The one circuit indirectly reversed in Rita

As I first noted here, the Supreme Court’s decision in Rita upholds the Fourth Circuit’s decision to adopt a presumption of reasonableness for within-guideline sentences, but also indirectly approves of other circuits’ decisions to resist adopting this presumption.  So, it might seem that all circuit approaches to post-Booker law and practice have been sanctioned by Rita. 

But, because the Rita decision suggests the continued validity of “traditional” departure analysis after Booker, one of the Seventh Circuit’s post-Booker views has been indirectly reversed.  Recall that the Seventh Circuit has said repeatedly that departures are obsolete after Booker, and this seem to be plain wrong after Rita.  (Notably, the Ninth Circuit also seemed to agree on this point, though less emphatically and it still have a pending en banc action to sort through post-Booker/Rita realities for its district courts.)