Revving up for Claiborne: a crack(ed) safety-valve sentence
Though the briefs in Claiborne and Rita discuss federal sentencing guideline generalities at length, these cases are ultimately about the sentencing fortunes and fates of two men: Mario Claiborne and Victor Rita. It will be interesting to see if the Justices at oral argument (and in the opinions) focus on the specifics of Mario and Victor or instead talk mostly about guideline generalities. (History provides no clear guide: the Justices focused on facts in Koon, but relatively little in Booker.)
The specifics of both cases are quite interesting and nuanced. I will discuss Victor Rita’s case — which has many parallels to the on-going trial of Lewis Libby — in a future post. This post presents a quick account of some interesting Mario Claiborne specifics.
1. The impact of harsh crack guidelines. Mario Claiborne pleaded guilty to two minor crack offenses, and his sentence of 15 months would not have been below the guidelines had he been dealing with powder cocaine. But, because of the crack guidelines — which the US Sentencing Commission has itself repeatedly called unfairly harsh — the applicable guidelines range advised a sentence of at least 3 years. The district court, likely influenced by the USSC’s analysis that the crack guidelines are too harsh for low-level offenders, decided to sentence below the guideline, but the Eighth Circuit declared that choice unreasonable. But is it really unreasonable for a district court not to follow crack guidelines that everyone recognizes are unreasonable in some cases?
2. The impact of the safety valve. One reason the government may have appealed and the Eighth Circuit reversed is because Mario Claiborne got a lot of credit for pleading guilty and for being a minor offender. Though federal guidelines have many factors that drive sentences up, Claiborne benefited from two provisions that drive sentences down: a reduction for accepting responsibility and for fitting within the so-called “safety-valve” criteria allowing a sentence below applicable mandatory minimums. Though many federal defendants (such as Victor Rita) can rightly complain that the guidelines do not give credit their mitigating circumstances, Mario Claiborne cannot make that charge.
3. The impact of post-sentencing realities. As first noted here, Mario Claiborne has served his original 15-month prison sentence and has bee free from federal custody since May 1, 2006. Assuming Mario has been a good egg since his release, is there a strong reason he should now be resentenced and given a longer prison term? Of course, Mario’s actions since he was first sentenced nearly two years ago are not formally relevant to whether the district judge sentenced him unreasonably in March 2005. But, if he has been super Mario this year and has thus shown the wisdom of the sentencing break he got from harsh crack guidelines, the Justices may not be especially eager to declare that break unreasonable.
Posts in this series: