on the Commission violate the doctrine of separation of powers, and because the Act unconstitutionally delegates legislative power to the Commission.1
In an historic session held on April 18, 1988, the en banc panel heard arguments from counsel representing the defendants, the Department of Justice and the Commission (as amicus curiae). For the reasons which follow, we now hold the Act and the Sentencing Guidelines constitutionally invalid.
The Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, Pub. L. No. 98-473, Title II, §§ 211-239, 98 Stat. 1987, 18 U.S.C. §§ 3551 et seq., 28 U.S.C. §§ 991-998, created the United States Sentencing Commission to effectuate Congress' desire to enact sentencing reform for all federal crimes. Under 18 U.S.C. §§ 3553(a)(4) and (a)(5), a district court is required to sentence convicted offenders of all federal offenses committed after November 1, 1987 by applying the Guidelines and policy statements promulgated by the Commission pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 994(a)(1) and (a)(2), respectively.
The Commission is "an independent commission in the judicial branch of the United States." 28 U.S.C. § 991(a) (emphasis added). The Commission's seven voting members2 include three Article III judges. Id. These judge-Commissioners are appointed by the President from a list of six judges recommended by the Judicial Conference of the United States and are removable from the Commission by the President for "neglect of duty or malfeasance in office or for other good cause shown." Id.
The Guidelines constructed by the Commission mandate that district courts determine sentences of imprisonment from within narrow ranges of time, according to a "Sentencing Table." See Guidelines Manual, Chapter 5, Part A, at p. 5.2 (Oct. 1987). Each range in the Sentencing Table results from a computation of various aggravating and mitigating factors relating to the defendant and the defendant's offense(s) of conviction.3 A court is permitted to depart from the guidelines only when it finds an aggravating or mitigating factor that was "not adequately taken into consideration by the Sentencing Commission in formulating the Guidelines...." 18 U.S.C. § 3553(b).
The doctrine of separation of powers inherent in the tripartite design of the Constitution is fundamental to our federal system of government. While the foundational importance of the doctrine needs little elaboration here, its vitality and substance —persuasively presented by the framers of the Constitution (see, generally, The Federalist Nos. 47 (J. Madison), 73 and 81 (A. Hamilton) (Rositer ed. 1961)) — have been restated, interpreted and applied in recent Supreme Court decisions. See Bowsher v. Synar, 478 U.S. 714, ___, 106 S.Ct. 3181, 3186-89, 92 L.Ed.2d 583, 593-97 (1986); INS v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919, 951-59, 103 S.Ct. 2764, 2784-88, 77 L.Ed.2d 317 (1983).
More difficult, however, is the task of determining the degree by which the delegated powers of the legislative, executive and judicial branches must remain separate. Functionally, the doctrine of separation of powers may be violated in two ways. First, under the "expansion of powers" analysis, the doctrine may be violated when one branch assumes a function that more properly is entrusted to another. See Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 587-89, 72 S.Ct. 863, 866-67, 96 L.Ed. 1153 (1952); INS v. Chadha, 462 U.S. at 963, 103 S.Ct. at 2790 (Powell, J., concurring). Alternatively, under the "impairment of function" analysis, one branch may not unduly interfere with the performance of a coordinate branch's constitutionally assigned function. See Nixon v. Administrator of General Services, 433 U.S. 425, 443, 97 S.Ct. 2777, 2790, 53 L.Ed.2d 867 (1977); United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683, 711-12, 94 S.Ct. 3090, 3109-10, 41 L.Ed.2d 1039 (1974). We conclude that the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 is unconstitutional under both tests.
In order to ascertain whether the placement and composition of the Sentencing Commission violates the separation of powers, we must first determine its nature and function — executive, legislative or judicial. Although the Commission is expressly designated as "an independent commission in the judicial branch," 28 U.S.C. § 991(a) (emphasis added), we find that the Commission is not a judicial body. Our identification of the nature and function of the Commission cannot rest merely on its statutory label but must be made by reference to its composition and powers granted to it by Congress.
Both the composition and function of the Commission lead us to the conclusion that the Commission is an executive body. The Commission's members — which include four voting and two ex-officio non-Article III individuals — are both appointed and removable by the President. Its statutory mandate to promulgate guidelines and policy statements under the standards set forth by Congress, 28 U.S.C. §§ 994-995, closely resembles the administrative interpretation and "rulemaking" functions properly delegated to executive agencies. See, e.g., Bowsher v. Synar, 478 U.S. at ___, 106 S.Ct. at 3192, 92 L.Ed.2d at 600; United States v. Arnold, 678 F.Supp. 1463, 1469-70 (S.D.Cal.1988); United States v. Frank, 682 F.Supp. 815, 821-23 (W.D.Pa. 1988).4
The placement and composition of the Commission each violate the prohibition on "expansion of powers" under separation of powers jurisprudence. First, the expansion doctrine limits the ability of one branch of government from exercising the powers delegated in the Constitution to a coordinate branch. Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co., supra. Accordingly, Congress' placement of the Commission, which we have found to exercise executive power, in the judicial branch unconstitutionally expands the power of the judiciary.5
In addition, we find ample precedent, both in long-standing Supreme Court decisions and in more recent courts of appeals cases, to support our view that Article III judges are constitutionally prohibited from performing extra-judicial government service on the order of full-time membership on the Sentencing Commission. We concur with Judge Heaney's analysis in United States v. Estrada, 680 F.Supp. 1312, 1330-31 (D.Minn.1988), that such service is impermissible. "Executive or administrative duties of a nonjudicial nature may...
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