You don't see above-guidelines sentences very often. But from the facts of this case, you can potentially see why the district court (and Ninth Circuit) thought that Mr. Taylor was an understandable exception to the usual rule:
"In October 1995, Taylor robbed four banks across Los Angeles (the “underlying criminal offense”). Taylor pleaded guilty to five counts . . . In April 1996, the district court sentenced Taylor to 147 months of imprisonment for the underlying criminal offense. The court also imposed a five-year term of supervised release for the underlying criminal offense, subject to conditions.
In April 2007, Taylor’s term of supervised release began upon his release from prison. In August 2008, Taylor used a handgun to rob a bank. Taylor was prosecuted in state court, and received 17 years of imprisonment in state custody. In December 2018, while still in state custody, Taylor stabbed another inmate with a knife. Taylor received four years of imprisonment in state custody for charges arising out of the stabbing, to run consecutively with Taylor’s existing 17-year sentence. From 2016 to 2023, Taylor was cited for 17 rules violations while in state custody, some of which involved violence.
In November 2023, Taylor completed his state term of imprisonment and was transferred to federal custody. Previously, the United States Probation Office (Probation) had filed a petition for revocation of supervised release, alleging that Taylor’s August 2008 conduct violated the conditions of his supervised release. In December 2023, Probation amended its petition for revocation of supervised release. Given Taylor’s criminal history, Probation calculated a revocation imprisonment range of 18–24 months. Taylor admitted all allegations in the amended petition. The district court accepted Taylor’s admissions.
In February 2024, upon revoking Taylor’s supervised release, the district court sentenced Taylor to an above-Guidelines sentence of 60 months of imprisonment, followed by 24 months of supervised release."
Mr. Taylor's been in prison for almost three decades, with the exception of a single year outside -- and he made sure to rob yet another bank (and get caught) promptly upon release. That, plus the stabbing while in prison, plus all the rules violations, does not exactly make a judge think that the guy's rehabilitated at this point.
(And, yes, I know that "rehabilitated" is allegedly a "made up word," at least according to this guy. Still. His allocution was, I suspect, quite a bit more persuasive than Mr. Taylor's.)
