# Gall v. United States

> Supreme Court of the United States · December 10, 2007 · 552 U.S. 38

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9435288

## Case

- **Full name:** Gall v. United States
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** December 10, 2007
- **Citations:** 552 U.S. 38; 128 S. Ct. 586; 169 L. Ed. 2d 445; 2007 U.S. LEXIS 13083
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence
- **Judges:** Stevens, Souter, Thomas, Alito
- **Cited by:** 20,113 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9435288

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that: despite the advisory nature of the Sentencing Guidelines, they remain “the starting point and the initial benchmark” of a district court’s sentencing analysis; the “district court should begin all sentencing proceedings by correctly calculating the applicable Gui…
- explaining that a criminal sentence is 1 I would not reach whether my proposed Excessive Fines Clause test for civil fines also applies to criminal fines. Unlike civil fines, criminal fines are already governed by the Sentencing Guidelines and the factors laid out in 18 U.S.C.…
- concluding, in upholding a sentence of probation when the Guidelines sentencing range was 30 to 37 months of imprisonment, that “[g]iven the dramatic contrast between Gall's behavior before he joined the conspiracy and his conduct after withdrawing, it was not unreasonable for…
- holding that a sentence is procedurally reasonable if "the district court committed no significant procedural error, such as failing to calculate (or improperly calculating) the Guidelines range, treating the Guidelines as mandatory, failing to consider the § 3553(a) factors, …
- stating appellate courts must first "ensure that the district court committed no significant procedural error, such as failing to calculate (or improperly calculating) the Guidelines range, treating the Guidelines as mandatory, failing to consider the § 3553(a) factors, select…

## Opinion text

Justice & alia,
concurring.
I join the opinion of the Court.
In Rita v. United States, 551 U. S. 338, 370-375 (2007) (opinion concurring in part and concurring in judgment), I wrote separately to state my view that any appellate review of sentences for substantive reasonableness will necessarily result in a sentencing scheme constitutionally indistinguishable from the mandatory Guidelines struck down in United States v. Booker, 543 U. S. 220 (2005). Whether a sentencing scheme uses mandatory Guidelines, a “proportionality test” for Guidelines variances, or a deferential abuse-of-discretion standard, there will be some sentences upheld only on the basis of additional judge-found facts.
Although I continue to believe that substantive-reasonableness review is inherently flawed, I give stare decisis effect to the statutory holding of Rita . The highly deferential standard adopted by the Court today will result in far fewer unconstitutional sentences than the proportionality standard employed by the Eighth Circuit. Moreover, as I noted in Rita , the Court has not foreclosed as-applied constitutional challenges to sentences. The door therefore remains open for a defendant to demonstrate that his sentence, whether inside or outside the advisory Guidelines range, would not have been upheld but for the existence of a fact found by the sentencing judge and not by the jury.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9435288. Public record. Not legal advice.