Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-87-02846/USCOURTS-ca10-87-02846-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Salvatore Sivigliano
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

FI LED 

Uoited States Court of Appeals 

Tenth Circuit 

JUN 7 1990 

&OBERT L. HOECKER 

Clerk 

v. No. 87-2846 

SALVATORE SIVIGLIANO, 

Defendant-Appellant. 

(D.C. No. CR-87-222-P) 

(W.D. Okla.) 

, - •0RDER ··AND ·,JUDGMENT * 

Before BALDOCK, BRORBY, and EBEL, Circuit Judges. 

This is a direct criminal appeal in which the defendant challenges the length of his sentence. 1 Even though the sentence was 

well within the maximum permitted by statute, defendant asserts 

that the district court improperly increased the sentence because 

defendant refused to cooperate with the government's investigation 

* This order and judgment has no precedential value and shall not 

be cited, or used by any court within the Tenth Circuit, except 

for purposes of establishing the doctrines of the law of the case, 

res judicata, or collateral estoppel. 10th Cir. R. 36.3. 

1 Defendant pleaded guilty to one count of unlawful distribution 

of cocaine, a violation of 21 u.s.c. § 84l(a)(l). The district 

court sentenced him to eight years in prison plus a three-year 

term of supervised release, and ordered him to pay a special 

assessment of $50.00. The maximum penalty for the offense was 20 

years imprisonment and a $1,000,000 fine. Id. at§ 84l(b). 

Appellate Case: 87-2846 Document: 010110036158 Date Filed: 06/07/1990 Page: 1 
of other crimes. Defendant contends that he failed to cooperate 

because of his fear of self-incrimination, and that the district 

court wrongly punished him for invoking his fifth amendment 

privilege. U.S. Const. amend. v. 2 

At the sentencing hearing, the district court stated that 

defendant's noncooperation was a factor in denying him further 

leniency and that the court would have given defendant a lesser 

sentence if he had cooperated: 

Your decision not to divulge the source [of the 

cocaine] is something that the Court can and will take 

into consideration at the time of sentencing, although 

the offense in this case is serious enough that the 

Court feels confident that the sentence that it's going 

to impose is one that would be appropriate even without 

,, tha.t . degree of .. cooperat-ion. 

But had you cooperated in this case, your sentence 

would have been reduced substantially because that's 

something that the Court does give credit to. 

2 We assume without deciding that defendant properly invoked his 

fifth amendment privilege against self-incrimination at the 

sentencing hearing. See Roberts v. United States, 445 U.S. 552, 

559 (1980} (fifth amendment privilege "against compelled selfincrimination is not self-executing"}. Defendant did not 

specifically invoke the privilege, and his only reference to it 

was a vague statement by his counsel that defendant had not 

received immunity in other districts: 

There was a question, I think, at his plea 

[hearing] ..• concerning his cooperation, which the 

Court can take as a mitigating factor. 

And I would just like the Court to know that I 

advised Mr. Sivigliano that as far as the District of 

Kansas or the Western District of Missouri were 

concerned that Mr. Mydans or Mr. Price in the U.S. 

Attorney's Office in this district could not guarantee 

him immunity for prosecution in those districts. And I 

did explain that to him, and that was a factor in his 

decision. 

Tr. Vol. II at 17-18. 

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Tr. Vol. II at 22-23. 

The Supreme Court has held that a defendant's lack of cooperation with law-enforcement authorities ordinarily is a 

legitimate factor for a district court to consider in determining 

a sentence: 

[C]ooperation with the authorities is a "laudable 

endeavor" that bears a "rational connection to a 

defendant's willingness to shape up and change his 

behavior" .... Unless a different explanation is 

provided, a defendant's refusal to assist in the 

investigation of ongoing crimes gives rise to an 

inference that these laudable attitudes are lacking. 

Roberts v. United States, 445 U.S. 552, 557 (1980). 3 

However, the Supreme Court in Roberts recognized that the 

justification -for «the- general Pule does •not' appi.y when - a defendant 

asserts that the reason for not cooperating is some 

constitutionally protected right, such as the privilege against 

self-incrimination: "(T]he criminal defendant ... is obliged to 

assist'' government authorities "[u]nless his silence is protected 

by the privilege against self-incrimination." Id. at 558. The 

Court suggested that a district court cannot "punish" a defendant 

"for exercising his Fifth Amendment privilege against selfincrimination," noting that the defendant's arguments that the 

3 The United States Sentencing Guidelines are not applicable to 

this case. See 18 U.S.C.A. § 3551, Historical and Statutory Notes 

(the effective date of the Guidelines is November 1, 1987 and they 

"shall apply only to offenses committed after" they take effect). 

