Source: https://www.justice.gov/crt/case-document/united-states-v-barnes-and-brown-reply-brief-0
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 08:48:32+00:00

Document:
1 The United States’ opening brief is cited as “U.S. Br. __.” Barnes’s and Brown’s response briefs are cited as “Barnes Br. __” and “Brown Br. __,” respectively. “Aplt. App. __” refers to pages in the appellant’s appendix.
Barnes’s and Brown’s advisory Sentencing Guidelines range of 70-87 months. Barnes’s sentence (24 months) is less than 35%, and Brown’s sentence (12 months) is less than 20%, of a minimum Guidelines sentence. Moreover, the district court’s analysis of the factors set out in 18 U.S.C. 3553(a) is substantially flawed, and its reasons for the huge downward variance are not persuasive. As a result, the court imposed “sentence amount[s] grossly at odds with the sentencing guidelines.” United States v. Morgan, 635 F. App’x 423, 452 (10th Cir. 2015) (unpublished).
also makes this “the unusual case” calling for reversal. United States v. Feemster, 572 F.3d 455, 464 (8th Cir. 2009) (en banc) (citation omitted).
To be clear, the United States is not arguing that the district court failed to adequately explain its reasons – i.e., that it made procedural errors − as Barnes assumes. Barnes Br. 7, 24, 38-40. Nor is this a case where the court mistakenly included an improper factor or neglected an essential one. Barnes Br. 7. Instead, the district court’s improper analysis of the Section 3553(a) factors resulted in sentences that are substantively unreasonable, i.e., the length of the sentences is not reasonable “given all [of] the circumstances of the case in light of the factors set forth in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a).” United States v. Friedman, 554 F.3d 1301, 1307 (10th Cir. 2009) (citation omitted).
28, 35, 39-41, 43.2 But a substantive challenge does not depend on specific objections below. United States v. Torres-Duenas, 461 F.3d 1178, 1182-1183 (10th Cir. 2006), cert. denied, 551 U.S. 1166 (2002); see United States v. Walker, 844 F.3d 1253, 1256 (10th Cir. 2017) (rejecting defendant’s waiver claims). Instead, review of the substantive reasonableness of a sentence requires a detailed analysis of the facts in light of the Section 3553(a) factors, an analysis that does not preclude examination of the court’s consideration of these factors and reasons for weighing them as it did.
In short, Barnes hopes to divert attention from the fact that the district court “only paid lip service to the § 3553(a) factors” by rebranding as “procedural” several aspects of the government’s challenge to the substantive reasonableness of defendants’ sentences. Barnes Br. 38-39. But this failure goes to the heart of the sentences’ substantive reasonableness. See Walker, 844 F.3d at 1258 (vacating sentence as substantively unreasonable where court “gave inadequate attention” to deterrence and “never mentioned” incapacitation). This Court in Morgan, for example, concluded that, in assessing substantive reasonableness, “[t]he court paid only lip service to the seriousness of the offense and its harm to * * * public faith in legitimate state government.” Morgan, 635 F. App’x at 448-449.
2 We note, however, that the United States did object to both sentences on substantive and procedural reasonableness grounds at the end of the sentencing hearings. Aplt. App. 613, 654.
3 Barnes takes issue with the government’s use of term “reduced” sentences in its opening brief to describe the district court’s downward variances. Barnes Br. 18. Barnes asserts that this is a “skewed characterization” of the court’s sentencing analysis because “[b]efore the district court announced the sentence, there was no other sentence. Thus the sentence was not reduced.” Barnes Br. 18-19; see generally Barnes Br. 7, 17-19. It is difficult to see how the government’s occasional use of this adjective undermines its argument that the sentences were substantively unreasonable. In any event, this Court analogously views a substantial downward variance as “a diminished sentence.” United States v. Morgan, 635 F. App’x 423, 445 (10th Cir. 2015) (quoting United States v.
