Thoughtful and nuanced discussion of procedural reasonableness from Tenth Circuit

The Tenth Circuit issued a lengthy opinion yesterday in US v. Mendoza, No. 07-3181 (10th Cir. Oct. 1, 2008) (available here), that addresses a number of notable procedural issues in the course of rejecting a government appeal of a below-guideline sentence. Here is how the opinion starts:

Although the United States Sentencing Guidelines (“Guidelines”) advise that defendant-appellee Jesus Mendoza receive a minimum of 324 months’ imprisonment for his drug conviction, the district court varied downward and imposed a 240-month sentence.  On appeal, the government urges us to vacate and remand for resentencing, arguing that the district court committed procedural error by (1) declining to give specific reasons for the variance, and (2) failing to enter a written statement of reasons as required by 18 U.S.C. § 3553(c)(2). Reviewing only for plain error, we affirm Mendoza’s sentence.

Though a lot could be said about the panel’s thoughtful work in Mendoza, I find most interesting and questionable the fact that the government even bothered to appeal the defendant’s 20-year federal prison sentence in this case.  The panel notes that the government did not complain about the substantive reasonableness of the sentence, but it still decided it was worth the energy and expense to assail the district court’s failure to sufficiently document its reasons for giving a 20-year sentence for the defendant’s drug conviction. 

Of course, I understand why defendants sitting in federal prison regularly appeal sentences on whatever procedural ground they and they lawyers can assert.  But I would think federal prosecutors could embrace the old cliche “good enough for government work” when deciding which sentences it ought to appeal.  Indeed, since the government ended up losing its appeal here, I wonder if I can make some kind of request for a refund of the (significant?) federal tax dollars that had to be spent litigating these purely procedural issues.