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Opinion of the Court
robbery, and Buford claimed that the robberies had been motivated by her drug addiction. But the only evidentiary link among the crimes was that the police had discovered the cocaine when searching Buford's house after her arrest for the robberies. Moreover, no formal order of consolidation had been entered. The State had charged the drug offense in a separate indictment and had assigned a different prosecutor to handle the drug case. A different judge had heard Buford plead guilty to the drug charge in a different hearing held on a different date; two different state prosecutors had appeared before the sentencing court, one discussing drugs, the other discussing the robberies; and the sentencing court had entered two separate judgments.
Buford, without denying these facts, nonetheless pointed to other circumstances that, in her view, showed that the drug crime conviction had been "consolidated" with the robbery convictions for sentencing, rendering her drug conviction and robbery convictions "related." She pointed out that the State had sent the four robbery cases for sentencing to the very same judge who had heard and accepted her plea of guilty to the drug charge; that the judge had heard arguments about sentencing in all five cases at the same time in a single proceeding; that the judge had issued sentences for all five crimes at the same time; and that the judge, having imposed three sentences for the five crimes (6 years for the drug crime, 12 years for two robberies, and 15 years for the other two), had ordered all three to run concurrently.
The District Court, placing greater weight on the former circumstances than on the latter, decided that the drug case and the robbery cases had not been consolidated for sentencing, either formally or functionally. Buford appealed. The Court of Appeals found the "functional consolidation" question a close one, and wrote that "the standard of appellate review may be dispositive." 201 F. 3d, at 940. It decided to review the District Court's decision "deferentially" rather
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