Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-11-03049/USCOURTS-caDC-11-03049-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Joseph L. Blackson
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued October 19, 2012 Decided March 12, 2013

No. 11-3049

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

APPELLEE

v.

JOSEPH L. BLACKSON, ALSO KNOWN AS JOE BLACK,

APPELLANT

Consolidated with 11-3063

Appeals from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:04-cr-00128-RMC-3)

Richard K. Gilbert, appointed by the court, argued the cause

and filed the briefs for appellant.

Nicholas P. Coleman, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the

cause for appellee. Ronald C. Machen Jr., U.S. Attorney, and

Roy W. McLeese III, John P. Dominguez, and Katherine M.

Kelly, Assistant U.S. Attorneys, were on the brief for appellee. 

Elizabeth Trosman, Assistant U.S. Attorney, entered an

appearance.

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Before: GARLAND, Chief Judge, BROWN, Circuit Judge, and

EDWARDS, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the Court filed by Chief Judge GARLAND.

GARLAND, Chief Judge: Joseph Blackson challenges the

district court’s decision to reimpose a 360-month sentence for

numerous narcotics- and firearms-related convictions after this

court vacated one of the convictions upon which his original

sentence was based. Blackson argues that the district court took

an overly narrow view of the scope of issues it could consider at

his resentencing. Because we find that the district court

correctly understood its authority on remand, we uphold

Blackson’s sentence. We also take the opportunity to collect

and restate this circuit’s rules regarding which arguments the

district court may consider on a remand for resentencing when

the remand order provides no express instructions. 

I

In March 2004, Blackson and thirty-eight others were

arrested for their participation in the “M Street Crew,” a drug

ring operating in Northeast Washington, D.C. The government

brought federal criminal charges against nineteen participants,

including Blackson. Blackson and four other members of the

Crew were tried together. Following the trial, the jury

convicted Blackson on one count of conspiracy to distribute and

possess with intent to distribute narcotics, one count of

conspiracy to participate in a racketeer influenced corrupt

organization, eleven counts of distributing phencyclidine (PCP),

two counts of possessing with intent to distribute the drug

“ecstasy,” and two firearms-related offenses. The jury did not

find Blackson guilty of one additional count of PCP distribution

(Count 31), which the government conceded it had failed to

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prove. In fact, Count 31 did not even appear on the verdict form

submitted to the jury. Nonetheless, in what the government later

acknowledged was a clerical error, Blackson’s district court

judgment showed that he had been convicted on Count 31. 

Following the jury verdict, the district court sentenced

Blackson to concurrent 360-month terms of incarceration for all

of the counts relevant here, including Count 31. The sentence

included an enhancement for playing a managerial role in the

drug ring, pursuant to United States Sentencing Guideline

§ 3B1.1(b). 

Blackson and his co-defendants appealed their convictions

and sentences to a panel of this court. See United States v.

Wilson, 605 F.3d 985, 1002-03 (D.C. Cir. 2010). Blackson

raised two challenges relevant to this case. First, Blackson

asked the court to find that the district court had abused its

discretion by applying the managerial role enhancement. This

court found, however, that the district court “had a sufficient

basis to conclude that Blackson was a manager/supervisor” in

the M Street Crew, although some evidence adduced at trial

“might have tended to show that Blackson was at the bottom

level of the conspiracy.” Id. at 1039. 

Blackson had more success with his second challenge,

which was to the inclusion of Count 31 in the district court’s

judgment. This court found that the judgment erroneously listed

Count 31 as a conviction and that the error affected Blackson’s

substantial rights because it “may have affected [his] sentence.” 

Id. at 1032. The court “therefore reverse[d] Blackson’s

conviction on Count 31 and remand[ed] for resentencing.” Id.

Because the language of the panel’s remand order is relevant to

this case, we quote it here in full: 

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For the foregoing reasons, except for Blackson’s

judgment as to Count 31, we affirm the district court’s

judgments. We vacate Blackson’s judgment on Count

31 and remand to the district court for further

proceedings consistent with this opinion.

Id. at 1039. 

At Blackson’s resentencing hearing, the defendant and the

government presented the district court with contrary views

regarding the scope of issues the court could consider on

resentencing. Citing Sixth Circuit cases authorizing de novo

resentencing after remand, Blackson urged the court to weigh

anew all of the sentencing factors listed in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). 

