# Koon v. United States

> Supreme Court of the United States · June 13, 1996 · 518 U.S. 81

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9433332

## Case

- **Full name:** Koon v. United States
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** June 13, 1996
- **Citations:** 518 U.S. 81; 116 S. Ct. 2035; 135 L. Ed. 2d 392; 1996 U.S. LEXIS 3877
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurring in part by Stevens
- **Judges:** Breyer, Kennedy, Souter, Stevens
- **Cited by:** 3,364 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- **Yellow flag:** Reported superseded by statute, as recognized in United States v. Imran Mandhai — not on the Supreme Court's list.
- Negative treatments: 1
- Distinguished by: 3
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9433332

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- finding the court's downward departure based on the defendants' being "barred from future work in" their chosen occupations to be an abuse of discretion: "Although cognizant of the deference owed to the District Court, we must conclude it is not unusual for a public official w…
- stating that sentences imposed pursuant to § 3742 were to be reviewed for abuse of * Pursuant to 5TH CIR. R. 47.5, the court has determined that this opinion should not be published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5TH CIR. R. 47.5.4. 2 …
- finding an abuse of discretion in the district court’s reliance upon Koon’s career loss because "it is not unusual for a pub- lic official who is convicted of using his governmental authority to violate a person’s rights to lose his or her job and to be barred from future work…
- stating that, if a factor is not mentioned in the Guidelines, the court must consider the "structure and theory of relevant individual Guidelines and the Guidelines as a whole" and "decide whether the factor is sufficiently unusual to take the case out of the Guideline’s heart…
- stating that if a factor is “an encouraged factor already taken into account by the applicable Guideline, the court should depart only if the factor is present to an exceptional degree or in some other way makes the case different from the ordinary case where the factor is pre…

## Opinion text

Justice Stevens,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
In my opinion the District Court did not abuse its discretion when it relied on the unusual collateral employment consequences faced by these petitioners as a result of their convictions. I therefore except Part IV-B-1 from my otherwise complete endorsement of the Court’s opinion. I also note that I do not understand the opinion to foreclose the District Court from basing a downward departure on an aggregation of factors each of which might in itself be insufficient to justify a departure.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9433332. Public record. Not legal advice.