Should all "true" first offenders now get a sentencing discount in light of Gall and Kimbrough?

In the olden days when the federal sentencing guidelines were mandatory, the Supreme Court in Koon indicated that a district court departing downward from Criminal History Category I would "abuse[] its discretion by considering [a first offender's] low likelihood of recidivism [because the Sentencing] Commission took that factor into account in formulating the criminal history category."  But now, of course, the guidelines are merely advisory.  And Kimbrough strongly suggests that courts can and should look to research reports by the Sentencing Commission when deciding whether and when and how to vary from the guidelines.  And in May 2004, in this interesting report titled "Recidivism and the 'First Offender'," the Commission highlights empirical data showing very low recidivism rates for what I would call "true" first offenders:

The analysis [of empirical data on re-offending] delineates recidivism risk for offenders with minimal prior criminal history and shows that the risk is lowest for offenders with the least experience in the criminal justice system. Offenders with zero criminal history points have lower recidivism rates than offenders with one or more criminal history points.  Even among offenders with zero criminal history points, offenders who have never been arrested have the lowest recidivism risk of all.

These issues came to mind as I read closely the Sixth Circuit thoughtful work last week in US v. Duane, No. 06-6536 (6th Cir. July 17, 2008) (available here).  At the very end of Duane, the panel had this nuanced discussion of these issues in a post-Booker world:

[T]he district court did not respond to Duane’s first argument — that he deserved a more lenient sentence because he had zero criminal history points.  This was not a particularly strong argument given that Duane’s criminal history category was taken into account in determining his Guidelines range.  But the argument was not completely frivolous.  Because Duane had zero points at age 57, he might plausibly argue that even category I — which applies when a defendant has zero or one criminal history point(s) — overstated his criminal history to some degree. Although the district court would have ideally addressed this argument, we can hardly say that this failure alone constituted error in this case. Given that the district court imposed a within-Guidelines sentence, addressed the factors it found relevant, and addressed the majority of Duane’s arguments, we conclude that the district court did not err.

Though the Duane court does not reverse a within-guideline sentence for failure to consider low likelihood of recidivism for a "true" first offender, the panel's carefully discussion of this issue suggests district courts now have an obligation to address expressly these issues whenever a true first offender defendant urges a below-guideline sentence by saying he is very unlikely to even commit a crime again. 

Indeed, defendants and defense attorneys can (and perhaps should) stress the USSC's own research to assert that proper application of 3553(a) in the case of a "true" first offender now virtually demands a below-guideline sentence.  The argument would be that the considerations set forth in 3553(a)(2)(C) and in 3553(a)(6) are only properly acknowledged if and when a "true" first offender gets a lower sentence than the advisory range suggested for all the other persons with some criminal past that are lumped into Criminal History Category I.