Def.’s Mem. in Aid of Resentencing at 2 (J.A. 37) (citing United

States v. Helton, 349 F.3d 295, 299 (6th Cir. 2003); United

States v. Moore, 131 F.3d 595, 598 (6th Cir. 1997)). 

Specifically, Blackson asked the district court to reconsider the

managerial role enhancement that this court had sustained. He

also asked for a downward variance from the Sentencing

Guidelines for his willingness to testify for the defense at the

trial of his former associate, Larry Gooch, which took place after

his own initial sentencing. The government disputed both the

defendant’s general characterization of the district court’s

remand authority as “de novo” and the specific contention that

the district court had authority to reconsider the enhancement

and consider the testimony. See Resentencing Hr’g Tr. at 12-13

(May 6, 2011). In the government’s view, the remand was

“ministerial,” id. at 10, meaning that the trial court was only

authorized to decide what Count 31 “meant in the entire

sentencing scheme” and “what the sentence would have been if

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the trial court had [realized] that Count 31 was not a Count of

conviction,” id. at 11.1

After listening to each side’s arguments at the resentencing

hearing, the district judge said that she “really wanted to

reconsider this in full,” id. at 16, notwithstanding that the

original 360-month sentence “was formulated specifically with

Mr. Blackson in mind,” id. at 15. But after considering “what

I had the flexibility to do and then what I thought I should do if

I had the flexibility,” id. at 16, the judge concluded:

[G]iven the number of counts and the complexity of

this all with the multiple defendants and the multiple

counts and everything, the Circuit did not want to

presume how this Count improperly included in the

judgment might have influenced the judgment and

without it might some way fall and so they sent it back

for that purpose alone . . . . to that extent I accept the

ministerial point made by the Government. 

Id. at 17. Regarding Blackson’s managerial role enhancement,

the judge said that, “even if I wanted to reconsider it[,] I don’t

think I can.” Id. at 18. Finally, as to Blackson’s testimony at

the Gooch trial, the court found:

I don’t even have to go there to find that the testimony

whether admirable, honorable or . . . perjurious,

1

 The government’s sentencing memorandum also suggested that,

if the district court did consider Blackson’s role in the Gooch trial, it

should impose an “upwards departure for the perjury he committed

while testifying on behalf of his M Street Crew member.” Gov’t

Reply to Def.’s Mem. for De Novo Resentencing at 3 (J.A. 48).

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whatever it was, I don’t think it has an impact on how

I should consider sentencing for the crimes for which

Mr. Blackson was convicted beyond a reasonable

doubt by a jury after hearing months and months of

evidence. 

Id. at 19. 

Thereafter, the district court reimposed the original 360-

month sentence, reasoning that vacated Count 31 “really was

just an additional Count but it carried no independent weight as

to the sentences.” Id.; see also Am. Judgment at 3 (J.A. 27). 

Blackson now appeals, contending that the district court took an

overly narrow view of the scope of issues it could consider on

remand. 

II

We begin by collecting in one place this circuit’s rules

regarding the scope of a district court’s resentencing authority

under a remand order that, like the order in this case, contains no

express instructions regarding which issues the district court

may consider. 

First, as we said in United States v. Lyons and reaffirmed in

United States v. Whren, when this court vacates one count of a

multi-count conviction, the district court on remand should

begin by determining whether that count affected the overall

sentence and, if so, should reconsider the original sentence it

imposed. Lyons, 706 F.2d 321, 335 n.25 (D.C. Cir. 1983);

Whren, 111 F.3d 956, 958 (D.C. Cir. 1997). Second, under

Whren, the district court may also consider “such new

arguments or new facts as are made newly relevant by the court

of appeals’ decision -- whether by the reasoning or by the

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result.” 111 F.3d at 960. Third, the district court is further

authorized to consider facts that did not exist at the time of the

original sentencing: for example, in United States v. Rhodes we

held that the district court could consider rehabilitation efforts

that the defendant had undertaken since receiving his original

sentence. 145 F.3d 1375, 1377-78 (D.C. Cir. 1998); see also

Whren, 111 F.3d at 960 (“A defendant should not be held to

have waived an issue if he did not have a reason to raise it at his

original sentencing.”). 

Beyond these three categories of inquiry, however, the

district court does not generally have authority to consider other

objections at resentencing -- unless the remanding court has

expressly directed otherwise. See Whren, 111 F.3d at 958-60.2

Accordingly, unlike the rule in some circuits, in this circuit the

district court generally does not have authority to resentence a

defendant de novo. Id. at 959-60 (rejecting the de novo

approach to resentencing followed by several other circuits,

including the Sixth). 

