Opinion ID: 406483
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Factors in Sentencing.

Text: 12 Section 3577 of 18 U.S.C. provides that (no) limitation shall be placed on the information concerning the background, character, and conduct of a person convicted of an offense which a court of the United States may receive and consider for the purpose of imposing an appropriate sentence. 18 U.S.C. § 3577 (1976). A sentencing judge may appropriately conduct an inquiry broad in scope, largely unlimited either as to the kind of information he may consider, or the source from which it may come. United States v. Tucker, 404 U.S. 443, 446, 92 S.Ct. 589, 591, 30 L.Ed.2d 592 (1972). Information which may be permissibly considered includes criminal activities for which the defendant has not been prosecuted, illegally obtained evidence, criminal charges of which the defendant has been acquitted, and uncorroborated hearsay evidence which the defendant has had an opportunity to rebut. United States v. Plisek, 657 F.2d 920, 926-27 (7th Cir. 1981). There are, however, due process limitations on the degree to which the judge may rely on convictions obtained without the benefit of counsel, or convictions based on materially false or unreliable information. Id. at 924. 13 The appellant claims that the court was precluded from considering that the defendant had shaved his hands, escaped from a half-way house, shouted an obscenity at a state court judge, and written an accusatory letter to a juror in the first bank robbery trial, because these matters were unsupported by any evidence in the record and had never been charged or adjudicated. Clearly under Plisek, the court was entitled to consider these matters regardless of these objections. Moreover, all these matters were included in the presentence report and were brought out by the Government in the sentencing hearing, yet the appellant failed to object to their admission based on the inaccuracy or hearsay nature of the information. Under these circumstances, the appellant must be held to have waived any objection to their accuracy or hearsay status. Id. at 924-25 (7th Cir. 1981). Similarly, it was permissible for the court to consider the appellant's criminal record, including convictions he claimed were invalid, and the bank robbery charges of which he was acquitted. Id. at 927-28. 14 The appellant's objections to the factors considered by the court then dwindle to one single question: whether the trial court in imposing its sentence on the contempt charge gave improper weight to the bank robbery acquittal, appellant's criminal record and his alleged acts of misconduct. Review of the record of the hearing in its entirety, however, manifests that the court considered the appellant's acquittal, as well as his prior convictions and alleged acts of misconduct, only insofar as they reflected on the intent behind, and repercussions on the ongoing judicial proceedings of, the appellant's refusal to provide the handwriting exemplars. 15 The appellant's alleged acts of misconduct during the bank robbery trials had an immediate bearing on the appellant's intent in refusing to provide the handwriting exemplars. Counsel for the appellant had put forth the appellant's eventual acquiescence in providing the exemplars as a factor to be considered in sentencing. The judge appropriately noted that during the first trial the appellant had refused to provide the exemplars to be used to determine whether he had signed the documents in question. During the second trial, after it had become obvious that the Government could identify the signers of the documents without the exemplars, the appellant provided the exemplars and took the stand to admit signing two of the documents showing title to the car. His admission to owning the car conflicted squarely with his accusation in the first trial that the FBI had planted his fingerprints on the car. The court appropriately concluded from the timing of the appellant's actions that the appellant had knowingly pursued this tactic to hinder the prosecution. See United States v. Berardelli, 565 F.2d 24, 31 (2d Cir. 1977). From our examination of the court's remarks, it is evident that the appellant's prior convictions were also factors only insofar as they buttressed the court's conclusion that the appellant was contemptuous of the court and the whole judicial process. 2 16 Nor was the court's consideration of the appellant's acquittal in any sense improper. The appellant relies on certain remarks made by the attorney for the Government and by the court which purportedly demonstrate that the court sentenced the appellant to three years because the court considered the appellant to have been guilty of the bank robbery charge on which he was acquitted and for which he could have received a maximum sentence of twenty-five years. The attorney for the Government, in arguing that a substantial sentence be imposed, noted that the appellant's conduct was aimed at avoiding a sentence of twenty-five years. At one point the court noted that its dilemma was to determine whether it was sentencing the appellant for the possession of a gun and the bank robbery or narrowly for the appellant's conduct in relation to the handwriting exemplars alone. 17 Yet, immediately prior to termination of the sentencing hearing, the court stated:(T)he jury found you not guilty, and-but my problem is what do I do at this point, and I suppose-not I suppose. I know that I am not at liberty-it would be an abuse of my discretion to sentence you for the bank robbery. Nor may I sentence you for possessing a gun by a convicted felon. Those are things that you have a right to a trial on specifically, and a right to be, if convicted, sentenced for. 18 Specifically as to the court's remarks on the appellant's guilt in the bank robbery charge, the purportedly objectionable remarks of the court arose tangentially in the context of the consequences of the appellant's refusal to cooperate: 19 The fact of the failure or the refusal of the order to give the exemplar while in-in tort law I suppose that Mr. Ray is not the proximate cause of the contaminated materials going to the jury, but if he had followed the order before the first trial, that material would not have gone to the jury, and we can only speculate what that jury's verdict would have been. There would have been no requirement for a second trial. (The prejudicial materials which went to the jury appear to be letters written by the appellant which were utilized in the first trial for purposes of analyzing the appellant's handwriting.) 20 The second-another good question is that I heard the evidence in this case twice. The jury in the first case found the Defendant guilty, and in the second case found the Defendant not guilty. 21 I don't-I believe in the jury system, gentlemen. I always have. I didn't agree with the jury. I thought that the Defendant had been proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt without reference to hair on the hand, and I'm confident that if the jury had seen the hand shaved above the coat line, the jury would have-that jury would have found the Defendant guilty, I feel, although I can't say that in (sic) any empirical evidence. 22 As the court's final comments quoted above make clear, the court did not impose the sentence based upon its own evaluation of the merits of the acquittals, except insofar as the acquittals may have been the result of the appellant's contumacious behavior for which he was being sentenced. Therefore, we conclude that the court was within the bounds of its discretion in its consideration of the appellant's prior convictions, alleged acts of misconduct, and the potential impact in the bank robbery case of Ray's behavior even though Ray eventually was acquitted of that charge. 3 23