In this case, all of the offenses for which appellant was 

convicted were committed during August 1987. See R. Vol. I, 

Doc. 1. 

Under the guidelines, a defendant's refusal to cooperate with 

ongoing investigations "may not be considered as an aggravating 

factor." 18 U.S.C.A. App.§ SKl.2 (1989 Supp). However, a 

defendant's cooperation can be a mitigating factor in certain 

circumstances. Id. at§ SKl.l. 

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Appellate Case: 87-2846 Document: 010110036158 Date Filed: 06/07/1990 Page: 3 
district court had done so there "would have merited serious 

consideration if they had been presented properly to the 

sentencing judge." Id. at 559. 

The Supreme Court unfortunately did not resolve the issue of 

what it means to "punish" defendants for the exercise of their 

constitutional rights, and that is the heart of the problem here. 4 

There are at least three ways in which a district court could 

handle a defendant's noncooperation when determining an 

appropriate sentence, and each reflects a different view as to 

what constitutes "punishment" for the defendant. 

First, the district court could disregard the defendant's 

lack of coopera.tion entirely, -a,nd~.,.ignore ~- the issue ·in sentencing., 

I 

The noncooperating defendant then would be in the same position as 

numerous other defendants who never have the opportunity to cooperate with authorities -- such as defendants who know nothing of 

other crimes or defendants who have accomplices who already have 

been apprehended. Those defendants have no opportunity to receive 

special leniency for cooperating because they are not able to 

cooperate even if they wanted to. Cooperation is not a factor in 

their sentencing. 

Second, the district court could give the noncooperating 

defendant a harsher sentence than that which the defendant would 

4 The Supreme Court in Roberts acknowledged that if "punishing" 

noncooperating defendants means to sentence them more harshly than 

defendants who cooperate, then there is little practical 

difference between "enhancing punishment" for noncooperating 

defendants and "denying leniency" to them: "We doubt that a 

principled distinction may be drawn between 'enhancing' the 

punishment imposed upon the petitioner and denying him the 

'leniency' he claims would be appropriate if he had cooperated." 

445 U.S. at 557 n.4. 

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Appellate Case: 87-2846 Document: 010110036158 Date Filed: 06/07/1990 Page: 4 
have received if cooperation were not an issue. For example, if 

the court concluded that ten years imprisonment was an appropriate 

sentence if cooperation were not an issue, the court might 

increase the sentence to 15 years for a defendant who, having had 

an opportunity to cooperate, failed to do so. Although Roberts 

permits that result in ordinary noncooperation cases, Roberts 

forbids that outcome when defendants properly raise selfincrimination concerns as the reason for failing to cooperate. 

445 U.S. at 558-59. 

Third, the district court could sentence the noncooperating 

defendant as though the defendant had cooperated. In the example 

.above ., . the-- court~-.might reduce , ,t.he-s sentence , from -ten years ·( the 

appropriate sentence if cooperation were not an issue) to five 

years as though the defendant did in fact cooperate. 

Because Roberts forecloses the second possibility, the issue 

here is whether defendants who choose not to cooperate because 

they fear self-incrimination are entitled to be sentenced as 

though they in fact had cooperated, or whether instead the 

district court should ignore the cooperation issue and sentence 

them as though they never had the opportunity to cooperate. In 

other words, are defendants who do not cooperate because of fifth 

amendment concerns "punished" only if they receive a sentence 

harsher than that which they would have received if cooperation 

were not an issue (ten years in the example above), or are they 

also "punished" if they receive a sentence harsher than that which 

they would have received if they had cooperated (five years in the 

example above)? 

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• 

Circuit courts before and after Roberts have split over what 

it means for a sentencing court to "punish" defendants for 

exercising their constitutional rights. 

Some circuits have held that a district court is free to 

withhold leniency whenever a defendant refuses to cooperate with 

government investigations, even when the defendant asserts fifth 

amendment or other substantial concerns (such as fear of physical 

retaliation) as grounds for the noncooperation. Those cases 

explicitly or implicitly hold that the district court should 

ignore the cooperation factor in those circumstances and should 

sentence the defendant as though cooperation were not an issue. 

In .. those cour.ts' .. view, a ... dist.rl ct, .. cou.rt .improperly . "punishes" a 

noncooperating defendant only when the court imposes a harsher 

sentence than the one that would have been imposed if cooperation 

were not an issue. 

