Source: http://openjurist.org/449/f3d/1154/united-states-v-love
Timestamp: 2013-05-26 09:15:16
Document Index: 401465964

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 3561', '§ 401', '§ 401', '§ 3583', 'sui generis', 'sui generis', '§ 3559', '§ 3559', '§ 401', '§ 3583', '§ 2', '§ 3559', '§ 1341', '§ 2', '§ 3559']

449 F3d 1154 United States v. Love | OpenJurist
449 F. 3d 1154 - United States v. Love	Home449 f3d 1154 united states v. love
449 F3d 1154 United States v. Love 449 F.3d 1154
UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee,v.Christopher LOVE, Defendant-Appellant.
No. 05-11141.
At sentencing, Love objected to the portion of the Presentence Investigation Report (PSI) stating he was ineligible for probation because contempt is a Class A felony. See 18 U.S.C. § 3561(a)(1) (providing for probation unless the offense is a Class A felony). He did not object, however, to the PSI's determination that the court could impose a term of supervised release of up to five years. The district court continued the sentencing hearing and directed the parties to brief whether probation was available.
Love first argues the court may not impose any term of supervised release for a violation of § 401. He points out § 401 itself does not authorize supervised release; rather, the statute provides the court may punish contempt by "fine or imprisonment, or both." Although he acknowledges 18 U.S.C. § 3583 authorizes supervised release for most offenses,4 he contends the statute is inapplicable to criminal contempt because it mentions only felonies and misdemeanors, and contempt is an offense sui generis, neither felony nor misdemeanor. See Cheff v. Schnackenberg, 384 U.S. 373, 380, 86 S.Ct. 1523, 1526, 16 L.Ed.2d 629 (1966) (noting contempt is an offense sui generis ); see also United States v. Holmes, 822 F.2d 481, 493-94 (5th Cir.1987) (holding a statute authorizing fines for felonies or misdemeanors was inapplicable to criminal contempt because contempt is neither a felony nor a misdemeanor).
Alternatively, Love argues the maximum term of supervised release he could receive is one year. He contends that if contempt can be classified as a felony or a misdemeanor pursuant to the offense classification scheme set forth in 18 U.S.C. § 3559(a),5 it is in his case a misdemeanor, in light of either the applicable Guidelines range, see United States v. Carpenter, 91 F.3d 1282, 1285 (9th Cir.1996) (holding "contempt should be classified for sentencing purposes according to the applicable Guidelines range for the most nearly analogous offense"), or the actual term of incarceration he received, see Cheff, 384 U.S. at 380, 86 S.Ct. at 1526 (classifying contempt for purposes of the Sixth Amendment according to the length of incarceration imposed). He submits we should decline to read § 3559(a)(1) as automatically classifying every instance of contempt a Class A felony simply because, in the absence of an express statutory maximum term of imprisonment in § 401, the theoretical maximum term is life in prison. See Carpenter, 91 F.3d at 1284 (rejecting the contention "all criminal contempts should be treated as Class A felonies"). According to Love's alternative argument, his sentence could include a maximum of only one year of supervised release under § 3583(b)(3).6
We do not reach the merits of Love's arguments because we conclude Love induced or invited the ruling he now claims was error. "It is a cardinal rule of appellate review that a party may not challenge as error a ruling or other trial proceeding invited by that party." United States v. Ross, 131 F.3d 970, 988 (11th Cir.1997) (quotations omitted). "The doctrine of invited error is implicated when a party induces or invites the district court into making an error." United States v. Stone, 139 F.3d 822, 838 (11th Cir.1998). "Where invited error exists, it precludes a court from invoking the plain error rule and reversing." United States v. Silvestri, 409 F.3d 1311, 1327 (11th Cir.2005) (quotations omitted).
The court calculated an advisory Sentencing Guidelines range of six to twelve months' incarceration, based on a total offense level of 10 and a criminal history category of ISee U.S.S.G. § 2J1.2 (2000) (setting forth Guidelines for obstruction of justice).
[COUNSEL]: We sentence[ ] him to time served and impose two years of supervised release....
