United States v. Sandoval, No. 19-2041, 2020 WL 2603208 (10th Cir. May 22, 2020)

This was a DWI/car accident case where the defendant was sentenced under U.S.S.G. § 2A2.2 and was subject to an increased aggravated assault sentence because the victim lost part of her pinky finger in the accident. At sentencing, the defendant argued that the guideline does not adequately reduce sentences when the assault is committed recklessly. In addition, because the adjusted offense level ended up calculating to one level below the base offense level for involuntary manslaughter involving the reckless operation of a means of transportation, it was disproportionately high.

The Court concluded that while differences in mental states usually do matter at sentencing, other factors matter too--like degree of injury or the relationship between the defendant and victim. And because cases like US v. Zunie, 444 F.3d 1230, have held that reckless and intentional mental states are interchangeable in DWI crimes, the Commission has had an opportunity to punish reckless conduct less severely but hasn't chosen to. It also determined that the "permanent injury" that the victim suffered to her finger was a matter of happenstance, and that the argument to lower the starting point for aggravated assaults that result in permanent injury by way of recklessly-committed DWI could just as easily be turned into an argument to increase the involuntary manslaughter guidelines.

One useful thing in the opinion (that might be more meaningful for appellate practitioners) is FN 5, which reinforces the idea that the "presumption of reasonableness" doesn't insulate within-Guidelines sentences from appellate review.