Another notable (unpublished) below-guideline sentence affirmance

Thanks to an informed reader, I lhave earned of an interesting (but unpublished) opinion today from the Fourth Circuit affirming a below-guideline sentence in US v. Pasquantino, No. 06-4282 (4th Cir. Apr. 18, 2007) (available here).  (Recall that last week, the Fifth Circuit in Anderson issued a significant opinion affirming a below-guideline sentence in unpublished form.)

Pasquantino involves a wide fraud case that, on non-sentencing issues, has already been to the Supreme Court, and it’s procedural issues have the Fourth Circuit panel talking at length about the reach and grounds for appropriate habeas relief. 

In addition to a lengthy discussion habeas fans wil enjoy, the Pasquantino panel has an extended final discussion rejecting a number of government attacks on the reasons given for the below guideline sentence.  Among the notable quotables from the opinion: “the district court was entitled to consider factors for [one defendant’s] variance sentence that it ordinarily would not consider under the Guidelines.”