The government argues that criminal contempt is properly classified a Class A felony because 18 U.S.C. § 3559(a) provides a statutory framework for the classification of offenses based upon the maximum authorized sentence, and that this framework applies even when even when a particular offense lacks a specifically named statutory maximum. Mail fraud, for example, is undoubtedly a Class C felony even though—or indeed, precisely because—the corresponding statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1341, sets a maximum prison term of 20 years and does not specifically authorize supervised release. But the government's theory falters on this very analogy. However different may be individual instances of mail fraud, the substantive offense—the elements which make mail fraud criminal by law—are always the same, whereas the offense of criminal contempt encompasses a vast array of possible underlying substantive offenses. As at least one Court has recognized, "[n]o ceiling is imposed on the sentence for Class A felonies because Congress views all such felonies as extraordinarily serious crimes. Criminal contempts, in contrast, include a broad range of conduct, from trivial to severe." See United States v. Carpenter, 91 F.3d 1282, 1284 (9th Cir.1996).
Under the government's interpretation, the relatively petty offense that resulted in Love's contempt conviction—petty enough, at least, for Love to have received a mere 45-day prison sentence—could have been punished with life imprisonment if the trial court, in its discretion, wished to impose that penalty. Such an absurd sentence would raise serious proportionality concerns under the Constitution. See Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304, 311, 122 S.Ct. 2242, 153 L.Ed.2d 335 (2002) ("it is a precept of justice that punishment for crime should be graduated and proportioned to [the] offense.") (citing Weems v. United States, 217 U.S. 349, 367, 30 S.Ct. 544, 54 L.Ed. 793 (1910)). There is no reason why Title 18 must be read to permit such a constitutionally suspect result: "where a statute is susceptible of two constructions, by one of which grave and doubtful constitutional questions arise and by the other of which such questions are avoided, our duty is to adopt the latter." Jones v. United States, 529 U.S. 848, 857, 120 S.Ct. 1904, 146 L.Ed.2d 902 (2000). Similarly, there is no reason why Title 18 must be read to permit results that are, if not unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment, patently absurd. See In re International Administrative Services, Inc., 408 F.3d 689, 707-08 (11th Cir.2005) (interpreting a federal statute so as to avoid an "absurd result"); see also Regions Bank v. Provident Bank, Inc., 345 F.3d 1267, 1276 ("the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that `[i]f possible, [a court] should avoid construing [a] statute in a way that produces ... absurd results.'") (citing Dewsnup v. Timm, 502 U.S. 410, 427, 112 S.Ct. 773, 116 L.Ed.2d 903 (1992)).
The Carpenter Court rejected both positions, however, holding that criminal contempt should be classified for sentencing according to the applicable Guidelines range for the most nearly analogous offense. Id. at 1285 (holding that where the Guidelines range was six to 12 months for the underlying offense, the contempt should be classified as a "Class A misdemeanor"). With regard to the government's argument, the Court said that "[i]t would be unreasonable to conclude that by authorizing an open-ended range of punishments to enable courts to address even the most egregious contempts appropriately, Congress meant to brand all contempts as serious and all contemnors as felons." Carpenter, 91 F.3d at 1284 (citing Frank v. United States, 395 U.S. 147, 149, 89 S.Ct. 1503, 23 L.Ed.2d 162 (1969) (failure to establish maximum sentence for contempt may reflect Congress's "recognition of the scope of criminal contempt") and U.S.S.G. § 2J1.1 comment n. 1 (rejecting any guideline range for criminal contempt "[b]ecause misconduct constituting contempt varies significantly.")).
Although it is true that Carpenter was decided when the Sentencing Guidelines were mandatory, the logic of the decision is not impaired by the Guidelines' recent fate. As the Ninth Circuit explained, the Guideline ranges are a useful and reasonable basis for classifying particular instances of criminal contempt because they are "directly linked to the severity of the offense[, ...] provid[ing] the best analogy to the classification scheme set out in 18 U.S.C. § 3559." Id. at 1285. That is to say, the Carpenter approach avoids the absurd result of branding all criminal contempts Class A felonies, while simultaneously achieving, or at least approximating, the intent of Congress. Thus Carpenter's reasoning presumably could survive even in the absence of the Guidelines themselves; in such case, a sentencing court would look to the most closely analogous offense for which federal law mandates or recommends a maximum sentence.
Although this Court normally declines to address the existence of error where an alleged error has been invited, it is not compelled to do soSee, e.g., Glassroth v. Moore, 335 F.3d 1282, 1289-90 (11th Cir.2003) (adopting Tenth Circuit's holding on evidentiary claim but concluding "in any event" that alleged error was invited); Ford ex rel. Estate of Ford v. Garcia, 289 F.3d 1283, 1295 (11th Cir.2002) ("declin[ing] to review for reversible error" where error was invited) (emphasis added); United States v. Hansen, 262 F.3d 1217, 1248 (11th Cir.2001) ("Under the invited error doctrine, we will generally not review an error induced or invited by a party ...") (emphasis added).
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