Source: https://secondcircuit.lexroll.com/u-s-v-young-283-fed-appx-858-2nd-cir-2008/
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 06:47:20+00:00

Document:
UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Ronald K. YOUNG, Defendant-Appellant.
No. 07-1773-cr.United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.
Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Allyne R. Ross, Judge).
AFTER ARGUMENT AND UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBYORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND DECREED that the judgment of the District Court is AFFIRMED.
B. Alan Seidler, New York, NY, for Defendant-Appellant.
Jonathan Green, Assistant United States Attorney (Benton J. Campbell, United States Attorney, on the brief; Emily Berger, Assistant United States Attorney, of counsel), United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, Brooklyn, NY, for the United States.
PRESENT: ROGER J. MINER, JOSEPH M. McLAUGHLIN, and JOSÉ A. CABRANES, Circuit Judges.
Defendant-appellant Ronald K. Young appeals from the judgment of conviction entered against him after he was found guilty — at a bench trial on stipulated facts — of violating 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a) and (b)(2) by entering the United States unlawfully following his deportation after a conviction for an aggravated felony. On appeal, Young challenges: (1) the sufficiency of the evidence underpinning the District Court’s determination that he was eligible for a sixteen-point enhancement to his total offense level, as calculated under the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, based on a previous conviction from May 1987; (2) the District Court’s pre-trial ruling that he “could not raise as a defense before a jury that [he] should be acquitted because he was promised by the agents, on behalf of the Government, that we would not be prosecuted . . . if he cooperated with the Government at the time of his arrest,” PI. Br. 26; (3) the District Court’s determination, at sentencing, that he had obstructed justice by committing perjury at a pre-trial hearing; (4) the District Court’s refusal to reduce his offense level on the basis of acceptance of responsibility; and (5) the reasonableness of the sentence imposed upon him. We assume the parties’ familiarity with the facts and the procedural history of the case.
We review the “factual determinations underlying [a district court’s] application of the Sentencing Guidelines for clear error.” United States v. Rizzo, 349 F.3d 94, 98 (2d Cir. 2003). Accordingly, we will uphold a challenged factual finding as long as “the district court’s account of the evidence is plausible in light of the record viewed in its entirety.”Id.; nee also id. (observing that “[a]t sentencing, disputed factual allegations must be proven by the government by a preponderance of the evidence — meaning that they are more likely than not true”) (citation omitted).
(4) a certificate of disposition from the New York Supreme Court declaring that “an examination of the records on file [with the Court]” indicates that Young was convicted of violating New York Penal Law § 220.16(1) on May 6, 1987, id. at 128.
Because the record, when taken as a whole, supports the District Court’s findings of fact regarding Young’s May 6, 1987 conviction, we reject Young’s challenge to the application of the sixteen-point enhancement.
Young’s second claim on appeal closely resembles a claim we considered in United States v. Regan, 103 F.3d 1072 (2d Cir. 1997). Like Young, the defendant in Regan did not deny that he committed the conduct with which he was charged; instead, he sought to argue to the jury that his conduct was irrelevant in light of alleged misconduct by the Government Id. at 1082. We upheld the district court’s denial of defendant’s attempt to do so. As we observed, despite the defendant’s “attempt to characterize his claim . . . as an affirmative defense” to his crime of conviction, his proposed argument clearly turned “not on the fact that his conduct was somehow blameless or justified, but rather on the notion that `outrageous governmental conduct’ required dismissal of the indictment.” Id. at 1081-82. On that basis, we concluded that the defendant’s argument was more appropriately directed to the court rather than to a jury. Id.
the government’s conduct was lawful and to prevent [the defendant] from presenting evidence [to the jury] on that subject.”); United States v. Cuervelo, 949 F.2d 559, 567 (2d Cir. 1991) (noting that a motion to dismiss an indictment on the basis of outrageous governmental conduct “is a question of law directed to the trial judge”). We perceive no basis for distinguishing Young’s second claim from the claim we rejected in Regan. Accordingly, we reject Young’s second claim in light of our observations in Regan.
(1985)). Furthermore, we identify no legal error in the District Court’s conclusion that Young falsely alleged government misconduct in the hopes of obtaining a dismissal of the indictment charging him with unlawful reentry. For these reasons, we conclude that the District Court appropriately applied an enhancement for obstruction of justice when calculating Young’s total offense level under the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines. Cf. United States v. Ben-Shimon, 249 F.3d 98, 102 (2d Cir. 2001) (“[A]n enhancement for obstruction of justice based on perjured testimony may be imposed . . . where the sentencing court finds that the defendant 1) willfully 2) and materially 3) committed perjury, which is (a) the intentional (b) giving of false testimony (c) as to a material matter.”) (internal quotation marks omitted).
“A reduction for acceptance of responsibility is . . . unavailable, absent extraordinary circumstances, to a defendant properly found to merit an obstruction-of-justice enhancement.”United States v. McLeod, 251 F.3d 78, 82 (2d Cir. 2001) (internal quotation marks omitted). Young points to no circumstances that suggest his is an “extraordinary” case. Accordingly, we reject Young’s claim that the District Court “erroneously” failed to “credit [him] with a reduction for acceptance of criminal responsibility under . . . U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1.” PL Br. 26.
(2007) (alterations omitted))); id. (“In the absence of any . . . procedural error, Gall instructs that substantive reasonableness reduces to a single question: Whether the District Judge abused his discretion in determining that the § 3553(a) factors supported’ the sentence imposed.” (quotin Gall, 128 S.Ct. at 600)). Accordingly, we reject Young’s challenge to the reasonableness of the sentence imposed upon him.
Having considered all of Young’s arguments on appeal and found them to be without merit, we hereby AFFIRM the judgment of the District Court.

References: v. 
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 § 3553