Source: http://sentencing.typepad.com/sentencing_law_and_policy/guest_blogging_by_proskauer_rose/
Timestamp: 2014-12-22 02:02:46
Document Index: 212218341

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 3582', '§ 3582', '§ 3582', '§ 841', '§ 3582', '§ 3582', '§ 3553', '§ 994']

Sentencing Law and Policy: Guest blogging by Proskauer Rose
Goodbye from the Guest Bloggers Today is our final day of guest blogging for Sentencing Law and Policy. We thank everyone for reading our posts, and for offering invariably thoughtful and incisive comments. We were glad to see that some of our posts sparked interesting and spirited debate. Most important, we thank Doug Berman for giving us this wonderful opportunity and for trusting us with his baby. When we started this adventure, we knew we were setting out to do the impossible – to try to fill Doug’s shoes. After two weeks, we are even more daunted. We simply do not know how he does it day after day. Our entire team needs a long vacation. Doug, any suggestions?
Mark, Matt, Anna, and Jenn August 8, 2008 in Guest blogging by Proskauer Rose | Permalink
The use of acquitted conduct as a basis for enhancing punishments remains the sentencing issue that won’t go away. A spate of recent decisions and articles once again brings to the fore the controversy over a practice that already once reached the Supreme Court – where, in United States v. Watts, it was approved – at a time when the guidelines were still mandatory. The August edition of the ABA Journal, here, prominently features Doug Berman, who is quoted as stating that the constitutionality of the practice has been called into question anew by the Court’s more recent sentencing decisions. The article discusses United States v. Hurn, a case in which a drug defendant’s guideline exposure was raised from 27-33 months to 16-20 years on the basis of distribution counts of which he was acquitted. The Supreme Court denied the cert petition, which Doug helped draft.
An article in The Washington Times, here, highlighted another recent decision on acquitted conduct, this one before the Eighth Circuit. In United States v. Canania, the defendants were convicted of methamphetamine-related offenses and acquitted of possessing a firearm in furtherance of a drug-trafficking crime. The district court, nevertheless, enhanced their sentences for the gun possession. Judge Myron H. Bright wrote a separate concurring opinion in order to express his “strongly held view that consideration of ‘acquitted conduct’ to enhance a defendant’s sentence is unconstitutional,” and to urge the Supreme Court to promptly re-examine its continued use. Judge Bright asked, rhetorically, “what might the man on the street think” of such a practice? In a footnote, he answered his own question with the remarkable story of a recent trial in Washington, D.C., in which federal prosecutors sought a 40-year sentence against a drug defendant despite the fact that he was acquitted on every charge except a single $600 half-ounce sale of crack cocaine that occurred seven years earlier. When one of the former jurors on the case learned of the prosecutors’ request, he wrote a letter to the judge, asking: “What does it say to our contribution as jurors when we see our verdicts, in my personal view, not given their proper weight. It appears to me that these defendants are being sentenced not on the charges for which they have been found guilty but on the charges for which the [U.S. Attorney’s Office] would have liked them to have been found guilty.”
The question of what the man on the street would think raises the possibility of a different kind of challenge to the use of acquitted conduct, one that focuses not on the Constitution, but on Section 3553. That provision, among other things, requires all sentences to be judged against the enumerated statutory purposes of punishment, which expressly include promoting respect for the law and providing just punishment for the offense. In certain cases, as the Washington, D.C. juror story demonstrates, a sentence based substantially on acquitted conduct may well promote disrespect for the law, and thereby violate Section 3553. Doug and a group of Proskauer lawyers (including myself) made exactly this argument in an amicus brief filed with the Sixth Circuit in the case of United States v. White. The Circuit heard argument en banc on June 4, and a decision is pending.
As the ABA article mentions, if the Sixth Circuit finds that the district court erred in the use of acquitted conduct, it is likely the Supreme Court will have to review the issue again. Either way, the controversy will likely continue.
Download Canania.pdf Mark Harris
August 8, 2008 in Guest blogging by Proskauer Rose | Permalink
Former Refco Inc. President Tone N. Grant Sentenced to 10 years Former Refco Inc. President Tone N. Grant was sentenced Thursday to 10 years in prison for his role in the company's collapse, covered here. According to the article, defense lawyers for Grant, a former Yale University quarterback and decorated Marine officer in Vietnam, sought a 3 1/2 year sentence. Prosecutors had asked for a sentence similar to that of former Refco Chief Executive Officer Phillip Bennett, who pleaded guilty and was sentenced last month to 16 years behind bars.
