United States v. Cherry’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

5 federal appellate ·

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 7 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “It should be noted here that, in the pre-Booker world of sentencing, this Court has consistently denied other Defendants benefit of the safety valve where the guidelines range was calculated to be above the mandatory minimum. The basis for this result is the Court’s belief that § 5C1.2 creates two subsets of Defendants; those whose guidelines sentences are above the mandatory minimum, and those Defendants whose guidelines sentences are below the mandatory minimum. It is this Court’s interpretation of that provision that compelled it to conclude that only those Defendants whose guidelines sentences fell below the mandatory minimum were entitled to application of that part of the safety valve which authorizes the Court to impose a sentence below the mandatory minimum. Otherwise, § 5C1.2 makes no sense. In other words, how could the Court impose a sentence “in accordance with the applicable guidelines without regard to any statutory minimum sentence” if the applicable guidelines range is above the mandatory minimum? Any sentence imposed below the mandatory minimum in such a case necessarily would be outside the applicable guidelines, leaving the Court with no guidelines at all. Moreover, had Congress and the Sentencing Commission intended that any safety valve-eligible Defendant, regardless of that Defendant’s projected guidelines range, be qualified for a lower than mandatory sentence, they could have said so. But Congress and the Sentencing Commission did not say so. In fact, ”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States v. Lett

2. “I do believe that if we consider the nature and circumstances of this defendant, that a 60-month sentence would be adequate under 18 U.S.C. [§ ] 3553(a). A five-year sentence is a long time, and I think it would be adequate to reflect the seriousness .of the offense, to promote respect for the law, and I’m considering respect not only by Mr. Boyd, but also by other people. I think if he were subject to a sentence of 60 months for his conduct, that would promote respect for the law, not only by him, but ■by others, and I think that it would justly punish him for what he did. I think it would be sufficient to afford adequate deterrence. And I will say that the guidelines would be higher than that, and so is the statute. And so Congress disagrees with me, with my own view about what is sufficient to constitute adequate deterrence. I certainly think that the five-year sentence, the 60-month sentence would be adequate to protect the public from further crimes from Mr. Boyd. I don’t believe he’s likely to do anything else. And his history under supervision is as good as anybody I’ve seen. In the two and a half years, going on three years that I’ve been here, he certainly has an excellent history of supervision. So I do have a factual basis to conclude that he’s not going to commit further crimes. I think a 60-month sentence would be adequate to provide him with the needed educational and/or vocational training, medical care, or other correctional treatment. So if we went strictly b”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 496 F. Supp. 2d 977 - United States v. Boyd