Opinion ID: 797146
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The District Court's Consideration of Kaba's National Origin

Text: 23 As noted, Kaba narrowly focuses her argument on appeal on the district court's discussion of her membership in the Guinean or, more broadly, West-African community, which constituted much of the court's explanation for Kaba's sentence. She contends that the district court thus improperly considered—or at least improperly appeared to consider—her national origin in determining her sentence. 24 A defendant's race or nationality may play no adverse role in the administration of justice, including at sentencing. United States v. Leung, 40 F.3d 577, 586 (2d Cir.1994) (citations omitted); see also 28 U.S.C. § 994(d) (The [Sentencing] Commission shall assure that the guidelines and policy statements are entirely neutral as to the race, sex, national origin, creed, and socioeconomic status of offenders.); U.S.S.G. § 5H1.10 ([National origin is] not relevant in the determination of a sentence.). It has long been settled in this Circuit that although [r]eference to national origin and naturalized status is permissible during sentencing, it is allowed only so long as it does not become the basis for determining the sentence. United States v. Jacobson, 15 F.3d 19, 23 (2d Cir.1994) (citing United States v. Tarricone, 996 F.2d 1414, 1424-25 (2d Cir. 1993)). Although deterrence is undoubtedly a proper consideration in imposing sentence, we reject the view that a defendant's ethnicity or nationality may legitimately be taken into account in selecting a particular sentence to achieve the general goal of deterrence. Leung, 40 F.3d at 586 (citations omitted). Nor is proof of actual bias necessary to warrant vacatur of the sentence. Because `justice must satisfy the appearance of justice,' even the appearance that the sentence reflects a defendant's race or nationality will ordinarily require a remand for resentencing. Id. (citing United States v. Edwardo-Franco, 885 F.2d 1002, 1005-06 (2d Cir. 1989) (internal citations omitted)). 25 Because a determination of whether the district court improperly considered the defendant's national origin is a pure question of law, we review this aspect of the sentencing de novo. See United States v. Barresi, 361 F.3d 666, 671 (2d Cir.2004). 26 Our decision in Leung controls our resolution of this appeal. There, the district court had made two remarks in the course of its sentencing proceeding that were subsequently contested. The first addressed the defendant's request for a downward departure based on her difficult childhood in China: 27 Indeed frequently when I sentence folks who are not American citizens—she is a Canadian citizen who comes from mainland China—frequently when I sentence non-American citizens I make the observation which may to seem [sic] cynical but it is not intended to be cynical, it is intended to be factual: We have enough home-grown criminals in the United States without importing them. And I don't see this as a case if [sic] for downward departure in any manner, shape or form. And I decline to downwardly depart. 28 Leung, 40 F.3d at 585 (brackets in original). Second, the district court explained its reasons for imposing the sentence it chose: 29 The purpose of my sentence here is to punish the defendant and to generally deter others, particularly others in the Asiatic community because this case received a certain amount of publicity in the Asiatic community, and I want the word to go out from this courtroom that we don't permit dealing in heroin and it is against president [sic] law, it is against the customs of the United States, and if people want to come to the United States they had better abide by our laws. That's the reason for the sentence, punishment and general deterrence. 30 Id. (brackets in original). 31 The Leung court noted its confiden[ce] that the district judge whose sentence it was reviewing in fact harbored no bias. Id. at 586. It nonetheless vacated the sentence because there [was] a sufficient risk that a reasonable observer, hearing or reading the quoted remarks, might infer, however incorrectly, that Leung's ethnicity and alien status played a role in determining her sentence. Id. at 586-87; see also Edwardo-Franco, 885 F.2d at 1005-06 (vacating sentences and convictions of defendants where the district court's comments about, inter alia, the Columbian nationality of the defendants did not satisfy the appearance of justice). And the court distinguished Leung's case from others where we had held that mere passing references to the defendant's nationality or immigrant status at sentencing were not grounds for vacating a defendant's sentence. Leung, 40 F.3d at 587 (citing Jacobson, 15 F.3d at 23 (concluding that individual, distinctive factors, such as the defendant's intelligence and lack of remorse, were the basis for the sentencing disparity, not the defendant's nationality), and Tarricone, 996 F.2d at 1424-25 (deciding that there was no impropriety or appearance of injustice where there was substantial evidence of other wrongdoing that supported the defendant's sentence)). 32 The comments of the district court that led to a remand in Leung resemble those at issue here. In both cases, the district court referred to the publicity a sentence might receive in the defendant's ethnic community or native country and explicitly stated its intention to seek to deter others sharing that national origin from violating United States laws in the future. Compare Leung, 40 F.3d at 585 (I want the word to go out from this courtroom that we don't permit dealing in heroin and it is against president [sic] law, it is against the customs of the United States, and if people want to come to the United States they had better abide by our laws.) with Sentencing Tr., United States v. Kaba, June 9, 2005, at 25 (I hope that that has some effect here that will deter other people from that background from doing what you've done here.) and id. at 26 (Ms. Kaba, I suggest that you go around telling people, look, watch yourself here. If you come to this country, it gives you great opportunity to build a restaurant and make a life for yourself, but if you violate our laws, they're going to dump on you.). 33 The government argues that the district court's comments were a natural and logical response to arguments and submissions by both parties. See Gov't Br. at 23-24 (Kaba's national origin was inseparable from any consideration of the criminal conduct in which she participated, and, in light of the parties' arguments, of any consideration of her background); see also id. at 24 n.  (asserting that, unlike in Leung, the defendant's nationality was directly pertinent to her offense). This does not meaningfully distinguish this case from Leung. The mistake that the district court made was not its consideration of the defendant's background as an immigrant from Guinea. 3 It was the court's apparent suggestion that the sentence was based, at least in part, on the defendant's identification with the West-African community. That was no less error because the government invited it. 34 As in Leung, the transcript of the sentencing hearing leaves us with no doubt that the district court harbored no bias toward Kaba because of her national origin. Leung, 40 F.3d at 586. But Leung does not permit us to focus our analysis on the court's motivation for doing so. The creation of at least the appearance of unfairness requires a remand for re-sentencing. The sentence must therefore be vacated. 35