Download tone_grants_sentencing_memorandum.pdf Download governments_sentencing_memorandum.pdf Guest bloggers
Dear Readers: Proskauer Rose is guest blogging while Doug is on vacation. Posts by individual authors are signed by each author. Posts that result from a collaborative effort are signed by "Guest bloggers." We may be contacted at this address until Doug returns. August 8, 2008 in Guest blogging by Proskauer Rose | Permalink
Hamdan, Osama Bin Laden’s Driver, Sentenced to 5 and a Half Years
Salim Hamdan, the Yemeni national who was Osama Bin Laden’s driver, and the first person to be tried by a military commission in 60 years, was sentenced today to 66 months in a detention facility at Guantanamo Bay for providing material support to a terror organization. Prosecutors were seeking a sentence of at least 30 years for Hamdan, who had faced life in prison. The jury returned its verdict, after just 70 minutes of deliberations. The jury sent a strong message to the U.S. government. Although Hamdan had been found guilty of providing material support to a terror organization for his role in the September 11th attacks on the United States, the military jury cleared him of the conspiracy charges. Further, the military jury was aware before determining the sentence of the Court's determination to give him credit for the 61 months and eight days served. Taking that time into effect, only 5 months remain on Hamdan's sentence. The story has been covered by SCOTUSblog here, as well as by many media outlets, including an article posted here. Guest bloggers
August 7, 2008 in Guest blogging by Proskauer Rose | Permalink
District Court Declines to Extend Booker to § 3582 Resentencings On Monday, in United States v. Atwell, the Middle District of Florida held that Booker should not be extended and applied to § 3582 resentencings. Randall Atwell had been convicted of possession with intent to distribute and distribution of more than 50 grams of crack. Although originally sentenced to life imprisonment, Atwell’s sentence was vacated and he was re-sentenced to 210 months’ imprisonment. Thereafter, Amendments 706 and 711 to the guidelines were retroactively adopted to address the disparity between crack and powder cocaine sentences by reducing the crack guidelines. Thus, pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c), the court had the authority to reduce the defendant’s prison term further to 168 months. The defendant, however, argued for an even steeper reduction to 120 months—the statutory mandatory minimum under 21 U.S.C. § 841—under Booker. Although noting the lack of accord among district courts across the country on whether Booker should apply to § 3582 resentencings, the court ultimately rejected the defendant’s argument. [H]aving considered all available persuasive authority on the subject, this Court finds Judge Steel’s Opinion in United States v. Speights, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 10356 (S.D. Ala. June 23, 2008), to be a sound and accurate statement of the reasons Booker does not apply to § 3582 resentencings. Therefore, this Court incorporates that Opinion by reference herein and finds that it is without jurisdiction to reduce [defendant’s] sentence below 168 months. Download UnitedStatesv.Atwell.pdf Guest bloggers
Before a Sentencing Court Turns Assault Into Murder, It Needs to Follow the Proper Standards
Yesterday, in United States v. Azure, the Eighth Circuit vacated and remanded the sentence imposed on defendant Tamara Azure, a/k/a Tamara Wind, after the district court essentially used two assault convictions to impose a sentence for a dismissed murder charge. In doing so, the Eighth Circuit focused on the failure to apply proper standards, but did not consider the appropriateness of relying on a dismissed charge to achieve a massive increase in the imposed sentence. The sentencing court stated it was “troubled by the tail wagging the dog,” in that while Wind had pled guilty to “two penny-ante assaults with a dangerous weapon, . . . those convictions were being converted into a sentencing hearing for murder.” Despite the supposed reservation, the district court was apparently more concerned with the defendant’s violent (though largely not prosecuted) past and the dismissed murder count, and proceeded to jack up the sentence from the guidelines ranges of 37 to 46 months for each charge to a total sentence of 180 months. The district court cleverly achieved this sentencing feat by increasing the defendant’s criminal history from I to VI and then imposing consecutive sentences. The Eighth Circuit held that the district court erred in upwardly departing with respect to criminal history: The court departed upward to criminal history category VI from category I, “taking into account [Wind’s] past long and detailed history of violence, including the use of dangerous weapons, knives, forks, and [among] other things, biting people.” The court did not attempt to assign hypothetical criminal history points to the conduct that did not result in convictions, and then determine what the appropriate criminal history category would be. ... While the district court is not required to engage in a “ritualistic exercise in which the sentencing court mechanically discusses each criminal history category it rejects en route to the category it selects,” . . . the court must provide sufficient indicia of why the intermediary categories are inappropriate. This is particularly important when the upward departure takes the defendant from the lowest to the highest criminal history category. The court also did not compare Wind’s criminal history with that of other defendants who are assigned criminal history category VI.
