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Parties Involved:
Lawrence Hall
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Submitted February 3, 2016

Decided February 4, 2016

Before

DANIEL A. MANION, Circuit Judge

ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge

DAVID F. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge

No. 15-2118

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

LAWRENCE HALL,

Defendant-Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Northern District of Illinois, 

Eastern Division.

No. 11-CR-00230-2

Amy J. St. Eve,

Judge.

O R D E R

This is a direct appeal from a resentencing following our remand in United States 

v. Hall, No. 14-1230 (7th Cir. Feb. 18, 2015). For several years the appellant, Lawrence 

Hall, had helped his wife bilk elderly Chicagoans out of hundreds of thousands of 

dollars. Hall’s wife, posing as a fraud investigator, would call and convince the victims 

to turn over their debit cards, credit cards, and currency to one of several paid 

“runners” recruited by Hall. He would then drive the runners to merchants and direct 

them to buy merchandise with the stolen cards. After investigators uncovered the 

scheme, Hall pleaded guilty to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. See 18 U.S.C. 

§§ 1028A(a)(1), 1343. The district court initially sentenced him to consecutive prison 

terms of 96 months for the fraud conviction and 24 months for identify theft. Hall

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

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

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appealed, challenging only certain conditions of supervised release, and at the parties’

joint request we remanded for resentencing. At Hall’s resentencing the district court 

incorporated its rulings from the original sentencing. The court then shaved four 

months off Hall’s total imprisonment by shortening the fraud sentence to 92 months. 

The court imposed only those conditions of supervised release jointly agreed by the 

parties, with the exception of a condition allowing unannounced visits by Hall’s 

probation officer.

This time Hall’s appointed attorney asserts that the defendant’s appeal is 

frivolous and seeks to withdraw. See Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738 (1967). Hall has 

not responded to our invitation to comment on counsel’s motion. See CIR. R. 51(b). 

Counsel’s brief explains the nature of the case and addresses the potential issues that an 

appeal of this kind might be expected to involve. Because the analysis in the brief 

appears to be thorough, we limit our review to the subjects that counsel discusses. 

See United States v. Bey, 748 F.3d 774, 776 (7th Cir. 2014); United States v. Wagner, 

103 F.3d 551, 553 (7th Cir. 1996).

Counsel begins by observing that, because this is an appeal from a resentencing, 

Hall has waived any issue arising before the resentencing. See United States v. Swanson, 

483 F.3d 509, 514 (7th Cir. 2007); see also United States v. Sumner, 325 F.3d 884, 891–92 

(7th Cir. 2003) (explaining that law-of-the-case doctrine prohibits party from changing 

its litigation position during successive appeal unless justified by “intervening 

authority, new and previously undiscoverable evidence, or other changed 

circumstances”). Counsel then goes on to discuss potential challenges to two guidelines

adjustments that were imposed at the original sentencing (and again at resentencing). 

But those arguments are also waived because Hall could have raised them during the 

initial appeal, see United States v. Whitlow, 740 F.3d 433, 438 (7th Cir. 2014), so we need 

not address counsel’s discussion of why, separate from the waiver problem, those 

potential challenges would be frivolous.

Counsel next considers a challenge to the reasonableness of Hall’s total 

imprisonment. The two-year consecutive sentence that Hall received for aggravated 

identity theft was statutorily required, so any challenge to the reasonableness of that 

sentence would necessarily be frivolous. See 18 U.S.C. § 1028A(a)(1), (b); United States v. 

Johnson, 580 F.3d 666, 673 (7th Cir. 2009) (recognizing that district courts generally have 

no discretion to sentence below statutory minimum). The 92 months that Hall received 

for wire fraud is 4 months below Hall’s original sentence and 28 months below the 

bottom of the guidelines range. Below-guidelines sentences are presumptively 

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reasonable. See Rita v. United States, 551 U.S. 338, 347 (2007); United States v. Womack, 

732 F.3d 745, 747 (7th Cir. 2013). Counsel has not identified any reason to disturb that 

presumption, nor can we. The district court considered the relevant sentencing factors 

in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), including the nature and circumstances of the offense (observing 

that Hall had caused havoc for many vulnerable victims and had tried to threaten a 

codefendant into silence), his history and characteristics (referring to his twelve adult 

convictions, but also his difficult upbringing and efforts to obtain a GED), and the need 

to adequately punish Hall and deter him from committing future crimes.

Counsel also considers whether Hall could successfully challenge the conditions 

of his supervised release. Counsel notes that the parties jointly proposed all but one of 

those conditions, and all of them were pronounced by the district judge in open court. 

See United States v. Kappes, 782 F.3d 828, 838–39 (7th Cir. 2015). But counsel does not 

mention that two of these conditions are among those we have criticized previously. 

First, we have said that language requiring Hall to notify his probation officer of any 

change in employment leaves unclear whether this condition applies only to “changing 

employers or also includes changing from one position to another for the same 

employer at the same workplace.” United States v. Thompson, 777 F.3d 368, 379 (7th Cir. 

2015). Second, the condition prohibiting Hall from leaving the judicial district without 

permission “improperly imposes strict liability” because it lacks a scienter requirement. 

Kappes, 782 F.3d at 849–50. Hall submitted language in a joint sentencing memo that 

would have cured these ambiguities, but he didn’t object when the court imposed the 

conditions without the clarifying language. Moreover, we have no reason to believe that 

Hall would now wish to challenge these conditions, as counsel has not identified a 

potential argument related to them and Hall has not responded to the Anders brief. 

See United States v. Bryant, 754 F.3d 443, 447 (7th Cir. 2014). If Hall later finds the 

conditions problematic in application, he can seek modification to the extent authorized 

by 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(2). See United States v. Neal, No. 14-3473, 2016 WL 258622, at *6–8 

(7th Cir. Jan 21, 2016).

That leaves the condition to which Hall did object—the requirement that he 

permit a probation officer to visit him “at any reasonable time” at home, at work, or at 

school without advance notice and to confiscate any contraband observed in plain view.

At sentencing Hall argued that unannounced visits would infringe upon his right to 

privacy and were unnecessary in light of other conditions requiring him to keep in 

touch with his probation officer. In rejecting these concerns, the district court reasoned

that unannounced visits would facilitate supervision, help Hall reenter society, and 

deter future criminal conduct. This condition is narrower than similar conditions we’ve 

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criticized in the past, and the court gave reasons for imposing it. We thus agree with 

counsel that it would frivolous for Hall to argue that the court abused its discretion in 

overruling the objection. Compare United States v. Douglas, 806 F.3d 979, 985–86 (7th Cir. 

2015) (concluding that the district court adequately explained need for condition 

permitting probation officer to visit defendant at home “at any time”), and United States 

v. Armour, 804 F.3d 859, 870 (7th Cir. 2015) (same, where condition permitted visits 

between 6:00 a.m. and 11:00 p.m.), with United States v. Poulin, No. 14-2458, 

2016 WL 51387, at *8 (7th Cir. Jan. 5, 2016) (rejecting condition because district court 

made “no effort” to explain necessity of permitting visits “at any time”), and Kappes, 

782 F.3d at 850–51 (same).

Accordingly, we GRANT counsel’s motion to withdraw and DISMISS the appeal.

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