Thus in Mallette v. Scully, 752 F.2d 26 (2d Cir. 1984), the 

Second Circuit upheld a noncooperating defendant's sentence, 

concluding that the trial court merely had denied him leniency: 

[W]e conclude that the record shows only that the judge 

declined to show leniency. . Mallette quotes the 

sentencing judge as saying: 

And if Mr. Mallette were willing to assist us 

to bring the other person to justice, I would 

find it very easy to be reasonable and 

lenient. 

This comment merely demonstrates the difficulty of 

drawing a meaningful distinction between enhancing the 

sentence and declining to show leniency; it surely does 

not provide constitutional grounds for reversal. 

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• 

Id. at 30-31. 5 

Other courts have held that a district court cannot deny 

leniency to a defendant who, because of fears of selfincrimination, fails to cooperate. As we read those cases, they 

imply that noncooperating defendants who raise fifth amendment 

concerns must be sentenced as though they had cooperated, lest 

they be placed in a perilous dilemma. In those courts' view, a 

district court improperly "punishes'' a noncooperating defendant 

whenever the court imposes a harsher sentence than the one that 

would have been imposed if the defendant had cooperated. 

Thus in United States v. Safirstein, 827 F.2d 1380 (9th Cir. 

_ 1981), the - Ninth Circuit . held that the district -court- could not 

deny leniency to a defendant who, because of self-incrimination 

concerns, had refused to identify persons involved with him in an 

5 See also,~' Damiano v. Gaughan, 770 F.2d 1, 3 (1st Cir. 

1985) ("[T]here is a distinction between vindictiveness by enhancing a penalty, on the one hand, and a refusal to grant leniency, 

on the other. The latter is quite permissible."); United States 

v. Brown, 761 F.2d 1272, 1278 (9th Cir. 1985) (district court 

"merely showed leniency by reducing the sentences of the others 

because of their cooperation with the authorities"); United States 

v. Bradford, 645 F.2d 115, 117 (2d Cir. 1981) ("It is one thing to 

extend leniency to a defendant who is willing to cooperate with 

the government; it is quite another thing to administer additional 

punishment to a defendant who by his silence has committed no additional offense."); United States v. Acosta, 501 F.2d 1330, 1337-

38 (5th Cir. 1974) ("[T]he record suggests the possibility that 

the court may actually have taken Acosta's refusal to cooperate 

into account in sentencing. If so ... the sentence should be 

vacated and a new sentence imposed without consideration of this 

refusal.") (emphasis added), adopted~ court en bane, 509 F.2d 

539 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 423 U.S. 891 (1975). Cf. United 

States v. Stratt~820 F.2d 562, 564 (2d Cir. 1987)-(sentence 

reversed where district court imposed harsh consecutive sentence 

but told defendant that the court would reduce the sentence if 

defendant cooperated with the government within the next 120 days: 

"district court improperly enhanced" defendant's sentence, 

"punishing [him] for his silence"). 

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• 

alleged narcotics-trafficking conspiracy: 

Safirstein ... had thrust upon him the "Hobson's 

choice" of either (1) cooperating, receiving lenity, and 

risking additional prosecution, or (2) refusing to 

cooperate and receiving a harsher sentence .... To 

impose such a choice on Safirstein violated his Fifth 

Amendment privilege. The essence of that privilege is 

that the state both convict and punish the individual by 

producing evidence by its own independent efforts, and 

not by the "simple, cruel expedient" of coercing it from 

his own lips. 

Id. at 1388 (emphasis in original). 6 

To our knowledge there is no controlling precedent in the 

Tenth Circuit. The most analogous Tenth Circuit case is United 

States v. Espinosa, 771 F.2d 1382 (10th Cir.), cert. denied, 474 

U.S. 1023 (1985), in which we upheld the sentences of several 

narcotics conspirators. The defendants in Espinosa argued that 

the district court improperly had sentenced all of them to the 

same term of imprisonment in order "to penalize them ... for 

exercising their Fifth Amendment privilege against selfincrimination by not explaining their degree of involvement in the 

offenses." Id. at 1402. Because the defendants had chosen not to 

6 See also,~, United States v. Heubel, 864 F.2d 1104, 1110-

1111 (3d Cir. 1989) (district court improperly conditioned 

leniency on a convicted defendant's willingness to name his 

narcotics source: district court wrongly imposed on defendant the 

"'Hobson's choice' of remaining silent and losing 'the opportunity 

to be the object[] of leniency,' or speaking and running 'the risk 

of additional prosecution.'") (quoting United States v. Garcia, 

544 F.2d 681, 685 (3d Cir. 1976)); United States v. Messer, 785 

F.2d 832, 834 (9th Cir. 1986) ("Messer argues he was punished for 

asserting his fifth amendment right against self-incrimination. 

