In the vast majority of my cases, I have the probation officer tersely state: the probation officer is unware of any factors, either aggravating or mitigating, which would warrant consideration of a departure...

  In a limited number of cases, I have had probation officers list factors relevant to departure  "which warrant consideration" by the Court but not take a  position in the PSR as far as a recommendation to the court that a departure is warranted.

   The only times I can recall that a probation officer in one of my cases actually recommended that the court depart under Chapter 5 have been when the government has agreed that a departure is warranted. I can't recall a single instance where a USPO recommended a downward departure when the government was not also taking the position it was warranted.

  I strongly question whether the probation officer was influenced by who Mr. Linny is.

   As an aside, I will note that in my experience probation officers are often more unfavorable at sentencing  to defendants than is the United States Attorney's office, and it is not uncommon for the government to choose not to present evidence at sentencing to support a guideline application recommended by a USPO or sometimes even to file objections helpful to a defendant.

  The PSR describes the procedural history of the case, the "facts"-- including offense conduct, relevant conduct, any asserted specific offense characteristics or guidelines adjustments and then "calculates" the offense level with reference to the specific guideline provisions applciable.

  The criminal history of the defendant is also set forth and the criminal history category is claculated. The sentencing range is then determined by reference to the sentencing table which has the offense level running on the vertical axis and the criminal history category on the horizontal axis.

   The report also includes a rather thorough description of the offender's characteristics including family history, education, employment history, military history, substance abuse, physical and mental health, etc.

   The PSR then describes the sentencing options available to the court under the guidelines and applicable statutes.

   Generally the last section deals with potential grounds for departure and as I stated above, it is uncommon in my experience for the probation officer to recommend departures and not even that common for the USPO to state grounds for departure should be considered.

  The first draft of the PSR is then disclosed to the parties and either party may file objectins with the USPO. Sometimes the report is revised to account for the objections and other times the USPO declines to revise the report  and it is left for the court at sentencing to resolve the contested issues which are set forth in an addendum to the PSR.

   Up until Booker, the guidelines (including departures) were mandatory. Now, the guidelines are "advisory" ---but a guideline range sentence is considered "presumptively reasonable" in most jurisdictions so they are still by far the most important factor at sentencing. This issue is now before the supreme court in Rita and (maybe-- see thread today about him dying and likely mootness of his case) Clairborne.

I agree it's unusual for a probation officer to recommend a departure. In my experience (and maybe it's my District) they identify areas of potential departure but leave it to the Court to make the decision as to whether the departure should be granted in the case.

In other cases, they make a recommendation in an Addendum to the report (written after the defendant files objections to the report).  Although we get a copy of the Addendum, we don't always (if ever)get to see their final recommendation as to a sentence.