United States v. Douglas S. Dawson

With all due respect, I dissent, not because the sentence is excessively harsh, but because the district court failed to exercise its discretion in the imposition of the sentence. I agree with the majority’s statement of the general proposition of law that:

We have no power to change or reduce sentences imposed within the requisite legislative limits on the ground that the sentence is too severe, Townsend v. Burke, 334 U.S. 736 [68 S.Ct. 1252, 92 L.Ed. 1690] (1948), unless the trial court failed to exercise any discretion at all in imposing sentence. United States v. Main, 598 F.2d 1086, 1094…