Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-03-03317/USCOURTS-ca8-03-03317-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Michael Paul Caldwell
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

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No. 03-3317

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United States of America,

Appellee,

v.

Michael Paul Caldwell,

Appellant.

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Appeal from the United States

District Court for the

Southern District of Iowa.

 [UNPUBLISHED]

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Submitted: May 10, 2004

 Filed: May 14, 2004

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Before WOLLMAN, HANSEN, and BYE, Circuit Judges.

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PER CURIAM.

Michael Paul Caldwell pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a

firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) (2000). With a total offense level of

twelve and a Category IV criminal history, his Guidelines imprisonment range was

twenty-one to twenty-seven months. Caldwell moved for a downward departure

under U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual § 4A1.3 (2002) on the basis that Category

IV overrepresented the seriousness of his criminal history. He argued that his 1989

conviction for second-degree robbery should be discounted because it was fourteen

years old, and his only subsequent convictions were in 1993 for drunk driving, in

Appellate Case: 03-3317 Page: 1 Date Filed: 05/14/2004 Entry ID: 1767193 
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 The Honorable Robert W. Pratt, United States District Judge for the Southern

District of Iowa.

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1995 for two counts of forgery and one count of second-degree theft, and in 2001 for

possession of drug paraphernalia. The district court1

 denied Caldwell’s downwarddeparture motion, concluding that the law of this circuit requires a sentencing judge

to take the defendant’s entire criminal history into account when considering a

departure under § 4A1.3, and that Caldwell’s criminal history as a whole was not

overrepresented by Category IV. The district court sentenced Caldwell to twenty-one

months in prison and two years of supervised release.

On appeal, Caldwell argues that the district court erroneously determined that

it lacked authority to grant his downward-departure motion. We disagree. We have

previously held that the following statement by a district court--“If I thought it wasn’t

an abuse of discretion, I’d go ahead and grant [the defendant’s § 4A1.3] motion, but

I have to follow the law, and I think that you have to look at the entire criminal

history . . . . I can’t in good faith say that the criminal history is overstated for

purposes of a downward departure.”--showed that the sentencing judge had

understood his authority to depart downward but had concluded that, viewing the

defendant’s criminal history as a whole, such a departure would be an abuse of

discretion. See United States v. Williams, 340 F.3d 563, 571 (8th Cir. 2003). The

district court said essentially the same thing in this case. Because the district court

recognized its authority to depart, its denial of Caldwell’s downward-departure

motion is an unreviewable exercise of discretion. See id. at 572.

Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the district court.

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Appellate Case: 03-3317 Page: 2 Date Filed: 05/14/2004 Entry ID: 1767193