Barnes asserts that the district court appropriately fashioned his sentence to reflect his motive for the crimes, i.e., that “a show of strength and control may have served a purpose in the control of disorderly inmates and the overall safety of the jail staff.” Barnes Br. 4, 6 (quoting Aplt. App. 609); see also Barnes Br. 7. The motive for defendants’ crimes is an important consideration here, but it does not – and should not – have helped Barnes. Barnes exercised such “control” (Barnes Br. 4), for example, when he instructed jailers that in pulling inmate Jace Rice out of the van, they should ensure that “the first thing that touched the ground [was] his head,” United States v. Brown, 654 F. App’x 896, 900 (10th Cir.) (unpublished) (alteration in original), cert. denied, 137 S. Ct. 237 (2016).
Musgrave, 761 F.3d 602, 608 (6th Cir. 2014)). And other cases have described downward variances as “reduce[d]” sentences. United States v. Smith, 860 F.3d 508, 517 (7th Cir. 2017) United States v. Huitron-Guizar, 678 F.3d 1164, 1171 (10th Cir.), cert. denied, 568 U.S. 893 (2012). Evaluating a variance as a “reduced” sentence does not “inaccurately portray the federal sentencing system.” Barnes Br. 18.
happen to [him] again or even worse.” Brown, 654 F. App’x at 900 (alteration in original) (citation omitted); see also ibid. (similarly threatening inmate Gary Torix, who had received similar violent treatment). But as this Court observed, noting that the inmates involved in the “Meet and Greets” were “calm” and in restraints, thus posing no threat, “[t]he only proffered justification for the force used against these inmates was to discourage future repetition of their alleged past bad behavior. Such punitive treatment does not serve a legitimate penological purpose.” Id. at 911 (emphasis omitted). In short, defendants’ intentions were not laudable or mitigating; they were entirely improper. Moreover, Barnes’s alleged goal of managing difficult inmates cannot account for his gratuitous and vicious assault on inmate Jeremy Armstead, who was simply standing in the medical hallway and did nothing to provoke the use of force. See U.S. Br. 8.
4 Barnes suggests that Thames and Koon are inapposite because sentencing procedures have changed since they were decided. Barnes Br. 19. But the fact that the sentencing Guidelines are now advisory does not suggest that a defendant’s status as a law enforcement officer in an excessive force case is now somehow a mitigating sentencing factor.
systemic pattern of conduct in which Barnes and Brown orchestrated the abuse of inmates and covered their tracks afterward. Therefore, cases involving crimes motived by anger or heat-of-passion do not help defendants.
Finally, crimes by law enforcement officers not only deserve greater punishment, they require greater deterrence. U.S. Br. 33-34. The need for deterrence is “a crucial factor” in cases involving “breach of trust,” Morgan, 635 F. App’x at 450, and it does not depend on officers’ motives. Barnes is wrong to assume that his two-year sentence would adequately deter other corrections officers simply because it is more severe than punishment under state law for “a misdemeanor crime of battery.” Barnes Br. 37.
In considering the nature and circumstances of the crime, the district court unreasonably found certain factors to be ameliorating that, by any reasonable assessment, do not warrant special leniency and do not justify major downward variances.
severity of the offense” in any way that could begin to justify a drastic departure from the Guidelines. Aplt. App. 647. It was unreasonable for the district court to conclude that the fact that defendants were pepper-sprayed by another jailer in the aftermath of their own unlawful assault on an inmate somehow reduced the seriousness of their crimes and (at least in part) justified a downward variance.
Rather than accept the fact that the Murphy incident does not put defendants’ pattern of unprovoked assaults on inmates in a favorable light, Barnes seeks to reframe the government’s objection as a “procedural error” that was “forfeited” and thus not preserved. Barnes Br. 7, 24-25. This misses the point. The United States does not claim that this event is not factually established or is “off-limits as a matter of law.” Barnes Br. 7, 26. Instead, the incident is not reasonably ameliorative and provides no persuasive ground for a variance. See U.S. Br. 39-40 (arguing it was “unreasonable for the court to weigh” the incident as mitigating).
culpability. Morgan, 635 F. App’x at 449-450 (discussing substantive error in basing sentence on numerous letters of support which, considering the context of the crime and defendant’s political allies, were “not surprising”). In this instance, the district court did just that.
