Opinion ID: 2709214
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Consideration of Mitigation Arguments

Text: Pilon also argues that the district court did not adequately consider her mitigation arguments in determining her sentence. Specifically, Pilon argued that her poor health and the burden her incarceration would have on her family called for a lower sentence. While the sentencing guidelines are advisory, the district court must apply the sentencing factors. United States v. Miranda, 505 F.3d 785, 791 (7th Cir. 2007). Two such factors that the court must consider are the “history and characteristics of the defendant” and “the need … to provide the defendant with needed … medical care … in the most effective manner.” 18 U.S.C. §3553(a)(1); (a)(2)(d). However, the district court “need not comment on every argument the defendant raises.” Miranda, 505 F.3d at 792. Rather, “arguments clearly without merit can, and for the sake of judicial economy should, be passed over in silence.” United States v. Cunningham, 429 F.3d 673, 678 (7th Cir. 2005) “But when a court gives little or no attention to the defendant’s principal argument when that argument ‘was not so weak as not to merit discussion,’ we cannot have confidence that the judge adequately considered No. 12-3159 11 the section 3553(a) factors.” Miranda, 505 F.3d at 792 (quoting Cunningham, 429 F.3d at 679). “Mitigating arguments about … general hardships typically do not require any discussion at all.” United States v. Gary, 613 F.3d 706, 710 (7th Cir. 2010). However, “a sentencing court cannot summarily disregard a defendant’s potentially meritorious argument as it relates to extraordinary family circumstances.” Id. at 711. That is not what happened here. At the time of her sentencing, Pilon was 60 years old and was suffering from sarcoidosis, asthma, an irregular heartbeat, and fused vertebrae in her spine. She had growths in her eyes that were causing pain and vision problems. Further, she had two high school-age children, one of whom was 19 and had cancer. With her husband also incarcerated, care for these children was left to her eldest daughter, who had three children of her own and was facing a divorce. Before sentencing, Pilon’s counsel filed a sentencing memorandum which referenced an attached letter from Pilon containing this information (the specifics of her illness were in her presentence report); this information was, however, a small part of Pilon’s sentencing argument. At her sentencing hearing, Pilon’s attorney’s argument focused almost entirely on her loyalty to her husband, her loyalty to the Washitaw Nation, and the claim that Pilon may have thought there was a chance of returning the money to her investors. The hardship on her family was only mentioned in passing at the beginning of her counsel’s argument. The district court was not persuaded by Pilon’s arguments for leniency. After conducting an analysis of the sentencing 12 No. 12-3159 factors, and then pronouncing its sentence, the court further explained: I also note that some of the very same things that you seek the Court to be sympathetic regarding, for example, the fact that the primary caregiver will now be imprisoned and that there’s limited financial means for your family, those were considerations that you didn’t give to the victims in the case earlier on when they were in limited financial places. This statement demonstrates that the district court considered Pilon’s arguments about her age, her role as caregiver, and the hardship on her family, but found that these considerations were outweighed by the need for her sentence to reflect the seriousness of her offense. See 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(2)(A). This court has recognized that a sick, young child who requires special care presents an extraordinary family circumstance that the court must consider in selecting its sentence—and a statement that the circumstance is the defendant’s fault is not adequate consideration. United States v. Schroeder, 536 F.3d 746, 756 (7th Cir. 2008). Nonetheless, Pilon’s family hardship argument was not a major part of her sentencing strategy, and the district court gave consideration commensurate with the argument that was made. The district court demonstrated that it had read her letter and considered her family hardship, but thought that the circumstances did not outweigh the seriousness of her offense. Cf. Schroeder, 536 F.3d at 751 (holding that summarily blaming the family hardship on No. 12-3159 13 the defendant was insufficient consideration where the defendant made family hardship a focal point by providing medical documentation, offering testimony about the family’s hardship, and making the circumstances a key point of argument at sentencing). Further, by Pilon’s own admission, her older daughter has cared for her son with cancer for some time. Her son is not a minor. Cf. Schroeder, 536 F.3d at 750-51 (child was daycare age). Further, when Pilon was finally arrested for her crime, she was found in North Carolina (for medical reasons) far from her son in Illinois. The district court adequately considered Pilon’s mitigation arguments. See United States v. Diekemper, 604 F.3d 345, 355 (7th Cir. 2010) (“the fact that the district court acknowledged this argument is dispositive—as long as a sentencing court considers the arguments made in mitigation, even if implicitly and imprecisely, the sentence imposed will be found reasonable”); cf. Schroeder, 536 F.3d at 756 (holding that a district court’s rejection of an argument for an inappropriate reason was error). Finally, Pilon’s arguments about her health and age were not exceptional. See United States v. Moreland, 703 F.3d 976, 991 (7th Cir. 2012) (“As for age and infirmity, age 59 is not elderly in our society; the elderly do not have a license to commit crime, and adequate medical care is available in federal prisons.”) (citations omitted). While the court is sympathetic to the tragedy of leaving the care of a son with cancer to an already burdened family member, the district court did not fail to adequately consider Pilon’s arguments. 14 No. 12-3159 D. Substantive Reasonableness of Pilon’s Sentence Pilon’s last argument builds upon her mitigation arguments by adding an argument that her personal characteristics and low criminal history put her, statistically, at a very low risk of recidivism, and all things considered a sentence of 78 months’ incarceration was substantively unreasonable. “A correctly calculated, within-Guidelines sentence is entitled to a presumption of reasonableness.” United States v. Barnes, 660 F.3d 1000, 1010 (7th Cir. 2011). “To sustain the presumption, a district court need provide only a justification for its sentence ‘adequate to allow for meaningful appellate review and to promote the perception of fair sentencing.’” Id. (quoting United States v. Scott, 555 F.3d 605, 608 (7th Cir. 2009)). Here, Pilon argues that her age and health, her family ties, her nonexistent criminal history, and her statistically low chance of recidivism make her sentence substantively unreasonable. But the district court found that her crime was very serious, and the fact that it involved “preying upon weak people” who “were targeted for their vulnerability to be gullible enough to think that this was going to save them during some challenging times and, instead, it was exactly the thing that pushed them over the cliff” was “an extremely aggravating factor.” See 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(2)(A) (the court must consider the need for the sentence “to reflect the seriousness of the offense, to promote respect for the law, and to provide just punishment for the offense”). Moreover, while Pilon argues from statistics about recidivism, the court assessed her individually, and considering her refusal to recognize the jurisdiction of the court and the laws of the United States in the context of her loyalty to her husband and the No. 12-3159 15 Washitaw Nation found that Pilon was “someone who is prone to recidivism and not acceptance, someone who is prone to hiding the reality of the situation rather than accepting the remorseful reality of it.” Finally, the district court noted that Pilon’s scheme: went on for a period of years, it had a broad base with numerous victims, [and so it] requires a sentence that will both be a sanc- tion for the defendant as well as a message to others who would consider such a scheme, that they shouldn’t do it, because the sen- tence will be one that is serious enough to deter the conduct of others in the future. Accordingly, the district court believed that Pilon’s sentence was justified by the need for general and special deterrence and because of the seriousness of her offense. The district court’s findings and rationales were not erroneous and they provide a sufficient justification for Pilon’s presumptively reasonable sentence.