Argument of Speaker
Mr. Speaker: The opinion of the Court in No. 99-9073, Buford against United States will be announced by the Justice Breyer.
Argument of Justice Breyer
Mr. Breyer: This case raises a narrow question of federal sentencing law, a very narrow.
Imagine under the sentencing guidelines a trial court is supposed to determine whether an offender’s prior convictions were or were not consolidated, and if they were consolidated then they are related and if they are related they count as a single conviction, so, his sentence does not go up as much as if they were not consolidated.
Imagine the trial judge makes that determination and then the question before us is what standard of review should a Court of Appeals apply when it reviews that determination?
The relevant statute tells the Appeals Court to give due deference to the Trial Court’s decision.
The offender here wants de novo review and so the offender argues that the deference that is due is no deference at all.
The Court of Appeals rejected the offenders claim.
It thought that it should review the Trial Court’s determination deferentially and we conclude that the Court of Appeals was right.
Our reasons rest primarily upon the fact that the Trial Court is normally in a better position to determine, whether or not two earlier convictions had been consolidated.
The Trial Court is in a better position to make that determination than is the Court of Appeals.
Hence, we think that deference is called for.
We explain all this further along with certain other related matters in our opinion.
The decision is unanimous.