* * *Without the benefit of additional analysis by the district court, we cannot conclude that the district court’s “findings were adequate to explain and support the departure in this particular case.” Collins, 104 F.3d at 145. Failing to adequately explain an upward departure is a significant procedural error, as is improperly calculating the advisory Guidelines range. Gall, 128 S. Ct. at 597. Because, on this record, we conclude the district court abused its discretion in determining the extent of the upward departure based upon underrepresented criminal history, we must remand. The Circuit also held that the sentencing court erred in considering the murder without finding that the government had met its burden of rebutting, by a preponderance of the evidence, Wind’s defense of self-defense:
The district court did not correctly apply the burden of proof when considering the absence of self defense as related to the conduct underlying dismissed Count III. Count III alleged that Wind “willfully, deliberately, and with premeditation and with malice aforethought” killed Pickner “by stabbing him in the chest with a knife.” At the sentencing hearing, Wind countered this murder charge by raising self defense as a justification for Pickner’s death. The court acknowledged that the government bears the burden of proving an absence of self defense once the issue is called into question during a trial, but indicated it was unsure of the proper allocation of the burden of proof when considering the issue at sentencing. This was a significant procedural error. After self defense became an issue at sentencing, the government bore the burden of establishing Wind did not act in self defense by a preponderance of the evidence.
While the remand forces the district court to recalculate Wind's guideline range, there is no assurance that the court will not reimpose the same sentence. Indeed, given the court's power to achieve precisely the same result through § 3553(a) variances and the imposition of consecutive sentences, the propriety of treating Wind as a criminal history category VI offender may prove irrelevant.
Download UnitedStatesvAzure.pdf Guest bloggers
Oregon Court Offers Pizza and Chicken in Exchange for Murderer’s Guilty Plea
Citing benefits to judicial economy, Deputy District Attorney Josh Lamborn agreed with the decision of Multnomah County Judge Eric Bergstrom to provide a confessed murderer, Tremayne Durham, with KFC Chicken and sides in exchange for a guilty plea to the murder of Adam Calbreath, a potential business associate. According to the agreement, immediately after entering the guilty plea Durham would receive KFC and Popeye’s Chicken, as well as mashed potatoes, coleslaw, carrot cake and ice cream. In addition, following his sentencing, Durham, who apparently wanted a break from jail food, would be provided with pizza, lasagna, calzones and ice cream. Although these concessions save the significant expense of a trial and potential appeals, pandering to the whims of a killer could be construed as undermining the integrity of the judicial process. But hey, at least he got coleslaw.
A news article discussing the case is available here.
Dear Readers: Proskauer Rose is guest blogging while Doug is on vacation. Posts by individual authors are signed by each author. Posts that result from a collaborative effort are signed by "Guest bloggers." We may be contacted at this address until Doug returns. August 7, 2008 in Guest blogging by Proskauer Rose | Permalink
Medellin Executed After Supreme Court Ruling
Yesterday, in a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court denied Jose Medellin's application for a stay of execution. Medellin was executed soon thereafter. There continues to be an extraordinary degree of coverage of the story, including a comprehensive write-up by SCOTUSblog, available here.
Among the other noteworthy features of the decision was the filing of four separate dissents by Justices Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer. Each gave separate reasons for his or her vote to grant the application for a stay of execution. As Justice Breyer observed, only four votes are needed to grant a petition for a writ of certiorari; but in the context of a death case, a fifth vote is necessary to stay the execution. Justice Breyer found it "particularly disappointing that no Member of the majority has proved willing to provide a courtesy vote for a stay" in order to consider the Solicitor General's as-yet-unfiled views. The majority apparently felt that seeking the Solicitor General's views was too slender a procedural reed to justify the delay, when in fact it would take action by Congress or the Texas legislature to set aside the sentence, the possibilities of which were "too remote" to justify a stay.
