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Seventh Circuit finds top-of-range guideline sentence procedurally(?) unreasonable

By Douglas A. Berman

Tucked into the back of a long opinion from the Seventh Circuit yesterday is a little sentencing talk that shows that at least one circuit is not always going to rubber-stamp district court rulings when conducting reasonableness review.  The opinion in US v. Williams, No. 07-1573 (7th Cir. Jan. 27, 2009) (available here), rejects lots of arguments from lots of co-defendants, but "vacate[s] Clinton Williams?s sentence because the record does not demonstrate that the district court considered his mental disability as a mitigating factor."  Here are some snippets from the panel's sentencing discussion (with cites omitted): Section 3553(a) directs a district court to consider the history and characteristics of the defendant among the factors it weighs in determining a reasonable sentence...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on January 28, 2009 (boomark / email).