United States v. James Franklin Ray, United States of America v. James Franklin Ray

920 F.2d 562 3 Fed.Sent.R. 262 , 31 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 946 UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. James Franklin RAY, Defendant-Appellant. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. James Franklin RAY, Defendant-Appellee. Nos. 89-10218, 89-10255. United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit. Argued and Submitted Aug. 17, 1990. Decided Nov. 23, 1990. Jesse Cordova, Lodi, Cal., for defendant-appellant-appellee. R. Steven Lapham, Asst. U.S. Atty., Sacramento, Cal., for plaintiff-appellee-appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California. Before GOODWIN, Chief Judge, KOZINSKI and NOONAN, Circuit Judges. GOODWIN, Chief Judge: 1 James Franklin Ray appeals his conviction for one count of conspiring to manufacture and distribute methamphetamine and one count of manufacturing methamphetamine. He challenges the admission of a welfare fraud investigator's testimony concerning certain documents in his welfare file and contends that there was insufficient evidence to sustain his conviction. We affirm the conviction. 2 On cross-appeal, the government argues that the district court erroneously departed downward from the sentencing…

James Franklin Ray appeals his conviction for one count of conspiring to manufacture and distribute methamphetamine and one count of manufacturing methamphetamine. He challenges the admission of a welfare fraud investigator’s testimony concerning certain documents in his welfare file and contends that there was insufficient evidence to sustain his conviction. We affirm the conviction.

On cross-appeal, the government argues that the district court erroneously departed downward from the sentencing guidelines. The district court departed downward because the Ninth Circuit’s invalidation of the guidelines, later reversed by the Supreme Court, 1 resulted in Ray’s guidelines sentence being grossly disproportionate to those of his codefendants, who were not sentenced under the guidelines. We affirm the sentence.

Ray and his codefendants were indicted on one count each of conspiring to manufacture and distribute methamphetamine and manufacturing methamphetamine. 2 Ray was also indicted on one count of knowingly maintaining a place for the purpose of manufacturing methamphetamine; this charge was later dismissed on the government’s motion.

At trial, the government introduced substantial…

dissenting in No. 89-10255:

I

Congress has provided that a district court may not depart downward from the range established by the Guidelines “unless ... there exists [a] mitigating circumstance." 18 U.S.C. § 3553 (b) (emphasis added). The majority concedes that “here there are no mitigating circumstances,” maj. op. at 567 (emphasis added), but nevertheless approves a downward departure.

The majority’s candor is to be commended but its jurisprudence is not. Nowhere is it written that a court must apply statutory language except in “highly unusual” circumstances; no principle of law gives a court the power to discard a limitation Congress saw fit to write into the statute. Aphorisms about the advantages of experience over logic — plucked from Justice Holmes’ description of the common law— cannot justify defiance of a clear statutory command.

What the majority has done here does comport with a type of rough-and-ready frontier justice and may not seem terribly significant. But the implications of the decision are quite profound. Countless factors might make a particular case appear “highly unusual,” calling for a departure — downward or up. For example, the case might have…