United States v. Smalley

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• noting that if a departure or variance would be necessary to reach the actual sentence absent the Guidelines calculation error, the reasons for that departure or variance must be explained
• “Because of the appellate court’s duty to review the sentence for reasonableness, Gall made it clear that ‘failing to adequately explain the chosen sentence - including an explanation for any deviation from the Guidelines’ was procedural error.”
• district court’s statement that “it would have given the same sentence … if it had applied” the proper enhancement did not render error harmless when the court did not identify the alternative range or explain its deviation from that range
• district court’s statement that “it would have given the same sentence … if it had applied” the proper enhancement did not render error harmless when the court did not identify the alternative range or explain its deviation from that range

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).