4th Circuit considers alternative sentences

Last summer, in the wake of Blakely, the Fourth and Sixth Circuits held Blakely inapplicable to the federal guidelines but also “recommended” to district courts that they announce an alternative sentence treating the guidelines as advisory “in the interest of judicial economy.”  As detailed in posts here and here and here, I thought this recommendation was curious and questionable (as did District Judge Goodwin as discussed here).  But, now that Booker has in fact made the guidelines advisory, this recommendation looks wiser now than it did before.

Interestingly, today the Fourth Circuit issued two unpublished decisions in cases in which the district court did announce alternative sentences in the wake of Blakely:

• In US v. Anderson, No. 04-4621 (4th Cir. Mar. 31, 2005) (available here), the sentence is affirmed; the Fourth Circuit asserts “that because the alternative sentence the district court pronounced in case the federal sentencing guidelines were invalidated was identical to the mandatory sentence imposed under the federal sentencing guidelines as they existed at that time, any error resulting from the sentence imposed by the district court was harmless.”

• In US v. Scott, No. 04-5074 (4th Cir. Mar. 31, 2005) (available here), the sentence is remanded; the Fourth Circuit explains that the defendant sought an expedited remand (which the government did not oppose) to allow the district court “to implement the thirty-month alternative sentence announced by the court” (which was 16 months less than the mandatory guidelines sentence which was imposed before Booker).