Source: https://openjurist.org/115/f3d/125/united-states-v-li
Timestamp: 2017-10-19 02:48:20
Document Index: 181975793

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 2024', '§ 1344', '§ 641', '§ 982', '§ 371', '§ 2024', '§ 1344', '§ 1344', '§ 982', '§ 851', '§ 1']

115 F3d 125 United States v. Li | OpenJurist
115 F. 3d 125 - United States v. Li
115 F3d 125 United States v. Li
115 F.3d 125
Feng LI, aka Li Feng; Zhao Hui, aka Hui Zhao, Defendants,
Ru Jie Lu, aka Ru Lu Jie, Defendant-Appellant.
No. 1184, Docket 96-1508.
Before: FEINBERG and PARKER, Circuit Judges and SHADUR*, District Judge.
Ru Jie Lu ("Lu") appeals from a judgment of conviction entered July 29, 1996 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Following a four-day jury trial Lu was found guilty of unauthorized acquisition of food stamps (7 U.S.C. § 2024(b)), bank fraud (18 U.S.C. § 1344) and unlawful disposal of food stamps (18 U.S.C. § 641). Additionally the jury found that moneys obtained by Lu as a result of the bank fraud were subject to criminal forfeiture (18 U.S.C. §§ 982(a)(2) and 982(b)(1)(B)). Lu received a sentence of 42 months imprisonment to be followed by four years of supervised release, was charged with a $150 special assessment and was ordered to make restitution in the amount of $100,000. Lu claims that the district court (1) committed plain error in trial evidentiary rulings; (2) did not properly comply at her sentencing with Fed.R.Crim.P. ("Rule") 32(c)(3)(C), which required the court to afford Lu an opportunity to speak prior to imposing sentence; and (3) abused its discretion when, after Lu asserted her innocence during sentencing allocution, the court imposed a harsher sentence than it had originally indicated. We affirm Lu's conviction, but we vacate her sentence and remand for resentencing.
Lu, a 60-year-old immigrant from the People's Republic of China, was arrested in September 1994 in connection with a government investigation into food stamp fraud. She was charged and tried under a five-count indictment, with each charge arising out of an illegal food stamp redemption scheme in which Lu would purchase food stamps for 96% of their face value and deposit those stamps at a local bank. Count One charged Lu with conspiracy to defraud the United States in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371. Count Two charged her with unauthorized acquisition of food stamps in violation of 7 U.S.C. § 2024(b). Count Three charged her with bank fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1344. Count Four charged her with unlawful disposal of food stamps in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1344. Finally, Count Five sought forfeiture of funds illegally obtained by Lu pursuant to 18 U.S.C. §§ 982(a)(2) and 982(b)(1)(B).
When a trial error is unpreserved by objection, it will not result in reversal unless that error is plain error under Rule 52(b). United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 732-34, 113 S.Ct. 1770, 1776-78, 123 L.Ed.2d 508 (1993) detailed three "limitation[s] upon appellate authority" before reversal is appropriate under that Rule: (1) there must be an "error," (2) that error must be "plain" and (3) that plain error must "affec[t] substantial rights." Further, appellate review under Rule 52(b) is discretionary, not mandatory. Olano, id. at 736, 113 S.Ct. at 1779, quoting United States v. Atkinson, 297 U.S. 157, 160, 56 S.Ct. 391, 392, 80 L.Ed. 555 (1936) (alteration in original) directs that a "court of appeals should correct a plain forfeited error affecting substantial rights if the error 'seriously affect[s] the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings.' " In this instance, however, whether or not the district judge may be viewed as having committed error in admitting the challenged testimony of Mackey and Alston without a curative instruction, that was neither plain error nor an error affecting Lu's substantial rights.