We conclude a court cannot condition leniency upon a defendant's 

refusal to admit to a crime not charged.") (emphasis added); 

United States v. Rodriguez, 498 F.2d 302, 312 (5th Cir. 1974) 

("[T]he defendant retains important Fifth Amendment rights after 

the jury reaches a verdict, rights which must not be made the 

price of sentencing leniency. The court cannot place the 

defendant in the dilemma of either abandoning his Fifth Amendment 

rights or risking a harsher sentence."). 

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• 

testify about their specific involvement in the conspiracy, the 

district court reasoned that it had no choice but to sentence them 

all equally. We held that the district court's sentencing 

decision did not penalize the defendants for exercising their 

fifth amendment rights: 

[T]he Fifth Amendment privilege against selfincrimination was not violated during this sentencing 

process. The judge's remarks concerning the defendants' 

silence were not made in an attempt to deny them that 

privilege; in fact, he expressly recognized the 

defendants' right to remain silent. Instead, the 

comments were made to explain why he decided to sentence 

defendants to the same term of imprisonment. Such 

comments are proper and do not penalize defendants for 

exercising their Fifth Amendment rights. 

Id. at 1404. 

Although Espinosa focused on a somewhat different issue than 

the one here, the case illustrates that the Constitution does not 

necessarily guarantee that the invocation of its privileges will 

be costless to criminal defendants. Some risks often are inherent 

in invoking constitutional privileges. For example, defendants 

who invoke at trial the privilege against self-incrimination 

naturally bear the risk that they will not get their side of the 

story across to the trier of fact. The cost of their silence may 

be unwarranted conviction, and that risk is unavoidable. The 

fifth amendment obviously does not entitle them to automatic 

acquittal. Likewise, as in Espinosa, conspirators who invoke 

their privilege against self-incrimination during sentencing 

proceedings bear the risk that the district court will be unable 

to sort out their individual culpabilities and will impose equal 

sentences on them all. The resulting cost to a minimally-involved 

conspirator may be an overly-harsh sentence, but that risk is 

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unavoidable. The fifth amendment obviously does not entitle all 

conspirators to be sentenced as though they were minimally 

involved. 

The same principle applies here. Criminal defendants have no 

automatic right to leniency. Some defendants have the opportunity 

to cooperate with the authorities and do so, and their cooperation 

becomes a factor in deciding whether leniency in sentencing is 

appropriate. Many other defendants have no opportunity to 

cooperate, and the cooperation issue is irrelevant to their 

sentencing. The defendants who have no opportunity to cooperate 

have no right to be sentenced as though they did. In other words, 

a . dis tr Let cour.t..' s .£ailure to -sentence .them as ,t.hough ,,they could 

and did cooperate in no way "penalizes" them for their 

noncooperation, at least not in the ordinary sense of the word. 

In the same way, defendants who have the opportunity to 

cooperate but choose not to do so for whatever reason -- such as 

the desire to protect another criminal suspect, or fear of 

physical retaliation, or fear of self-incrimination -- are not 

penalized by a district court's failure to sentence them as though 

they had cooperated. The fifth amendment plainly entitles 

defendants with legitimate self-incrimination concerns to be free 

from vindictive sentences that are harsher than the ones which 

would have been imposed if cooperation were not an issue. But the 

fifth amendment does not automatically entitle those defendants to 

leniency in sentencing, any more than it entitles them to 

acquittal. 

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We hold that when a defendant refuses to cooperate with the 

authorities because of legitimate self-incrimination concerns, the 

district court should ignore the lack of cooperation as a factor 

in sentencing. The district court should sentence the defendant 

as though cooperation were not an issue. In those circumstances, 

the district court cannot impose a sentence on the defendant 

harsher than that which would have been imposed if cooperation 

were not an issue. 

Here, defendant points to no evidence in the record 

indicating that the district court imposed a harsher sentence on 

him than the one that the court would have imposed if cooperation 

were not ,.an ,. issue • .. Indeed, the ..district .. court .specifically stated 

at the sentencing hearing that, in light of the serious nature of 

defendant's crime, the sentence that was imposed "would be 

appropriate" regardless of defendant's cooperation. The district 

court's statement that additional leniency would have been 

appropriate if defendant had cooperated merely reflects a correct 

description of the district court's discretionary sentencing 

power. 

The judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED. 

Judge Brorby concurs in the result. 

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ENTERED FOR THE COURT 

David M. Ebel 

Circuit Judge 

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