More bad news today: In Mejia, litigated by Deirdre von Dornum of this Office, the Court relies on similar reasoning in "holding that a district court's refusal to adjust a sentence to compensate for the absence of a fast-track program does not make a sentence unreasonable." Op. 17. The Court specifically rejects the applicability of § 3553(a)(6) in the fast-track context with an explanation similar to that offered in Castillo: "Congress expressly approved of fast-track programs without mandating them; Congress thus necessarily decided that they do not create the unwarranted sentencing disparities that it prohibited in Section 3553(a)(6)." Op. 14.
The Court's self-described holding is narrow -- a sentence is not unreasonable simply because it is imposed in a non-fast-track district. But its statement rejecting the relevance of § 3553(a)(6) to the fast-track issue seems to signal a broader proposition -- that a sentencing court simply may not consider the existence of fast-track programs in other districts when sentencing a defendant in a fast-track district.
