A reason-less application of reasonableness

In my article “Conceptualizing Booker” (which I posted in early draft form here and which should appear soon in final form in the Arizona State Law Journal ), I set out this vision of reasonableness review of sentences: reasonableness review requires a circuit court to exercise its own reasoned judgment to assess whether a sentencing court has properly exercised reasoned judgment in selecting a sentence in a particular case in accord with the directives of section 3553(a).  A decision today by the Eighth Circuit shows how my vision is aspirational, and does not reflect what some circuit courts are actually doing.

In US v. Annis, No. 05-3521 (8th Cir. May 8, 2006) (available here), the defendant appears to be a meth addict who pled guilty to manufacturing meth and faced a guideline range or roughly 20 to 25 years (for his first offense?) because of debatable guideline calculations — including the rejection of an acceptance-of-responsibility reduction even though he pled guilty and confessed to how much meth he made.  The bulk of the nine-page opinion in Annis involves the Eighth Circuit rejecting the defendant’s various arguments that the guideline calculations were improper.  Then, in a final section, this is the sum total of the review for reasonableness (with rote cites omitted):

Annis states his sentence is unreasonable because the district court failed to apply the sentencing factors in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a).  This court reviews the reasonableness of a defendant’s sentence for abuse of discretion…..

The district court calculated the Guidelines range to be 235 to 293 months, sentencing him to 235 months in prison.  A sentence within the Guidelines range, as here, is presumptively reasonable.  Also, at the sentencing hearing the district court expressly considered the § 3553(a) factors.  Annis’s real argument is that the court did not apply these factors correctly, otherwise he would have received a lesser sentence.  But, the record reflects the district court did not abuse its discretion in sentencing him within the Guidelines range.

I find it quite troubling the Eighth Circuit simply asserts that the defendant’s “real” reasonableness argument is just another way of asserting that guideline calculations were wrong.  In Annis, this assertion is especially troubling because, even accepting the guideline calculations were proper, the underlying facts suggest that the consequences of these calculations could be unreasonable in light of the non-guideline factors that have to be considered under 3553(a).  But, after spending many pages justifying a set of harsh guideline determinations, the Eighth Circuit apparently lacked the energy or inclination to consider whether reasonableness might have any “real” meaning outside the guideline framework.  Bleech…