Opinion ID: 152880
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Richards's Acceptance Of Responsibility

Text: While the district court set forth several reasons why Kumar did not deserve a sentencing reduction for acceptance of responsibility, in denying Richards's same request, the court relied on a single factor: the lateness of Richards's plea. According to the district court, the most significant factor in the acceptance of responsibility scale is the factor of time limits. Richards Sentencing Tr. 15:7-9. The district court concluded that, by pleading two weeks before trial, Richards had exceeded those time limits, and therefore, was not entitled to acceptance of responsibility credit. On this point, we disagree. Timeliness of a defendant's plea is an appropriate consideration in the acceptance of responsibility determination. U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1 cmt. n.1(h). However, while the two-level reduction provided for in § 3E1.1(a) is for demonstration of acceptance of responsibility, the Sentencing Guidelines specifically provide that timeliness of a plea is primarily relevant to the reduction of an additional point under § 3E1.1(b), ostensibly for helping the authorities save resources. United States v. Ortiz-Torres, 449 F.3d 61, 76 (1st Cir. 2006) (internal quotation marks omitted). See United States v. Eyler, 67 F.3d 1386, 1390-91 (9th Cir.1995) (While the key inquiry for purposes of [§ 3E1.1(a)] is whether the defendant has demonstrated contrition, once this has been determined, then the focus of the section (b) inquiry is on timeliness.  (emphasis in original)). As Judge Lynch stated in Teyer: The Guidelines specifically provide a sanction for belated guilty pleas that fail adequately to save the resources of the Government and the Court. Defendants who plead at an early stage qualify for an additional one-level reduction that is correspondingly unavailable for belated pleas. That a defendant can earn an additional one-level reduction merely by notifying the authorities of his intention to plead early enough to permit the government to avoid preparing for trial strongly implies that defendants may qualify for the basic two-level adjustment for acceptance of responsibility without doing so. 322 F.Supp.2d at 376 (alteration, internal citations, and quotation marks omitted). Here, the lateness of Richards's plea on its own was not a sufficient foundation for denying him any acceptance of responsibility credit. While under certain circumstances the lateness of a plea might indeed weigh against the defendant, those circumstances are not present in this case. For example, Richards's plea came neither after the [g]overnment ... concluded presenting its case, ... during the jury's deliberations, nor on the morning of trial, and the district court cited no other [relevant] factors that warranted a rejection of Richards's request. Id. It is undisputed that Richards's obstruction and culpability was of a different order than that of Kumar. Richards Sentencing Tr. 25:15-16. Unlike Kumar, Richards appeared to fully accept responsibility both prior to and during sentencing. See Richards Sentencing Tr. 12:14-16 (Your Honor, I fully accept responsibility for the actions that I have taken and regret those actions.). Also unlike Kumar, who tampered with physical evidence, bribed witnesses, and lied repeatedly during the course of a federal investigation, Richards's obstructive conduct consisted entirely of a single, albeit false, denial of knowledge of the 35-day month practice during an interview and subsequent testimony that predated his guilty plea by three years and was accounted for in the indictment. Indeed, denying Richards acceptance of responsibility solely due to his charged obstructive conduct would effectively raise the Guidelines level for such conduct by foreclosing the opportunity for acceptance of responsibility credit in obstruction cases. Because the paramount factor in determining eligibility for § 3E1.1 credit is whether the defendant truthfully admits the conduct comprising the offense or offenses of conviction, and because Richards did so here in a sufficiently timely manner so as to avoid a lengthy trial and avert the risk of an irrational verdict, Teyer, 322 F.Supp.2d at 376, his lateness in pleading guilty did not by itself provide a sufficient basis for the denial of more than a one-point reduction for acceptance of responsibility. Accordingly, because the district court erroneously failed to award Richards a two-point reduction for acceptance of responsibility that he should have received, Richards's sentence is vacated and the case remanded to the district court for resentencing on this additional basis.