District Court's Presumption of Reasonableness Deemed Harmless Error

In an unpublished decision today, the Tenth Circuit in U.S. v. Prieto-Chavez affirmed the defendant's sentence of 57 months despite the fact that the AUSA and the court both assumed that the presumption of reasonableness for a guideline sentence applied at the district court level. In fact, the district court judge stated that "basically there is a presumption of reasonableness that attaches to a correctly calculated guideline sentence" and that the "presumption of reasonableness has not been overcome by the defendant..."

The panel starts its analysis by noting that the district court erred by according a presumption of reasonableness to a guideline sentence as well as imposing a burden on the defendant to overcome that presumption. Because the defendant did not object, however, the court initially suggests that plain error review is appropriate. Interestingly, the court also reviews the district court's sentence under a harmless error standard as well since "a review of our caselaw both prior to an after Rita indicates that there was some confusion about the propriety of a district court's application of a presumption of reasonableness to a Guidelines sentence."

The panel, reviewing under both plain error and harmless error standards, holds that there was no reversible error. The decision is predicated in large part on the fact that the district court conducted a thorough review of the 3553(a) factors. The panel at least provides some analysis under the plain error standard, but it summarily concludes that the government met its burden under the harmless error standard.

There is little discussion about the possible impact on the defendant's sentence that the government's erroneous legal stance had, nor is there any substantive discussion about how a court operating under the assumption that the defendant bears the burden to show the advisory guideline unreasonable might plausibly consider a different sentence once it recognized its error. The harmless error analysis--if one can even call the summary remarks analysis--is disappointing at best and disingenuous at worst. The deference to the sentencing judge's consideration of 3553(a) factors is understandable given the Supreme Court's recent decisions, but this decision undermines the importance of procedural reasonableness espoused by the Court in Rita.