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Parties Involved:
Sealed Case

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

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Argued January 27, 2000 Decided March 14, 2000

No. 97-3104

In re: Sealed Case

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Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 96cr00095-01)

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Evelina J. Norwinski, Assistant Federal Public Defender,

argued the cause for appellant. A.J. Kramer, Federal Public

Defender, Carmen D. Hernandez and Reita Pendry, Assistant Federal Public Defenders were on the briefs.

Elizabeth H. Danello, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the

cause for appellee. With her on the brief were Wilma A.

Lewis, U.S. Attorney, John R. Fisher and Patricia Stewart,

Assistant U.S. Attorneys.

Before: Edwards, Chief Judge, Ginsburg and Rogers,

Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge Rogers.

Rogers, Circuit Judge: In In re Sealed Case No. 97-3112

(Sentencing Guidelines' "Substantial Assistance"), 181 F.3d

128 (D.C. Cir. 1999) (in banc), the court held that a district

court may not invoke s 5K1.1 of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines ("U.S.S.G." or "the Guidelines") to sentence a criminal

defendant below the guideline range for the prescribed offense except upon motion by the government " 'stating that

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the defendant has provided substantial assistance in the

investigation or prosecution of another person who has committed an offense.' " Id. at 130 (quoting U.S.S.G. s 5K1.1,

p.s. (1997)). Appellant contends that there is an exception to

the motion requirement where the assistance relates to a

District of Columbia offense, and hence the district court

erred in denying his departure request. Specifically, he

contends that the term "offense" in s 5K1.1 refers solely to

federal offenses, and that he thus may receive a departure

below the level prescribed by the Guidelines on the basis of

his assistance to law enforcement officers with regard to a

homicide prosecution under the District of Columbia Code,

even though the government never filed a motion in support

of such departure. Because appellant never presented this

argument to the district court, our review is for plain error

and we find none.

I.

"[A] request for an adjustment under the Guidelines is

[forfeited] if the argument is not made at sentencing," and

this court "will review sentencing issues raised for the first

time on appeal [only] for 'plain error.' " United States v.

Foster, 988 F.2d 206, 209 (D.C. Cir. 1993); see United States

v. Klat, 156 F.3d 1258, 1267 (D.C. Cir. 1998) (plain error

review applied to departures as well as adjustments not

requested in the district court); United States v. Ortez, 902

F.2d 61, 64 (D.C. Cir. 1990); see also United States v. Olano,

507 U.S. 725, 731 (1993). While our plain error review in the

sentencing context requires a "slightly less exacting" showing

of prejudice than for trial errors, see United States v. Saro,

24 F.3d 283, 287 (D.C. Cir. 1994), an appellant must still show

that "from the perspective of the trial court[,] the error [was]

'so "plain" [that] the trial judge and prosecutor were derelict

in countenancing it, even absent the defendant's timely assistance in detecting it.' " Id. at 286 (quoting United States v.

Frady, 456 U.S. 152, 163 (1982)).

0

Appellant pleaded guilty to one count of a ten count

indictment, and was sentenced to 57 months' imprisonment

after receiving a downward departure under United States v.

Smith, 27 F.3d 649 (D.C. Cir. 1994). In appealing his sentence, he concedes that in seeking a downward departure for

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cooperation that he had provided to the government in connection with a homicide prosecution in the Superior Court of

the District of Columbia, he did not specifically argue in the

district court that s 5K1.1 was inapplicable because his cooperation related to a non-federal offense. The closest he came

to raising the issue was when he stated in his first memorandum in aid of sentencing that "under U.S.S.G. s 5K2.0 ...

[his] assistance augurs in favor of a downward departure."1

Appellant made no mention of s 5K1.1 as a separate ground

and did not explain why s 5K2.0 authorized departure in his

case. In his second memorandum in aid of sentencing he

argued that s 5K1.1 was invalid because Congress had mandated that departures based upon cooperation with the government be addressed through sentencing guidelines while

s 5K1.1 is a policy statement,2 and that the district court

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1 Section 5K2.0 identifies "some of the factors that the [U.S.