2 Whren recognized one important caveat: “under Federal Rule

of Criminal Procedure 52(b) the resentencing court may consider even

an issue raised belatedly” if it constitutes plain error. 111 F.3d at 960. 

Since Whren, we have also held that the resentencing court may

consider arguments not raised at the original sentencing when the

argument’s relevance to the sentence was contingent on a

circumstance that did not materialize at the original sentencing but that

did come to pass by the time resentencing occurred, and where the

defendant establishes good cause for not having raised the argument

sooner. United States v. McCoy, 313 F.3d 561, 561-62 (D.C. Cir.

2002) (en banc). Neither of these circumstances is presented in this

case. 

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Blackson maintains that our decision in Whren is “of

questionable validity” after the Supreme Court’s subsequent

decision in Pepper v. United States, 131 S. Ct. 1229 (2011), and

that district courts may now undertake de novo reconsideration

upon almost all sentencing remands. Appellant’s Br. at 22; see

Oral Arg. Recording at 4:27 - 4:45. We disagree.

Pepper stands for several propositions, none of which

conflict with our circuit’s caselaw. In Pepper, the Court held

that, “when a defendant’s sentence has been set aside on appeal,

a district court at resentencing may consider evidence of the

defendant’s postsentencing rehabilitation.” 131 S. Ct. at 1236. 

This holding should sound familiar because, as noted above, we

reached the same conclusion thirteen years earlier in Rhodes. 

See 145 F.3d at 1377-78. Although only dicta, language in

Pepper suggests that the resentencing court’s authority extends

not only to evidence of post-sentencing rehabilitation, but also

to evidence of other “conduct since [the] initial sentencing.” 

131 S. Ct. at 1242; see id. at 1246-47, 1249. As the Court

explained, such post-sentencing conduct “constitutes a critical

part of the ‘history and characteristics’ of a defendant that

Congress intended sentencing courts to consider.” Id. at 1242

(quoting 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)); see id. at 1246-47 (“[W]e see no

general congressional policy . . . to preclude resentencing courts

from considering postsentencing information”). We draw the

same lesson from Rhodes, see infra Part III.3, and therefore find

only support in Pepper on this point as well.

Pepper also made clear that the Supreme Court’s instruction

to district courts in United States v. Booker -- that they should

“treat the [Sentencing] Guidelines as ‘effectively advisory,’”

131 S. Ct. at 1241 (quoting Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 245 (2005)) --

extends to sentencing remands as well. Id. at 1243-46. 

Accordingly, the Court held that evidence of post-sentencing

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rehabilitation “may, in appropriate cases, support a downward

variance from the now-advisory Federal Sentencing Guidelines

range.” Id. at 1236. Nothing in this circuit’s caselaw is to the

contrary.

Finally, Pepper held that, “because the Court of Appeals [in

that case had] remanded for de novo resentencing,” the district

court “was not bound by the law of the case doctrine to apply

the same . . . percent departure [from the Guidelines] that had

been applied at [the defendant’s] prior sentencing.” Id. at 1251. 

Contrary to Blackson’s suggestion, this holding does not mean

that the district court in his case was authorized to reconsider his

managerial enhancement notwithstanding that it did not involve

a “new argument[] or new fact[] . . . made newly relevant by

[our] decision” on his first appeal, as Whren requires. 111 F.3d

at 960. This is so for the obvious reason that, unlike the Court

of Appeals in Pepper, we did not remand for de novo

resentencing. 

To be sure, Pepper did note that “[a] criminal sentence is a

package of sanctions that the district court utilizes to effectuate

its sentencing intent.” 131 S. Ct. at 1251 (internal quotation

marks omitted). Hence, “[b]ecause a district court's original

sentencing intent may be undermined by altering one portion of

the calculus, an appellate court when reversing one part of a

defendant's sentence may vacate the entire sentence . . . so that,

on remand, the trial court can reconfigure the sentencing plan

. . . to satisfy the sentencing factors in 18 U.S.C. §3553(a).” Id.

