When a court varies upward from the Guidelines, can the court fulfill its procedural obligations without explaining its disagreements with the Guidelines' policy and without an individualized assessment of all the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors?

QUESTION PRESENTED Under Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 50 (2007), a district court imposing an outside-Guidelines sentence “must consider the extent of the deviation and ensure that the justification is sufficiently compelling to support the degree of the variance.” “[A] major departure [from the Guidelines] should be supported by a more significant justification than a minor one.” Id. at 51. The question here is: When a court varies upward from the Guidelines, like the court did for Mr. Mendoza, can the court fulfill its procedural obligations without explaining its disagreements with the Guidelines’ policy and without an individualized assessment of all the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors? prefix