3rd Circuit Finds Probation For Tax Evasion Is “Unreasonable”

The federal Third Circuit Court of Appeals has found that a sentence of house arrest and probation imposed on a convicted tax evader was “unreasonable” and that the defendant ought ot have been sentenced to a term of imprisonment. The ABA Journal reports on the ruling here. The Third Circuit’s opinion in the case, United States v. Tomco, raises the specter of dramatically expanded appellate review of criminal sentences, and appears to be a departure from the court’s approach to criminal sentencing generally in the post-Booker era. Judge D. Brooks Smith, a Bush appointee to the bench, filed a strong dissent, taking the panel majority to task for conducting essentially a de novo review of the sentence, rather than merely assuring that the sentence was logical and that the trial court had “meaningfully considered” the appropriate sentencing factors. Judge Smith, in his dissent, argued that the trial judge had exhaustively and throughly explained the reasons for his sentence, and that the sentence was thus entitled to proper deference on appellate review. With a split panel decision in a case that represents a departure from circuit jurisprudence on the issue, I would expect to see an en banc hearing and, whoever prevails at that stage, a cert. petition to the Supreme Court, which might very well be granted as the Court continued to deal with the fallout from its indecisive Booker decision.