Federal Judiciary

Defendant was resentenced to 110 months (same as his original sentence). Rather than expressing agreement or disagreement with the crack guidelines, the sentencing court asserted that Congress had authorized the 100-to-1 ratio and deemed the courts an improper forum for reconsidering the ratio. Court of Appeals found that Kimbrough directly contradicts such an assertion.

When a district court indicates that policy disagreements are not a proper basis to vary from the guidelines, the resulting sentence is not presumptively reasonable. In such cases, the district court has committed procedural error by failing to appreciate the scope of the discretion it enjoys.

The district court here agreed with the 100-to-1 ratio. This agreement, however, was not with its substance, but because Congress had said it was the appropriate ratio by establishing the mandatory minimums, which, the district court said, had in effect engrafted a 100-to-1 ratio into the criminal statutes, and Congress had not changed the law despite many opportunities to do so.