Barnes’s effort to evade the substantive error by parsing it as procedural challenge is similar to the arguments this Court rejected in Walker, 844 F.3d at 1256. There, as the Court put it, the “the government d[id] not object to the consideration” of Walker’s pretrial stay in a drug treatment program. Ibid. (emphasis added). “Instead, the government argues that [Walker’s] progress could not justify a time-served sentence. For this argument, the government had no reason to object” and it “did not waive its argument on substantive reasonableness.” Ibid.
Defendants argue that their lack of prior criminal history justifies their light sentences. Barnes Br. 28-30; Brown Br. 26. Like most Section 241 and 242 defendants, Barnes and Brown had no criminal record before the crimes at issue were uncovered. But this unsurprising circumstance, cited by the district court (Aplt. App. 642, 652, 918, 923), does nothing to distinguish these defendants from “defendants with similar records and Guideline calculations.” United States v.
Martinez, 610 F.3d 1216, 1228 (10th Cir.) (citation omitted), cert. denied, 562 U.S. 1019 (2010).
In discussing his criminal history, Barnes claims that the Guidelines are not nuanced enough, as they lump him into Category I with other defendants who theoretically may have had some “uncounted convictions” or an arrest. Barnes Br. 8; see also Barnes Br. 29. In essence, he claims his situation justifies the equivalent of a criminal history category of zero. Such hairsplitting distinctions cannot justify Barnes’s 46-month downward variance from the bottom of the Guidelines range. To put the size of this variance in perspective, if Barnes had a prior conviction putting him in Category II (rather than Category I), the bottom of the Guidelines range would have been a mere 8 months longer than that applied to Category I. United States Sentencing Commission, Sentencing Table, https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/guidelines-manual/2013/manual-pdf/Sentencing_Table.pdf; Aplt. App. 754.
criminal behavior was not aberrant; it was the routine way defendants “manage[d]” inmates. Barnes Br. 17. Given this pattern of misconduct, an extensive downward variance based on defendants’ criminal history is not reasonable.
Under a discretionary sentencing regime, a court may consider non-statutory factors such as family responsibilities. However, a court must still hand down a sentence with a “compelling * * * justification based on factors in section 3553(a).” Castro-Juarez, 425 F.3d at 433. And while defendants’ family ties and responsibilities are among those “factors [that] could reasonably support leniency,” Walker, 844 F.3d at 1257, courts generally consider them “only when extraordinary.” United States v. Loya-Castillo, 498 F. App’x 799, 802 (10th Cir. 2012) (unpublished), cert. denied, 133 S. Ct. 1296 (2013). Indeed, even under an advisory sentencing regime, “the law generally discourages district courts from taking [family responsibilities] into account.” United States v. Thompson, 518 F.3d 832, 868 (10th Cir.), cert. denied, 555 U.S. 993 (2008).
circumstances. For example, in United States v. Muñoz-Nava, 524 F.3d 1137, 1143 (10th Cir. 2008) (cited by Barnes Br. 33), defendant, a drug mule who pled guilty to one count of smuggling heroin, was the “primary caretaker and sole supporter” of his young son and elderly parents. The district court in Muñoz-Nava gave a “lengthy” and persuasive explanation for the variance, emphasizing “the seriousness of the non-custodial elements” of the unusual sentence (including a year of home confinement and five years of supervised release with extensive special conditions) that would allow defendant to attend to his family while facing just punishment. Id. at 1142-1143. Defendants here are not similarly situated to Muñoz-Nava. Defendants are not their dependents’ sole caretakers. Therefore, although family responsibilities can support a variance, they cannot support the magnitude of the variance here.
emphasized this collateral consequence, stating in its short statement of reasons for Barnes’s sentence that “[a]s a result of this conviction, the defendant will no longer be allowed to work in law enforcement and his life, as well as that of his family, has been significantly impacted.” Aplt. App. 611; Barnes Br. 34. The court reiterated the same finding in Brown’s sentencing. Aplt. App. 653, 923. Barnes’s insistence that the court did not stress this factor (Barnes Br. 34) is refuted by the record. Indeed, loss of career was the only individual circumstance the court gave in describing how the sentences imposed met the need for “just punishment.” Aplt. App. 611, 652-653, 918, 923. Defendants do not dispute, however, that loss of a job or career is a collateral consequence. As such, it does not bear on whether their sentences are just. See Morgan, 635 F. App’x at 444; U.S. Br. 30-32 (addressing this issue).
officer’s sentence and stating that “[l]osing one’s job and reputation are the normal consequences of committing a felony at work”).