August 6, 2008 in Guest blogging by Proskauer Rose | Permalink
Seventh Circuit Vacates and Remands Case For Resentencing As District Court Failed to Apply Correct Standard of Proof
In United States v. Schroeder, the Seventh Circuit clarified the important distinction between the standard for admissibility of evidence at sentencing hearings and the government’s burden of proof with respect to a disputed fact -- in this case, the amount of loss based on relevant conduct. Schroeder’s first sentence, for one count of tax preparer fraud, was reversed by the Seventh Circuit upon a joint motion, because the sentence imposed was six months longer than the statutory maximum. Oops. Schroeder’s resentencing hearing fared little better. Here, the primary area of contention was the tax loss calculation. The government’s loss figure included amounts based on civil audits of Schroeder’s tax return clients, which revealed overstated or misrepresented deductions. Schroeder disputed the inclusion of this tax loss, arguing that the government had not proven that these improper deductions were attributable to Schroeder as opposed to his clients. Ultimately, the district court denied Schroeder’s objection, finding that the loss calculation was “based on information that is of sufficient reliability that can properly be considered under the guideline provisions.” The Seventh Circuit reversed. It first held that the resentencing hearing was “flawed from the outset” because the district court “announced its findings as to the amount of tax loss—a critical sentencing determination—before Schroeder’s attorney had an opportunity to comment on the issue.” Even though the defense was able to make its arguments to the judge thereafter, the Circuit found that the sentencing judge’s prejudging of the tax loss issue “undermined the fairness of Schroeder’s hearing.” Next, the Circuit noted that although the standard for admissibility at sentencing is whether “the information has sufficient indicia of reliability to support its probable accuracy,” a disputed fact must nonetheless be proved by a preponderance of the evidence. The Seventh Circuit wrote:The court’s statements at resentencing strongly suggest that it confused the standard for the admissibility of evidence at sentencing with that for proving relevant conduct, a very serious error. As we have already noted, it is well established that the government must prove amount of loss by a preponderance of the evidence. See United States v. Omole, 523 F.3d 691, 701 (7th Cir. 2008). The preponderance of the evidence standard requires “that the fact-finder believe that the existence of a fact is more probable than the non-existence of that fact.” United States v. Smith, 267 F.3d 1154, 1161 (D.C. Cir. 2001). In determining whether the government has met its burden of proof at sentencing, a court may consider information that would not have been admissible at trial if it has “sufficient indicia of reliability to support its probable accuracy.” United States v. Artley, 489 F.3d 813, 821 (7th Cir. 12 No. 07-3773 2007). But the presumed accuracy of information that has “sufficient indicia of reliability” does not relieve the court of its responsibility to weigh the proffered evidence and determine whether the government has proven that the existence of a disputed fact is more probable than not. The Seventh Circuit noted that the district court never found that the government proved the tax loss by a preponderance of the evidence, and was troubled by the court’s apparent suggestion “that the government had met its burden of proof merely by submitting admissible evidence.” The Circuit also concluded that the district court had failed to hold the government to its burden of proof because it had treated the improper deductions “as frauds attributable to Schroeder without conducting any analysis as to what evidence proved that Schroeder’s unlawful conduct caused the underpayments.” Maybe the third time will be the charm.
Download united_states_v. Schroeder.pdf Guest bloggers
Dear Readers: Proskauer Rose is guest blogging while Doug is on vacation. Posts by individual authors are signed by each author. Posts that result from a collaborative effort are signed by "Guest bloggers." We may be contacted at this address until Doug returns. August 6, 2008 in Guest blogging by Proskauer Rose | Permalink
Continuing Medellin Coverage As reported here by SCOTUSblog earlier today, on Monday evening Medellin’s attorneys filed a reply brief in the Supreme Court again urging the Court to put his execution on hold in order to allow Congress to enact legislation implementing the United States’ obligations under the Vienna Convention. As of this posting, the execution is set to occur this evening at 7 p.m. UPDATE: According to the Associated Press, Medellin’s execution had not taken place as of 8 p.m. Tuesday evening. Guest bloggers
August 5, 2008 in Guest blogging by Proskauer Rose | Permalink
Practitioner's Notes: Federal Sentencing Guideline Analysis Has No Place in State Court
It seems obvious, at least to me, that the federal sentencing guidelines do not apply in state courts. Indeed, there is an intermediate appellate decision in New York in which this “issue” was addressed by the court. The Appellate Division, First Department, in People v. Sung Min, 249 A.D.2d 130, 671 N.Y.S.2d 480 (1st Dept. 1998), explains: “While there exist United States Sentencing Guidelines established by the United States Sentencing Commission, pursuant to 28 USC § 994, they apply exclusively to Federal Courts. There are no sentencing guidelines for New York State Courts.”
