Remarkable district court work on substantial assistance

In a remarkable (and long) opinion in US v Saenz, No. CR 03-4089 (N.D. Iowa Mar. 23, 2006) (available for download below), US District Judge Mark Bennett has sought to rebut concerns expressed by the Eighth Circuit about the extent of substantial assistance departures Judge Bennett has recently granted.  The opinion in Saenz, which draws thoughtfully and heavily on the USSC’s post-Booker data reports, is an absolute must-read for everyone working in the federal sentencing trenches (and for everyone else, as well).  These opening paragraphs provide a taste of what following in the subsequent 48 pages:

With some notable exceptions, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals has recently reversed and remanded several of my sentencing decisions on the ground that my downward departures in excess of 50 percent for “substantial assistance” pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 5K1.1 and 18 U.S.C. § 3553(e) were “unreasonable” and “excessive.”  This case represents one such reversal and is now before me on remand for resentencing. With all due respect, I write to express my profound disagreement with the Circuit Court’s rationale for this string of reversals. As a United States District Court Judge, I do recognize that I must faithfully and unflinchingly follow Circuit law, even when I disagree with it — as I do here.  This is equally true whether the Circuit Court’s rationale is newly-minted, as I believe it is here, or based on long-standing, rock solid precedent, as it sometimes is in other contexts. I write this opinion expressing my specific disagreement with the Circuit Court’s position concerning the proper extent of substantial assistance downward departures on legal grounds as well as on the factual basis of data recently compiled by the United States Sentencing Commission to which the Circuit Court did not have access at the time that it reversed and remanded this and other cases in this string of reversals.

My major point of contention with this string of reversals is the notion expressed by the Circuit Court in some of its decisions that a 50 percent reduction for substantial assistance is “extraordinary.” There is, in my view, no basis for such a benchmark in federal statutory law, federal common law, the United States Sentencing Guidelines themselves, the realities of federal sentencing, or basic concepts of fairness, mercy, and justice. Indeed, recent data compiled by the United States Sentencing Commission demonstrate that labeling a 50 percent reduction for substantial assistance “extraordinary” is at odds with the facts and so deeply troubling that the Circuit Court should reevaluate its position.

Download USvSaenz.Resentencing.032306_mtd.pdf

UPDATE: A reader reported trouble with the Saenz file, but helpfully noted that the Saenz opinion can now be accessed at this link.