Eighth Circuit almost upholds below guideline sentence

The Eighth Circuit provides an interesting discussion of variances today in US v. Chettiar, No. 06-3432 (8th Cir. Sept. 5, 2007) (available here).  (Also interesting is the defendant’s full name: Nagappan Mylappan Chettiar.)  The panel in Chettiar ultimately rejects the Government’s various arguments against the imposition of a below-guideline sentence, but ultimately vacates and remands for resentencing because it found “it impossible given the present record to conduct a meaningful review of whether the district court gave significant weight to any improper or irrelevant factor.”