635 F. App’x at 450; see also United States v. Bistline, 665 F.3d 758, 760, 765 (6th Cir. 2012), cert. denied, 568 U.S. 958 (2012). Accordingly, Barnes cannot evade this point by casting it, once again, as a procedural error.
Brown points to weakness of the evidence against him as the “most predominant factor” justifying his sentence, and a prominent factor in the court’s reasons. Brown Br. 23-24, 35-36. He argues that the “dearth of evidence certainly was not lost on the District Court” here, and that “[t]he weight of the evidence must also be considered” in evaluating the statutory sentencing factors. Brown Br. 23, 35. This argument offers little support for the sentence.
rely on a purported lack of evidence as the “the most predominant factor” justifying Brown’s light sentence. Brown Br. 23.
Brown’s offenses were serious, and the evidence shows it. As this Court has already held, evidence at trial established that Brown assaulted the inmates he was charged with protecting, conspired to violate constitutional rights, and lied to the FBI. Brown, 654 F. App’x at 908-909. This Court has already rejected Brown’s assertion that “the evidence presented was insufficient to prove that * * * he physically assaulted anyone.” Id. at 907. As this Court recounted, fellow-jailer Ashley Mullen testified that Brown pulled the handcuffed Herbert Potts from a vehicle and dragged him “onto the concrete pretty much face first.” Id. at 901, 908. Although the district court instructed the jury to disregard Mullen’s testimony about a separate assault when she could not identify the victim, “he did not instruct the jury to disregard her testimony regarding Potts,” and there is, as this Court has already explained, “no basis” for discounting it. Id. at 908 (citation omitted). Further, reviewing Brown’s prior claim that testimony about the assault on Alton Murphy was “not credible,” this Court noted contradictory descriptions but stated that “both indicate that Brown physically assaulted Murphy.” Id. at 909. In any event, “[e]ven if the distinction were material,” this Court explained, credibility is the jury’s province. Ibid.
Brown’s renewed arguments that various witnesses were “not credible or worthy of belief,” or that there were not enough witnesses against him (Brown Br. 1), is baseless. See United States v. Budd, 496 F.3d 517 (6th Cir. 2007) (rejecting as “totally meritless” defendant’s complaint that not all witnesses to a jailhouse assault identified him), cert. denied, 555 U.S. 814 (2008). Brown insists that there was “no credible evidence” that he physically harmed an inmate or instructed others to do so (Brown Br. 23), but this Court has already rejected Brown’s claims as “simply not true.” Brown, 654 F. App’x at 908. And, in any event, “[p]hysical assault is not a necessary element of either count” under Sections 241 and 242. Id. at 909. It follows that granting a downward variance based on a so-called lack of credible evidence that Brown harmed any inmates or instructed others to do so would not be reasonable.
had observed in similar criminal schemes” and it relied on the defendant’s “minor,” and “mostly * * * passive,” role. Ibid. (citation omitted). In contrast, Brown’s role, while less than Barnes’s, was not minimal. He was second in command of the jail. Unlike Cole, Brown was not passive − he carried out assaults, intimidation, and retaliation. Indeed, the court gave Brown a three-level enhancement for his supervisory role and, in his first sentencing, denied his request for a downward adjustment for being a minor participant, explaining Brown “helped organize the meet and greets.” Aplt. App. 221-222; see also Aplt. App. 206, 724, 731-732, 737. Furthermore, in Cole the defendant’s probationary sentence would allow her to earn money for restitution – not something Brown needs to do here.
Sentences so “grossly at odds with the sentencing guidelines,” Morgan, 635 F. App’x at 452, undermine the Guidelines’ goal of “eliminat[ing] disparities among sentences nationwide,” United States v. Franklin, 785 F.3d 1365, 1371 (10th Cir.) (citation omitted), cert. denied, 136 S. Ct. 523 (2015). That is the case here.
