United States v. Mirna Rivera, United States v. Robert Adamo

BREYER, Chief Judge.

Each of these two appeals concerns the district court’s power to impose a sentence that departs from the Sentencing Guidelines. The first case involves Mirna Rivera, a single mother of three small children. Ms. Rivera was convicted of carrying about a pound of cocaine from New York to Providence. She appeals her thirty-three month sentence of imprisonment. She argues that the district court would have departed downward from the minimum thirty-three month Guidelines prison term but for the court’s view that it lacked the legal “authority” to depart. She says that this view…