Plain error is "an error so egregious and obvious as to make the trial judge and prosecutor derelict in permitting it, despite the defendant's failure to object" (United States v. Tillem, 906 F.2d 814, 825 (2d Cir.1990)). That standard is not satisfied here. Significantly, the testimony now targeted by Lu came in at the very outset of the government's case--as already said, Mackey and Alston were the first two witnesses. At that early stage the district judge was clearly unaware that the prosecutors had no way to connect up Zhao's knowledge with Lu. In the absence of a contemporaneous objection by Lu's counsel (who presumably should have known of such lack of evidence), the district judge was surely not required to bar that testimony sua sponte. Indeed, substantial portions of Mackey's and Alston's testimony served the perfectly acceptable purpose of establishing background information to the charged offenses, including details of Department's food stamp program, its licensing requirements and Shanghai's involvement in Lu's fraudulent scheme. As we have most recently quoted from earlier case law in United States v. Birbal, 62 F.3d 456, 464 (2d Cir.1995):
Nor did the admission of the challenged testimony affect Lu's substantial rights. As Olano, 507 U.S. at 734, 113 S.Ct. at 1778 teaches, that standard requires the error to have been "prejudicial: It must have affected the outcome of the district court proceedings." In that regard Rule 52(b) typically requires the same sort of "harmless error" inquiry as set out in Rule 52(a), with one substantial difference (id.):
Lu next contends that she was denied her right to a meaningful allocution before sentencing as prescribed by Rule 32(c)(3)(C):
Before we turn to the merits of Lu's claim, we take a brief look at the appropriate standard of review for Lu's appeal on this issue. It is the United States' position that the district court's actions are to be reviewed only for "plain error" because defense counsel did not object to the district court's limitation on Lu's allocution. While it is true that Lu's counsel voiced no such objection, we find that Lu's comments were themselves sufficient to preserve her Rule 32(c)(3)(C) rights for appeal. As it became clear that the district judge was limiting the scope of Lu's allocution, she continuously protested: "I did not have the chance to tell you during trial" and "But, your Honor, listen to me--." And Lu was nearly removed from the courtroom when she continued to protest the district court's termination of her allocution statement. Indeed, the district judge's own reference to a potential review by this court of the limitation that he had imposed reflects an express awareness of Lu's objection, placing the issue of Lu's Rule 32(c)(3)(C) rights squarely before him. Hence we review the district court's limitation on allocution for any reversible error (3A Charles Alan Wright, Federal Practice & Procedure: Criminal 2d § 851, at 294 (2d ed.1982)).3
Although a defendant's right to a sentencing allocution is a matter of criminal procedure and not a constitutional right (Hill v. United States, 368 U.S. 424, 428, 82 S.Ct. 468, 471, 7 L.Ed.2d 417 (1962)), it is nonetheless considered an "absolute right" in the federal courts (United States v. Sparrow, 673 F.2d 862, 865 (5th Cir.1982)). Green v. United States, 365 U.S. 301, 304, 81 S.Ct. 653, 655, 5 L.Ed.2d 670 (1961) outlined two rights explicitly afforded by Rule 32(c)(3)(C)(then Rule 32(a)): the right to "make a statement in [one's] own behalf" and the right "to present any information in mitigation of punishment." More recently United States v. Barnes, 948 F.2d 325, 328 (7th Cir.1991) has discussed both the history and purpose of the Rule:
Accordingly resentencing is typically appropriate if the sentencing court has not complied with the allocution requirement of Rule 32(c)(3)(C) (United States v. Margiotti, 85 F.3d 100, 103 (2d Cir.1996), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 117 S.Ct. 324, 136 L.Ed.2d 238 (1996)).
As the government points out, Lu's appeal does not present the somewhat more typical situation where a sentencing judge has simply failed to allow the defendant any opportunity to address the court before sentence was imposed. Here the judge allowed Lu to address the court for some few minutes--ultimately terminating Lu's allocution after what turned out to be just over two pages of sentencing transcript. Still, the sentencing judge's compliance with Rule 32(c)(3)(C) must not be "merely in form," nor may it "reduce the hearing on sentence to a meaningless formality" (Sparrow, 673 F.2d at 865, quoting United States v. Long, 656 F.2d 1162, 1165 (5th Cir.1981)). Instead the Rule demands that each defendant be allowed a meaningful right to express relevant mitigating information before an attentive and receptive district judge. Under the circumstances reflected by the record, we find that Lu's right to allocution was sufficiently limited to require resentencing.
Several factors drive that decision. Although the paper record cannot of course replicate the tone of the proceedings below, what the district judge said to Lu immediately before asking for her allocution was plainly a factor that enhanced the problem: There can be no doubt that the "timidity thereby instilled" (United States v. Sarno, 73 F.3d 1470, 1503 (9th Cir.1995), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 116 S.Ct. 2554, 135 L.Ed.2d 1072 (1996)) contributed to the increasingly emotional nature of Lu's statement--and thus to the sentencing judge's increasing impatience. Additionally, the sentencing judge's repeated interruptions--the first after only nine lines of allocution--and what seems to be a repeatedly shrinking time allotment given to Lu created an atmosphere that obviously rendered it difficult for her to present an effective and potentially persuasive allocution. Both the scope of Lu's statement and her repeated efforts to respond directly to the sentencing judge's admonitions suggest that she was both intimidated and confused. Finally, several aspects of the district judge's part in the process are troubling: the interruptions of Lu's sentences mid-stream, along with remarks such as "I think I have been listening long enough," "I think she has had about as meaningful an allocution as I can give her" and "If the Court of Appeals thinks I should [let her go on much further,] they will send it back to me and tell me how long I have to listen." As the Seventh Circuit warned in Barnes, 948 F.2d at 331:
Of course, as defense counsel properly concedes, a defendant's right to allocution is not unlimited in terms of either time or content. And a 15 to 20 minute allocution is most often ample to satisfy a defendant's Rule 32(c)(3)(C) rights.4 But in the case at hand, even apart from the fact that the initially-stated time allotment does not appear to have been honored, it does not appear that Lu was able to speak meaningfully of the factors that she legitimately thought relevant to the mitigation of her sentence. We therefore order Lu's sentence vacated, with resentencing to occur after her Rule 32 rights are fully afforded.