Sentencing] Commission has not been able to take into account fully

in formulating the [G]uidelines", in order to provide guidance to

courts in applying 18 U.S.C. s 3553(b)(1997). Thus the Guideline,

in discussing s 3553(b), states that a court:

may impose a sentence outside the range established by the

applicable guideline, if the court finds 'that there exists an

aggravating or mitigating circumstance of a kind, or to a

degree, not adequately taken into consideration by the Sentencing Commission in formulating the guidelines that should

result in a sentence different from that described.'

U.S.S.G. s 5K2.0, p.s. (1997) (quoting 18 U.S.C. s 3553(b)).

2 This argument has since been rejected by In re Sealed Case No.

97-3112, 149 F.3d 1198, 1200-01 (D.C. Cir. 1998), vacated in part on

other grounds, 159 F.3d 1362 (D.C. Cir. 1998). See also In re

Sealed Case No. 97-3112, 181 F.3d at 131 n.3. Furthermore, the

argument is unpersuasive on its face, inasmuch as Congress expressly authorized the Sentencing Commission to issue general

policy statements regarding application of the Guidelines. See 28

U.S.C. s 994(a)(2)(1993). Indeed, the court's language in rejecting

this position was unequivocal: "we have no doubt that the Commission's decision to issue a policy statement rather than a guideline in

response to section 994(n) amounted to a permissible, if not the only

reasonable, construction of the statute." In re Sealed Case No.

97-3112, 149 F.3d at 1201.

thus retained general authority under 18 U.S.C. s 3553(b) to

depart on the basis of his cooperation, even absent a government motion for departure. At a subsequent hearing, the

district court rejected appellant's s 5K1.1 argument, ruling

that it lacked authority to depart on the basis of appellant's

cooperation "in the absence of a 5K1.1 letter" from the

government. Thus, appellant never argued to the district

court that s 5K1.1, or any other authority, authorized departure absent a government motion because of the non-federal

case on which appellant assisted the government.

On appeal appellant contends only that the district court

erred in failing to depart under s 5K2.0, given the nonfederal nature of the offense on which he assisted the government. Yet contrary to appellant's apparent position, it is not

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enough for purposes of preserving an argument for appeal for

the defendant to discuss the general circumstances of his case

without in some manner signaling to the district court how

those circumstances bear on the district court's authority to

grant a downward departure request in the absence of a

government motion. As the court has recently observed in

an analogous case:

To be sure, Vizcaino was not required to state the issue

as clearly as appellate counsel has, or, for that matter,

even to cite to section 5K2.0 in order to preserve the

issue for appeal. But absent any statement that the

district court could have reasonably interpreted as arguing that crack so distorted the sentence as to take it out

of the Guidelines' heartland, we cannot conclude that

Vizcaino preserved the issue.

United States v. Vizcaino, No. 99-3033, 2000 WL 126769, at

*3 (D.C. Cir. Feb. 15, 2000) (and distinguishing United States

v. Beckham, 968 F.2d 47 (D.C. Cir. 1992)). So too here,

appellant never made the argument to the district court that

he raises on appeal, and to the extent that he referred to

s 5K2.0 and s 3553(b), he never suggested to the district

court why either would entitle him to a departure because of

his non-federal cooperation, while his reliance on the latter

was based upon an argument since rejected by this court.

See supra note 2. Therefore, because the issue of whether

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the district court had authority to depart under s 5K2.0

based on appellant's assistance on a non-federal offense was

never presented in the district court, it was forfeited and our

review is for plain error. See Vizcaino, 2000 WL 126769, at

*3; Saro, 24 F.3d at 286.

The only question, therefore, is whether it was incumbent

on the district court sua sponte to consider whether s 5K1.1

was inapplicable to appellant's request for departure based

upon his cooperation in connection with a homicide prosecution under District of Columbia law because the issue was

"plain," that is, either because the language of s 5K1.1 distinguished between federal and local offenses, or there was

persuasive judicial authority for making that distinction, or

the legal norm at issue was absolutely clear. See United

States v. Merlos, 8 F.3d 48, 51 (D.C. Cir. 1993). Appellant

does not suggest that the latter consideration is relevant

here, and we agree. Thus, absent clear language in the

Guidelines, or precedent from the Supreme Court, this court,

or another circuit court of appeals at the time of appellant's

sentencing that s 5K1.1 applied only to cooperation in connection with federal offenses, it would seem to follow that the

"failure to recognize authority to depart ... falls far short of

plain error." Vizcaino, 2000 WL 126769, at *3.