1. Courts have repeatedly recognized that a law enforcement officer’s single assault on a prisoner or arrestee warrants substantial punishment. For example, in United States v. Carson, 560 F.3d 566, 585 (6th Cir. 2009), cert. denied, 558 U.S.
1116 (2010), a defendant convicted of deprivation of rights, conspiracy, and obstruction for beating an arrestee received a Guidelines sentence of 33 months, the low end of his Guidelines range. A corrections officer in United States v. Bailey, 405 F.3d 102, 112 (1st Cir. 2005), was sentenced to 41 months, the low end of his Guidelines range, for an assault on a prisoner and obstruction.6 Even an officer who pleaded guilty to a single assault in United States v. Strange, 370 F. Supp. 2d 644 (N.D. Ohio 2005), received 21 months. None of these officers was a jail administrator and none orchestrated systematic violence, intimidation, and cover-ups.
6 The sentence was affirmed on appeal after United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 246-258 (2005) (striking down mandatory guidelines regime). See Bailey, 405 F.3d at 113-115.
to authorities and Guidelines range of 87-108 months); LaVallee, 439 F.3d at 679, 702-703 (affirming 30-month and 41-month sentences within Guidelines ranges of 27-33 months and 41-51 months, respectively).7 Defendants’ attempts to distinguish these cases underscore how unreasonable their sentences are.
7 The sentence in LaValle was affirmed on appeal post-Booker. See LaVallee, 439 F.3d at 703-707.
8 Kulla’s conviction for blackmail illustrates one of several ways a Section 242 conviction can be based on non-violent behavior. See also Koon, 518 U.S. at 101 (“A violation of § 242 can arise in a myriad of forms.”). It was for these types of convictions, not the violent assaults orchestrated by defendants, that Congress established a range of lower sentences. See Barnes Br. 38.
slam any prisoners into walls.” Brown Br. 32. Brown, instead, slammed inmates into the ground. Brown, 654 F. App’x at 900-901, 908; see also Aplt. App. 42-43.
Barnes acknowledges that Section 3553(a)(6) requires a judge to consider “disparities ... among defendants with similar records and Guideline calculations.” Barnes Br. 41 (quoting United States v. Lewis, 594 F.3d 1270, 1276 (10th Cir. 2010) (emphasis omitted)). But, tellingly, neither he nor Brown manages to “identif[y] a single case” in which a court has imposed (or upheld) a term of incarceration for supervisory corrections officers found guilty of such serious civil rights offenses (including the physical abuse of inmates in their care and custody) as short as the prison terms imposed here. Walker, 844 F.3d at 1258.
sentence substantively unreasonable where district court “gave inadequate attention” to deterrence). This Court routinely considers the possibility of disparities when reviewing a sentence for substantive reasonableness. Franklin, 785 F.3d at 1370; Walker, 844 F.3d at 1258. The issue is of special importance where a district court does not hand down a Guidelines sentence. Walker, 844 F.3d at 1258; United States v. Bartlett, 567 F.3d 901, 908 (7th Cir. 2009), cert. denied, 558 U.S. 1147 (2010).
Court concluded that the sentence likely could not create a disparity with similarly-situated offenders. The Court in Franklin, therefore, unsurprisingly set a high bar for attacking a Guidelines sentence through comparisons to other sentences. Ibid. But where a sentence falls outside the Guidelines, this Court will consider disparities in assessing substantive reasonableness. Walker, 844 F.3d at 1259 (comparing defendant’s sentence with another case of bank robbery). Finally, because the Franklin court reviewed the proffered cases, the case does not hold, as Barnes suggests, that an appeals court must ignore a citation not presented below. Franklin, 785 F.3d at 1371-1372.
In any event, it is not correct that the United States cited only two examples to the district court. Barnes Br. 42. In its supplemental sentencing memorandum, following remand for resentencing, the United States argued this point at length and with numerous examples. Aplt. App. 513-518; see also U.S. Br. 15, 37-38 (citing the supplemental sentencing memorandum). The United States cited many of the cases cited below in its opening brief on appeal. U.S. Br. 35-36 nn.8-9. Indeed, there are only three cases cited in the United States’ footnotes 8 and 9 (U.S. Br. 35-36; see Barnes Br. 42) that were not also cited below. An added case citation does not amount to an “issue not raised before” the district court. Barnes Br. 42 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted; emphasis added).