Lu has further asked that her case be assigned to a different district court judge upon remand for resentencing. Unfortunately the government, having taken the position that resentencing is inappropriate in all events, did not address that request in its responsive brief. This Circuit's decisions occasionally evince somewhat different approaches to that determination. Cases such as Sobel v. Yeshiva Univ., 839 F.2d 18, 37 (2d Cir.1988), quoting United States v. Robin, 545 F.2d 775, 784 (2d Cir.1976) (Timbers, J., dissenting) (alteration in original) teach that "remanding to a different district judge is an 'extraordinary remedy ... [to] be reserved for the extraordinary case.' " In that light, United States v. Ming He, 94 F.3d 782, 795 (2d Cir.1996) suggested that resentencing before a different judge is appropriate only "where special circumstances warrant it, that is, where we are persuaded that the original judge would have substantial difficulty in putting out of her mind her previously expressed views, or where reassignment is advisable to preserve the appearance of justice." On the other side of the coin, cases such as United States v. Londono, 100 F.3d 236, 242 (2d Cir.1996) (citations omitted and alterations in original) appear to have taken a somewhat less demanding view of reassignment, focusing that decision less on the potential or actual bias of the district judge than on how reassignment might affect external perceptions of justice:
To reassign a case on remand, we need only find that "the facts might reasonably cause an objective observer to question [the judge's] impartiality," or "[a]bsent proof of personal bias requiring recusation," that "reassignment is advisable to preserve the appearance of justice."
Even under that second and perhaps less demanding standard, we do not find reassignment to be appropriate in this case. Lu has identified no special circumstances suggesting that the district judge would be unable to heed this Court's instructions as to her Rule 32(c)(3)(C) rights and to afford her a fair resentencing. We rely on the district judge to give careful consideration to any mitigating comments that Lu might offer during her allocution. Hence we decline Lu's invitation to order the reassignment of her case to a different district court judge.
Lu's final challenge to her sentence stems from an allegedly improper factor considered in the court's sentencing determination. Although Lu was not permitted the full allocution opportunity conferred by Rule 32(c)(3)(C), she was clearly given several moments to speak. And during that time Lu persisted in maintaining her innocence of the crimes charged. Lu now suggests that the district court abused its discretion when it imposed a harsher sentence than it had originally indicated as a direct result of those assertions of innocence during the allocution process.
But any suggestion that it was thus improper--and an abuse of discretion--for the district judge to take her protestations of innocence into account in the sentencing equation is without merit. As we repeated from earlier case law in United States v. Sisti, 91 F.3d 305, 312 (2d Cir.1996) (alteration in original), "[t]he sentencing court's discretion is 'largely unlimited either as to the kind of information [it] may consider, or the source from which it may come.' " Sentencing Guidelines Manual § 1B1.4 similarly provides that when determining the sentence to impose within the guideline range, the sentencing court "may consider, without limitation, any information concerning the background, character and conduct of the defendant, unless otherwise prohibited by law." That surely includes consideration of the defendant's attitude and demeanor at sentencing as factors in determining the appropriate sentence. Indeed, the moderate increase in the sentence imposed by the district judge is substantially less than the two-level enhancement for obstruction of justice that may be imposed when a defendant makes false statements as part of the allocution statement (see, e.g., United States v. Echevarria, 33 F.3d 175, 178-79 (2d Cir.1994))--an enhancement that increases the sentencing range by about 25 percent.
Having thus found that Lu properly preserved the issue for appeal, we need not decide whether the "plain error" standard would govern Lu's allocution claim in the absence of an appropriate objection below. In light of the obligation that Rule 32(c)(3)(C) imposes upon the sentencing court to invite a defendant's allocution, it is not plain that a defendant should be held to have forfeited his or her right to allocution because of any failure to request that opportunity. Other circuits have reached conflicting results on that issue (compare United States v. De Alba Pagan, 33 F.3d 125, 129 n. 4 (1st Cir.1994) and cases cited there with United States v. Cole, 27 F.3d 996, 998 (4th Cir.1994))