(internal quotation marks and citations omitted) (emphasis

added). But this circuit accomplishes that end by permitting the

district court to reconsider whether its “sentence on a valid

conviction was influenced by a conviction on a separate count

that is later overturned on appeal,” not by permitting it to

reconsider issues that were not “in any way related to this court's

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vacatur of the [separate] count.” Whren, 111 F.3d at 958

(internal quotation marks omitted). Nothing precludes an

appellate court from limiting the scope of its remands in this

way.3 To the contrary, Pepper stated that it did not “mean to

preclude courts of appeals from issuing limited remand orders,

in appropriate cases, that may [even] render evidence of

postsentencing rehabilitation irrelevant in light of the narrow

purposes of the remand proceeding.” 131 S. Ct. at 1249 n.17

(citing United States v. Bernardo Sanchez, 569 F.3d 995, 1000

(9th Cir. 2009)).4

In sum, Pepper does nothing to undermine this circuit’s

general resentencing rules. Accordingly, in the absence of

specific remand instructions, the general rules set forth in Lyons,

Whren, and Rhodes continue to define the scope of a district

court’s authority on remand. We now consider whether the

district court properly applied those rules in this case.

3 See 18 U.S.C. § 3742(f)(1) (“If the court of appeals determines

that . . . the sentence was imposed in violation of law[,] . . . the court

shall remand the case for further sentencing proceedings with such

instructions as the court considers appropriate”) (emphasis added);

id. at 3742(g) (“A district court to which a case is remanded pursuant

to subsection (f)(1) . . . shall resentence a defendant in accordance

with section 3553 and with such instructions as may be given by the

court of appeals . . . .”) (emphasis added).

4

 In Bernardo Sanchez, the Ninth Circuit held that, when it

ordered a remand limited to the question of whether the district court

would have imposed the same sentence had it known Booker would

render the Sentencing Guidelines advisory, the district court was not

authorized to consider post-sentencing information. 569 F.3d at 1000.

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III

For the following reasons, we conclude that the district

court did correctly understand and follow this circuit’s law at

Blackson’s resentencing.

1. This court’s remand order in Blackson’s first appeal was

consistent with our general rule that, upon remand from an

appellate decision overturning one of multiple separate

convictions, the district court should examine the sentence it

imposed to determine whether it was influenced by the vacated

count. Lyons, 706 F.2d at 335 n.25. In Blackson’s first appeal,

we held that the judgment erroneously listed a conviction on

Count 31 and that this error affected the defendant’s substantial

rights because it “may have affected Blackson’s sentence.” 

Wilson, 605 F.3d at 1032. We “therefore reverse[d] Blackson’s

conviction on Count 31 and remand[ed] for resentencing.” Id.

(emphasis added). If we had not expected the district court on

remand to consider whether and how Count 31 affected the

original sentence, there would have been no need to remand for

resentencing at all; we could simply have directed the court to

vacate the count without touching the sentence. Instead, we

“vacate[d] Blackson’s judgment on Count 31 and remand[ed] to

the district court for further proceedings consistent with this

opinion.” Id. at 1039 (emphasis added). Moreover, if the

district court had merely reimposed the original sentence

without considering the effect of Count 31, we would be back

where we started: we would have no way of knowing whether

the erroneous conviction actually affected Blackson’s sentence,

and hence no way of knowing whether his substantial rights had

been violated.

Blackson maintains that the district court did not understand

that its authority extended at least this far, but rather thought that

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it could do no more than vacate Count 31 and its associated

sentence. That is incorrect. Although the court “accept[ed] the

ministerial point” advanced by the government, it did so “to

th[e] extent” that it recognized it should not only vacate Count

31 but also consider whether that count “might have influenced”

the overall sentence. Resentencing Hr’g Tr. at 17. The court

then properly proceeded to evaluate whether Count 31 affected

the overall sentence. Unfortunately for Blackson, the court

concluded that it “really was just an additional Count” that

“carried no independent weight.” Id. at 19. 

2. The district court also properly understood that it should

not reconsider its original decision to give a Sentencing

Guidelines enhancement for Blackson’s managerial role in the

M Street Crew. See Resentencing Hr’g Tr. at 18 (“I think that

has been sustained on appeal. . . . I agree . . . that even if I

wanted to reconsider it[,] I don’t think I can.”). On Blackson’s

first appeal, this court affirmed the district court’s original

decision that the enhancement was warranted. Wilson, 605 F.3d

at 1038-39. We vacated the erroneous conviction on Count 31,

however, and we remanded for resentencing because we could

not determine whether the conviction on that count affected

Blackson’s overall sentence. Id. at 1032. In that context, our

instruction that the case be “remand[ed] to the district court for

further proceedings consistent with this opinion,” id. at 1039

(emphasis added), cannot be read as specifically authorizing

reconsideration of the enhancement that we had just affirmed --

let alone as authorizing an entirely de novo resentencing as

Blackson insists.

