# 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/9435289

## 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 by Souter
- **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/9435289

## 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 Souter,
concurring.
I join the Court’s opinion here, as I do in today’s companion case of Kimbrough v. United States, post, p. 85, which follow United States v. Booker, 543 U. S. 220 (2005), and Rita v. United States, 551 U. S. 338 (2007). My disagreements *61 with holdings in those earlier cases are not the stuff of formally perpetual dissent, but I see their objectionable points hexing our judgments today, see id., at 389-392 (Souter, J., dissenting), and Booker, supra, at 272 (Stevens, J., dissenting in part). After Booker’s remedial holding, I continue to think that the best resolution of the tension between substantial consistency throughout the system and the right of jury trial would be a new Act of Congress: reestablishing a statutory system of mandatory sentencing guidelines (though not identical to the original in all points of detail), but providing for jury findings of all facts necessary to set the upper range of sentencing discretion. See Rita, supra, at 392 .

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9435289. Public record. Not legal advice.