United States v. Thomas Joseph Dalton

How courts have described this case

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

• explaining that a court “should move to successively higher categories only upon finding that the prior category does not provide” an adequate sentence
• stating that sentencing court is not required to “mechanically discuss[] each criminal history category [or offense level] it rejects en route to the category [or offense level] that it selects”
• assuring that a court need not “go through a ritualistic exercise in which it mechanically discusses each 36 USCA4 Appeal: 23-4207 Doc: 46 Filed: 03/10/2025 Pg: 37 of 40 criminal history category [or offense level] it rejects en route to the category [or offense level] that it selects”
• discussing incremental approach for upward departure under USSG § 4A1.3, p.s.
• instruct- ing that upward departures from Criminal History Category (CHC) VI must be made by moving down the CHC VI column \to successively increasing offense levels until an appropriate sentencing range is reached\ (internal quotation marks omitted)

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).