As we have said, in the absence of more specific remand

instructions, the general rules for resentencing set forth in Lyons,

Whren, and Rhodes apply. Blackson’s managerial role

enhancement does not fall within any of them. He has not

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suggested any way in which that particular sentencing

enhancement could have been influenced by his overturned

conviction on Count 31. See Whren, 111 F.3d at 958; Lyons,

706 F.2d at 335 n.25. Nor has he raised any other “new

arguments or new facts . . . made newly relevant” by our

decision on the first appeal. Whren, 111 F.3d at 960. Nor has

he proffered any facts relevant to the enhancement that did not

exist at the time of his original sentencing. See Rhodes, 145

F.3d at 1377-78. Moreover, Blackson’s initial sentencing was

conducted after Booker rendered the Guidelines advisory, and

there is no indication (and no suggestion) that the district court

failed to understand that point at either the sentencing or the

resentencing. The court was therefore correct not to reopen the

question of Blackson’s managerial role. See Whren, 111 F.3d at

958-60.

3. Finally, and contrary to the government’s argument on

appeal, the district court was authorized to entertain Blackson’s

request to consider the fact that he voluntarily testified at

Gooch’s trial, which took place after Blackson’s initial

sentencing. Rhodes expressly permits a resentencing court to

consider arguments based on facts that did not exist at the time

of the initial sentencing. 145 F.3d at 1377-78 (rejecting the

view that “Whren limits resentencing to facts existing at the time

of original sentencing.”). And there is no reason to distinguish

new facts related to post-sentencing testimony from the new

facts related to post-sentencing rehabilitation that were at issue

in Rhodes. As noted above, at least in dicta Pepper also treats

the two as the same.

The government contends that Rhodes is different from this

case because the remand instruction in Rhodes invited the

district court to consider a broader range of topics on

resentencing. That is not correct. In the first Rhodes appeal, a

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panel of this court reversed one of the defendant’s three

convictions and remanded for possible resentencing “taking into

account the provisions of [Sentencing Guideline]

§ 2D1.1(b)(1),” which provides a sentencing enhancement if the

defendant possessed a dangerous weapon. United States v.

Rhodes, 106 F.3d 429, 433 (D.C. Cir. 1997). Notwithstanding

that this language did not, by itself, invite consideration of the

defendant’s post-sentencing behavior, we held in the second

Rhodes appeal that the district court was authorized to consider

rehabilitation efforts undertaken by the defendant since

receiving his initial sentence. 145 F.3d at 1377-78. There is no

relevant difference between the Rhodes remand order, which

directed that resentencing take into account one specific

Guidelines enhancement, and the remand order in this case,

which directed that resentencing take into account the effect that

vacated Count 31 may have had on the original sentence. We

therefore reject the government’s contention that the remand

order in this case renders the Rhodes rule inapplicable.

Nonetheless, although the government misunderstands

Rhodes, the district court did not. The record shows that, at

resentencing, the court did consider whether Blackson’s

willingness to testify for the defense at the subsequent trial of

his friend should affect Blackson’s own sentence. But -- again,

unfortunately for Blackson -- the judge concluded that she “d[id

not] think it has an impact on how I should consider sentencing

for the crimes for which Mr. Blackson was convicted beyond a

reasonable doubt by a jury after hearing months and months of

evidence.” Resentencing Hr’g Tr. at 19. 

This conclusion was well within the district court’s

sentencing discretion. At oral argument on this appeal,

Blackson suggested that we should demand a clearer statement

from the district court that it knew it had authority to consider

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his willingness to testify at the Gooch trial as part of his

resentencing. But Rhodes indicated that a resentencing court

may consider new facts that arise after a defendant’s original

sentencing, a point that Pepper underlined just two months

before Blackson’s resentencing. And the district court did

consider such facts with respect to the Gooch testimony. 

Nothing more is required to demonstrate that the court

understood the scope of its authority.

IV

Because the district court neither misunderstood its

authority nor erred in exercising that authority, the judgment of

the district court is

Affirmed.

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