Stacey C. Koon v. United States (518 U.S. 81)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 13, 1996 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 518 U.S. 81 · 116 S. Ct. 2035
- Decided
- June 13, 1996
- Term
- October Term 1995
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice Kennedy
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Affirmed and reversed (or vacated) in part and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice Kennedy delivered the opinion of the Court. The United States Sentencing Commission Guidelines establish ranges of criminal sentences for federal offenses and offenders. A district court must impose a sentence within the applicable Guideline range, if it finds the case to be a typical one. See 18 U. S. C. § 3553(a). District courts may depart from the Guideline range in certain circumstances, however, see ibid., and here the District Court departed downward eight levels. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rejected the District Court’s departure rulings, and, over the published objection of nine of its judges, declined to rehear the case en banc. In this suit we explore the appropriate standards of appellate review of a district court’s decision to depart from the Guidelines.. I A The petitioners’ guilt has been established, and we are concerned here only with the sentencing determinations made by the District Court and Court of Appeals. A sentencing court’s departure decisions are based on the facts of the case, however, so we must set forth the details of the crime at some length. On the evening of March 2, 1991, Rodney King and two of his friends sat in King’s wife’s car in Altadena, California, a city in Los Angeles County, and drank malt liquor for a number of hours. Then, with King driving, they left Altadena via a major freeway. King was intoxicated.…
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