Finally, Barnes suggests that review of the individual sentencing factors the district court used in sentencing is inappropriate, because “all” of the factors must be “considered cumulatively.” Barnes Br. 13, 28. Barnes asserts that the United States must present a “holistic” “analysis,” rather than a discussion of discrete problems in the district court’s analysis. Barnes Br. 13. In our view, none of the grounds on which the district court relied – whether considered individually or together – justifies sentencing Barnes and Brown to terms that are a fraction of the Guidelines range.
Although the reasonableness of defendants’ sentences depends on the totality of the circumstances, Gall, 552 U.S. at 51, a sentence can be assessed only through the factors set forth in Section 3553(a), Friedman, 554 F.3d at 1307, and the individual factors on which the court relied. At bottom, the Court “must determine whether the court’s articulated reasons * * * are sufficiently compelling on this record to satisfy [it] that the term imposed is reasonable.” Castro-Juarez, 425 F.3d at 433. But it is Barnes who urges this Court to overlook the district court’s stinting analysis of the nature of his crimes, his physical abuse of inmates, his intimidation of staff to prevent detection of Barnes’s and Brown’s misconduct, and Barnes’s disparate sentence.
In a substantive sentencing challenge, this Court considers specific objections raised by the challenging party. See Friedman, 554 F.3d at 1308 (noting the government’s focus on four substantive errors); Morgan, 635 F. App’x at 448 (reviewing the government’s challenges to factors relied on by the district court and concluding “these factors, even cumulatively, do not support the gross variance”). There is no other practical way to carry out meaningful review. Nor is it true, as Barnes asserts, that “[i]f all factors stated by the court received great weight, then there is plenty of weight supporting the variance even if one or two factors are disapproved by this Court.” Barnes Br. 34. “[U]ndue emphasi[s]” on a factor can render a sentence unreasonable. Morgan, 635 F. App’x at 449; see also Walker, 844 F.3d at 1259.
“enjoyed the physical contact of the meet and greet” at his old job in the “hands-on” Muskogee County Jail. Aplt. App. 275, 321-322, 341. For his part, Brown’s assessment of his sentence is so far removed from the facts that he maintains he did nothing wrong. The jury, of course, found otherwise.
9 Barnes also suggests there must be some “principled basis for drawing a line” between reasonable and unreasonable sentences. Barnes Br. 37-38. Barnes misunderstands this Court’s review, as there is no formulaic approach. Indeed, the Supreme Court has rejected a “rigid mathematical formulation” to weigh relevant factors in sentencing. Gall, 552 U.S. at 49.
This Court should vacate defendants’ sentences and remand this case for resentencing.
1. This brief complies with the type-volume limitations of Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 32(a)(7)(B)(i) because it contains no more than 6400 words, excluding the parts of the brief exempted by Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 32(a)(7)(B)(iii).
2. This brief complies with the typeface requirements of Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 32(a)(5), and the type style requirements of Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 32(a)(6), because it has been prepared in a proportionally spaced typeface using Word 2016 in 14-point Times New Roman font.
I certify that the electronic version of the foregoing REPLY BRIEF FOR THE UNITED STATES AS PLAINTIFF-APPELLANT, prepared for submission via ECF, complies with all required privacy redactions per Tenth Circuit Rule 25.5, is an exact copy of the paper copies submitted to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, has been scanned with the most recent version of Symantec Endpoint Protection (version 14), and is virus-free.
I hereby certify that on August 18, 2017, I electronically filed the foregoing REPLY BRIEF FOR THE UNITED STATES AS PLAINTIFF-APPELLANT with the Clerk of the Court for the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit by using the appellate CM/ECF system. I certify that all participants in this case are registered CM/ECF users and that service will be accomplished by the appellate CM/ECF system. In addition, I certify that on August 18, 2017, I will cause seven paper copies of the same to be sent by Federal Express overnight to this Court.

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