The Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments this week in a case that could continue to pressure Congress to act on mandatory minimum laws.
In Dean v. United States, lawyers for Levon Dean are asking if a judge, when sentencing a defendant for two different crimes — including one that has a mandatory minimum and one that does not — can take into account the fact that he must impose a mandatory minimum for one of the crimes.
Dean was convicted under the Hobbs Act when he robbed alleged drug dealers in 2013. Sentencing for the robbery crime was done under the advisory sentencing guidelines for the Hobbs Act — but he was also convicted of possession a firearm during the robbery.
Possessing a firearm in connection with a violent crime requires a judge to impose a mandatory sentence of five years for the first conviction and 25 years for each additional one, per federal law 924(c). Dean was then convicted of two gun crimes — first receiving a mandatory sentence of five years and then receiving a mandatory and consecutive 25-year sentence.
Dean asked the judge for a variance in his sentence, arguing 30 years was enough for the gun and robbery convictions combined.
The judge in the case, Mark Bennett, said if he could, Dean would have been sentenced to only one day for the robberies due to the long gun sentences. But an Eighth Circuit Court ruling prevented him from doing that —as it mandates that a judge has to look at the robbery sentence on its own and cannot take into account the gun sentence.
General Counsel for Families Against Mandatory Minimums Mary Price told the Washington Examiner she hopes that Supreme Court will rule that “federal judges may consider all the information before them — including the fact that the defendant is already subject to a mandatory minimum sentence — when considering the total sentence to be imposed.”
“Otherwise, district judges such as Mr. Dean’s judge, will be forced to continue to impose needlessly harsh sentences,” Price said.
FAMM was joined by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers in filing an amicus brief on behalf of Dean in December.
In the brief, they argue that the Eighth Circuit’s creation of a limit on the sentencing discretion by a judge “conflicts with centuries of traditional sentencing practices in the United States and a clear statutory command entrusting judges with significant discretion to consider the fullest information possible about the offenders before them.”
The federal government argues in its brief that allowing a sentencing judge to reduce the sentence — especially to just one day — would effectively allow “sentencing judges to carve out statutory exceptions from 924(c) based on judicial perceptions of good sentencing policy.”
The government also argues that the “only apparent function of petitioner’s reduced-to-one-day sentencing regime would be to avoid the congressionally imposed consecutive, additional, mandatory-minimum sentences,” under federal law. “That is reason enough to reject it.”
The case of Dean v. United States is expected to be decided by June 30.