The language of s 5K1.1 makes no distinction between

local and federal offenses and merely uses the term "offense":

"Upon motion of the government stating that the defendant

has provided substantial assistance in the investigation or

prosecution of another person who has committed an offense,

the court may depart from the guidelines." U.S.S.G. s 5K1.1

(first paragraph). Essentially, appellant maintains that according to the definition of "offense" in the Commentary to

s 1B1.1,3 the meaning of that term as used in s 5K1.1 must

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3 The commentary to s 1B1.1 provides in relevant part:

"Offense" means the offense of conviction and all relevant

conduct under s 1B1.3 (Relevant Conduct) unless a different

meaning is specified or is otherwise clear from the context.

The term "instant" is used in connection with "offense," "federal offense," or "offense of conviction" as the case may be, to

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be determined contextually; that is, in appellant's view, the

narrow definition of "offense" in s 1B1.1 "does not fit the

s 5K1.1 formulation" because it refers to the offense of

conviction rather than the offense to which assistance was

provided. Because, appellant maintains, the Guidelines always refer expressly to non-federal offenses when they are to

be included in the term "offense," the unadorned use of that

term in s 5K1.1 should be interpreted to refer only to federal

offenses. Appellant also relies on the fact that the Guidelines

have sometimes included a separate definition when offenses

under state, tribal, or military law are to be included. Yet for

plain error purposes it is not obvious that offenses under

District of Columbia law are excluded from s 5K1.1.

First, the second sentence in the definition commentary to

s 1B1.1 indicates that the term "offense" is broader than

federal offenses. That explicit statements exist in other

sections of the Guidelines describing the covered offenses to

include non-federal offenses is hardly dispositive on plain

error review. Compare s 5K2.9 p.s. and s 5G1.3(b) with

s 2K2.1, comment (nn.7 & 14); s 4A1.1, comment (backg'd).

Indeed, to the extent that appellant relies on "[t]he legislative

antecedents of s 5K1.1," he suggests that there is nothing

obvious in s 5K1.1 to show that it excludes District of Columbia offenses.

Second, appellant's reliance on context is self-defeating.

Because of the unique prosecutorial arrangement in the District of Columbia, a sentencing judge in this district would be

particularly unlikely to see obvious error in applying s 5K1.1

to cooperation involving local prosecutions. Unlike other

districts in which the role of the United States Attorney does

not blur the distinction between federal and state prosecutions, the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia

serves as both a federal and District of Columbia prosecutor

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distinguish the violation for which the defendant is being

sentenced from a prior or subsequent offense, or from an

offense before another court (e.g. an offense before a state

court involving the same underlying conduct).

U.S.S.G. s 1B1.1, comment (n.1(l )).

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and even has authority to join local offenses to federal

charges. See D.C. Code ss 23-101(c),(d)(1981) (ann.).

Finally, appellant has not pointed to a single case decided

before his sentencing that supported his interpretation of

s 5K1.1. In fact, as of appellant's sentencing, the Second,

Third, and Ninth Circuits had all rejected his argument. See

United States v. Kaye, 65 F.3d 240, 242 (2d Cir. 1995),

vacated, 140 F.3d 86 (2d Cir. 1998); United States v. Emery,

34 F.3d 911, 913 (9th Cir. 1994); United States v. Love, 985

F.2d 732, 733 (3d Cir. 1993). Indeed, appellant's counsel

conceded during oral argument in this court that there was

no judicial authority whatsoever in his favor at the time of his

sentencing. Although the Second Circuit later reconsidered

its decision and adopted appellant's interpretation of s 5K1.1,

this decision upon reconsideration came after appellant was

sentenced and therefore does not influence our review for

plain error.

Because neither the language of s 5K1.1 nor judicial or

other authority in existence at the time of appellant's sentencing would have caused the district court on its own to have

considered that there might be such an issue in appellant's

favor, much less apposite authority even now to demonstrate

plain error, the district court did not plainly err in denying

appellant's request for a downward departure under s 5K2.0.

Accordingly, without reaching the merits of appellant's underlying legal argument, we affirm the judgment of conviction.

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