Apparently, however, it is less obvious to others, as intrepid state and local prosecutors are trying to impose the federal sentencing guidelines on state court criminal sentencings by suggesting that they are “informative.” This very tactic was recently tried by the New York Attorney General’s Office in a state criminal action in which the defendants were charged with a violation of the Donnelly Act, New York’s antitrust statute. It was argued that because Donnelly Act jurisprudence is based largely upon federal antitrust cases, consideration of the sentences that would have been imposed had these changes been brought federally would be meaningful to the state court. Fortunately, the sentencing court held that it was not.
Introducing the federal sentencing guidelines into the New York state system would be an unmitigated disaster. The federal sentencing guidelines generally provide for sentences that are substantially harsher than most state sentences for equivalent conduct. And with good reason, not the least of which being there are far fewer federal cases. Because the federal criminal justice system has the luxury of bringing far fewer cases, it can devote more resources to each one. State systems, particularly states like New York, have to move many, many cases, and do so quickly. If state prosecutors made a “federal case” out of every state crime for which there were an equivalent federal crime, many already overburdened state systems would collapse under the weight. The prisons couldn’t handle all of the prisoners with such longer sentences. Nor could the prosecutors or the courts, as a system with more severe sentences and less flexibility in plea negotiations would likely create many more trials, and longer pretrial processes. Thus, as much as hyper-aggressive state prosecutors would love to take advantage of the draconian federal sentencing guidelines, doing so is a mistake.
Besides, I’ve never liked the guidelines. My learned colleagues have argued that the guidelines promote uniformity and proportionality, but I’ve always been of the view that they prevent judges from recognizing each crime’s differences and each individual defendant’s unique circumstances. I’ve always thought that if you were concerned that judges weren’t being fair and uniform, the solution was to get better judges and to train them better, not handcuff them with complicated rules that try to reduce complex human issues into black and white mathematical formulas. Although some of these concerns may have been alleviated, in part, by the Booker decision, the guidelines remain an important part of the federal sentencing process. However, regardless of whether the federal sentencing guidelines assist in the exercise of good judgment or impinge upon it, let that debate stay in federal court.
Guest Blogging Dear Readers: Proskauer Rose is guest blogging while Doug is on vacation. Posts by individual authors are signed by each author. Posts that result from a collaborative effort are signed by "Guest bloggers." We may be contacted at this address until Doug returns. August 5, 2008 in Guest blogging by Proskauer Rose | Permalink
August 4, 2008 in Guest blogging by Proskauer Rose | Permalink
In Van Hook v. Anderson, available here, the Sixth Circuit reversed a decision by the district court and granted the habeas petition of Robert Van Hook, who was sentenced to death for a 1985 murder. The Circuit reversed the death sentence, finding ineffective assistance of counsel during the mitigation phase of Van Hook’s trial. In holding that this ineffectiveness violated Van Hook’s Sixth Amendment rights, the court stated:[Van Hook’s] counsel was deficient [first,] by failing to fully investigate and present as evidence all available mitigating factors; second, by failing to secure or attempt to secure an independent mental health expert to testify that the crime was the product of a mental disease; and third, by mistakenly introducing and also failing to object to proscribed evidence [a victim impact statement] that was clearly damaging to Van Hook’s case. The combined effect of these three errors prejudiced Van Hook, rendered the mitigating hearing unreliable, and led to the imposition of the death penalty.The court also found prejudice, noting that “[c]ounsel’s deficient performance prevented the three-judge panel from learning fully about the two statutory mitigating factors that were the strongest in his case” and “caused the three-judge panel to consider unconstitutional and damaging information while deliberating on the appropriate sentence.” The court remanded the case to the district court with an instruction to vacate the sentence, “unless the state conducts a new penalty phase proceeding within 180 days of remand.”
As this case suggests, while in ordinary criminal cases it is notoriously difficult to meet the rigorous standards of an ineffective assistance of counsel claim, courts may be more willing to find ineffectiveness at the penalty phase of a death case, where the stakes are at their highest and the effects of poor lawyering are at their gravest. Guest bloggers