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Parties Involved:
Timothy S. Durham
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit 

Chicago, Illinois 60604 

Submitted January 13, 2016 

Decided February 3, 2016 

Before 

 MICHAEL S. KANNE, Circuit Judge 

 DIANE S. SYKES, Circuit Judge 

 J. PHIL GILBERT, District Judge*

No. 15-2474 Appeal from the 

 United States District Court 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

v. 

TIMOTHY S. DURHAM, 

 Defendant-Appellant.

 for the Southern District of Indiana, 

Indianapolis Division. 

No. 1:11CR00042-1 

Jane E. Magnus-Stinson, 

Judge. 

O R D E R 

Timothy Durham, James Cochran, and Rick Snow operated a massive Ponzi 

scheme resulting in losses of more than $200 million to thousands of victims. The three 

men were convicted on multiple counts of conspiracy, securities fraud, and wire fraud, 

and received lengthy sentences. In a previous appeal, we affirmed their convictions and 

sentences in all respects except one: we vacated two of Durham’s ten counts of 

conviction and remanded for resentencing “without those counts in the mix.” United 

States v. Durham (“Durham I”), 766 F.3d 672, 676 (7th Cir. 2014). 

 

*

 Of the Southern District of Illinois, sitting by designation. 

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 

Case: 15-2474 Document: 24 Filed: 02/03/2016 Pages: 2
No. 15-2474 Page 2 

On remand Durham attempted to reopen the district court’s previous 

loss-amount calculation, see U.S.S.G. §2B1.1, which had been challenged and explicitly 

affirmed in the earlier appeal, Durham I, 766 F.3d at 686–88. The judge declined to revisit 

the matter because the loss amount was conclusively fixed in Durham I and was now law 

of the case. The judge found that Durham’s final offense level of 47—above the top level 

of 43 under the Sentencing Guidelines—remained the same without the two vacated 

counts “in the mix.” Indeed, the probation office prepared a new presentence report, but 

the guidelines calculations were unchanged. After reweighing the sentencing factors 

under 18 U.S.C. § 3553, the judge reimposed the same sentence: 50 years in prison. 

Durham again appeals, arguing primarily that he was entitled to reopen the 

loss-amount calculation at resentencing. That’s incorrect. “If this [c]ourt remands to 

correct a ‘discrete, particular error that can be corrected ... without ... a redetermination 

of other issues, the district court is limited to correcting that error.’” United States v. 

Barnes, 660 F.3d 1000, 1006 (7th Cir. 2011) (quoting United States v. Parker, 101 F.3d 527, 

528 (7th Cir. 1996)). And the law-of-the-case doctrine generally prohibits the district 

court “from reconsidering on remand an issue expressly or impliedly decided by a 

higher court.” United States v. Adams, 746 F.3d 734, 744 (7th Cir. 2014) (quotation marks 

omitted). 

We considered and rejected Durham’s challenge to the district court’s 

loss-amount calculation in the earlier appeal. Durham I, 766 F.3d at 686–88. That 

determination is conclusive; the mandate rule and the law-of-the-case doctrine combine 

to prohibit Durham’s effort to reopen it. 

Durham also argues that he is entitled to yet another resentencing based on a 

recent clarification of the loss-amount guideline regarding the manner of calculating 

intended loss. We previously affirmed the district court’s loss-amount calculation based 

on an actual loss in excess of $200 million; that’s independently sufficient regardless of 

the intended loss. Id. at 688. 

Finally, Durham argues that because his sentence was based on judge-found facts, 

it violates his Fifth and Sixth Amendments rights to due process and trial by jury. This 

argument wasn’t raised in Durham I and thus is waived. Barnes, 660 F.3d at 1006 (“[A]ny 

issue that could have been raised on [an earlier] appeal but was not is waived ... .”). 

 AFFIRMED. 

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