Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-06-01285/USCOURTS-ca8-06-01285-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Todd Manuel Griffin
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

1

 The Honorable Harry F. Barnes, United States District Judge for the Western

District of Arkansas.

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 06-1285

___________

United States of America, *

*

Appellant, *

* Appeal from the United States

v. * District Court for the

* Western District of Arkansas

Todd Manuel Griffin, *

* [UNPUBLISHED]

Appellee. *

___________

Submitted: September 26, 2006

Filed: October 24, 2006

___________

Before ARNOLD, BYE, and MELLOY, Circuit Judges.

___________

PER CURIAM.

Todd Griffin pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C.

§ 1343 and the district court1

 sentenced him to 30 months' imprisonment. Mr. Griffin

appeals and we affirm.

Mr. Griffin admitted to committing wire fraud by forging a signature on a

contract to purchase realty and faxing the signature page from Louisiana to an attorney

in Arkansas; the forged document induced three clients of the attorney to invest

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substantial sums of money to buy the land to resell it to the person whose signature

had been forged. As part of his plea agreement, Mr. Griffin agreed to pay restitution

to the three investors and another party whom Mr. Griffin had defrauded. The district

court decided that only losses to these four victims would count for restitution

purposes, thus deviating from the presentence report that had recommended the

inclusion of losses to several other people whom Mr. Griffin had allegedly bilked in

other, similar schemes. The court also decided to use the losses of only those four

persons to calculate the sentencing guideline range.

The court then concluded that the appropriate guideline range for sentencing

Mr. Griffin was 30 to 37 months and sentenced him to the low end of that range. On

appeal, Mr. Griffin maintains that his sentence was unreasonable. We review the

reasonableness of a sentence for an abuse of discretion. United States v. Sanchez,

429 F.3d 753, 755 (8th Cir. 2005) (per curiam). "A sentence is reasonable and not an

abuse of discretion if the sentencing court considers the matters contained in

18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), does not consider inappropriate matters, and makes no clear error

of judgment." Id.

Mr. Griffin contends that the district court erred by considering information

about victims other than the four previously mentioned when deciding whether to

impose a sentence below the guideline range, because the court had already agreed not

to use that information when determining the guideline range itself or the amount of

restitution. While the court chose not to use a number of victim impact statements for

loss calculation under the guidelines, it explained that it would not use those

allegations for purposes "other than the fact of prior conduct." It is familiar law that

a district court may consider prior similar conduct that does not result in a conviction

when sentencing a defendant. Indeed, § 3553(a)(1) specifically directs the district

court to consider "the history ... of the defendant" before imposing a particular

sentence. Cf. United States v. Bistrup, 449 F.3d 873, 883 (8th Cir. 2006).

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Accordingly, the district court did not err when it took Mr. Griffin's prior conduct into

account in choosing whether to sentence him below the advisory guideline range.

Mr. Griffin also argues that under § 3553(a)(1), the only "history" of the

defendant that a district court can consider for sentencing purposes are facts that the

defendant admits or that a jury or court sitting as a factfinder has determined to be

true. But here the district court in fact found that Mr. Griffin had engaged in other

criminal conduct. Perhaps Mr. Griffin means to imply that the victim impact

statements were inadmissible at the sentencing hearing because they were hearsay.

But we have consistently held that reliable hearsay can serve as evidence for

sentencing purposes. See e.g., United States v. Wallace, 408 F.3d 1046, 1048 (8th Cir.

2005)(per curiam), cert. denied, 126 S. Ct. 816 (2005); United States v. Shevi, 345

F.3d 675, 679 (8th Cir. 2003), cert. denied, 540 U.S. 1166 (2004). It is appropriate

to consider that type of evidence "because the sentencing process requires the fullest

information possible concerning the defendant's life and characteristics." United

States v. Manuel, 912 F.2d 204, 207 (8th Cir. 1990) (citations omitted). We note,

moreover, that Mr. Griffin gave a statement at the sentencing hearing in which he

mentioned by name some people (other than the four victims referred to earlier) who

had prepared victim impact statements, and he apologized to them for his conduct.

Affirmed.

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