Opinion ID: 199073
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Denial of Taylor's Request for a Safety Valve Reduction

Text: 29 Taylor sought relief from his mandatory minimum sentence in the safety valve provision. See 18 U.S.C. § 3553(f); U.S.S.G. § 5C1.2. The district court's denial of that request was grounded in the fifth of the five safety valve criteria:not later than the time of the sentencing hearing, the defendant has truthfully provided to the Government all information and evidence the defendant has concerning the offense or offenses that were part of the same course of conduct or of a common scheme or plan, but the fact that the defendant has no relevant or useful other information to provide or that the Government is already aware of the information shall not preclude a determination by the court that the defendant has complied with this requirement. 30 18 U.S.C. § 3553(f)(5); U.S.S.G. § 5C1.2(5). The defendant bears the burden of showing his entitlement to a safety valve reduction. See United States v. Cadavid, 192 F.3d 230, 239 (1st Cir. 1999). We review the district court's safety valve findings for clear error. See United States v. Woods, 210 F.3d 70, 76 (1st Cir. 2000). 31 A defendant is not required to make the necessary disclosure in any particular way. See United States v. Montanez, 82 F.3d 520, 522 (1st Cir. 1996). What counts is the substance of the disclosure. The defendant must, by an affirmative act of cooperation with the government, United States v. Wrenn, 66 F.3d 1, 3 (1st Cir. 1995), truthfully provide all the information he possesses concerning the crime. 32 There is no evidence in the record that Taylor made the requisite disclosure. At the sentencing hearing, the prosecutor represented to the court that there had been only an aborted proffer session, at which Taylor gave an account that the government regarded as absurd. Taylor's attorney, on the other hand, said that the proffer session broke down because Mr. Taylor said that he was not going to talk about anybody's activity other than his own and that he did not know the people that were involved because they were much younger than he. Under either version, Taylor never truthfully told the government all he knew about the conspiracy. 33 Taylor nevertheless argued to the district court that he met the safety valve criteria because apart from the aborted interview, the Government never requested [him] to come in and give a truthful proffer. The district court was correct to reject that argument. Taylor was given a proffer session and failed to divulge all the information he possessed concerning the crime. Because the court did not clearly err in finding that Taylor had not proved his entitlement to the safety valve reduction, Taylor was properly sentenced to the mandatory minimum of ten years. 34