# 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/9433334 ## 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 Breyer - **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Stevens - **Cited by:** 3,364 later opinions in the Frix Law Library ## Citator (automated) - **Yellow flag:** Reported superseded by statute, as recognized in United States v. Imran Mandhai — not on the Supreme Court's list.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/9433334 ## 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 R. 47.5, the court has determined that this opinion should not be published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5TH CIR.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 Breyer, with whom Justice Ginsburg joins, concurring in part and dissenting in part. I join the Court’s opinion with the exception of Part IVB-3. I agree with Justice Souter’s conclusion in respect to that section. The record here does not support departures based upon either the simple fact of two prosecutions or the risk of mistreatment in prison. In my view, the relevant Guideline, 1992 USSG §2H1.4, encompasses the possibility of a double prosecution. That Guideline applies to various civil rights statutes, which Congress enacted, in part, to provide a federal forum for the protection of constitutional rights where state law enforce *119 ment efforts had proved inadequate. See, e. g., Ngiraingas v. Sanchez, 495 U. S. 182, 187-189 (1990); Monroe v. Pape, 365 U. S. 167, 171-180 (1961); Screws v. United States, 325 U. S. 91, 131-134 (1945) (Rutledge, J., concurring in result). Before promulgating the Guidelines, the Commission “examined the many hundreds of criminal statutes in the United States Code,” 1995 USSG ch. 1, pt. A, intro, comment. 5, and it would likely have been aware of this well-known legislative purpose. The centrality of this purpose, the Commission’s likely awareness of it, and other considerations that Justice Souter mentions, ante, at 116-118, lead me to conclude on the basis of the statute and Guideline itself, 18 U. S. C. § 3553 (b), that the Commission would have considered a “double prosecution” case as one ordinarily within, not outside, the “civil rights” Guideline’s “heartland.” For that reason, a simple double prosecution, without more, does not support a departure. See § 3553(b) (departures permitted only when circumstances were “not adequately taken into consideration” by the Commission) (emphasis added). The departure on the basis of potential mistreatment in prison presents a closer question. Nonetheless, differences in prison treatment are fairly common — to the point where too frequent use of this factor as a basis for departure could undermine the uniformity that the Guidelines seek. For that reason, and others that Justice Souter mentions, ante, at 115-116,1 believe that the Guidelines themselves embody an awareness of potentially harsh (or lenient) treatment in prison, thereby permitting departure on that basis only in a truly unusual case. Even affording the District Court “due deference,” § 3742(e), I cannot find in this record anything sufficiently unusual, compared, say, with other policemen imprisoned for civil rights violations, as to justify departure. --- Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9433334. Public record. Not legal advice.