Opinion ID: 3063901
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: appeal of acuna and battle, jr.'s sentences

Text: The jury found that Acuna committed numerous predicate acts as part of a pattern of racketeering activity, including several acts of gambling, conspiracy to murder and the murder of Ernesto Torres, and conspiracy to murder Idalia Fernandez. On appeal, Acuna argues that his life sentence is unreasonable in light of the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors, because the court failed to account adequately for his age, poor health, and low likelihood of recidivism. “We review the sentence imposed by the district court for reasonableness.” 30 United States v. Talley, 431 F.3d 784, 785 (11th Cir. 2005). Reasonableness review requires that the appellate court review the sentence under an abuse-of-discretion standard. Gall v. United States, __ U.S. __, 128 S.Ct. 586, 594, 169 L.Ed.2d 445 (2007). As the Supreme Court recently instructed, we: must first ensure that the district court committed no significant procedural error, such as failing to calculate (or improperly calculating) the Guidelines range, treating the Guidelines as mandatory, failing to consider the [18 U.S.C.] § 3553(a) factors, selecting a sentence based on clearly erroneous facts, or failing to adequately explain the chosen sentence – including an explanation for any deviation from the Guidelines range. Id., ___ U.S. ___ , 128 S.Ct. at 597. In providing a statement of reasons for the sentence imposed, the district court “[s]hould set forth enough to satisfy the appellate court that he has considered the parties’ arguments and has a reasoned basis for exercising his own legal decisionmaking authority.” Rita v. United States, __ U.S. ____ , 127 S.Ct. 2456, 2468, 168 L.Ed.2d 203 (2007). If the district court’s decision is procedurally sound, our analysis then turns to the substantive reasonableness of the sentence. See Gall, ___ U.S. at ___, 128 S.Ct. at 597. “In reviewing the ultimate sentence imposed by the district court for reasonableness, we consider the final sentence, in its entirety, in light of the § 3553(a) factors.” United States v. Thomas, 446 F.3d 1348, 1351 (11th Cir. 2006). The § 3553 (a) factors include: 31 (1) the nature and circumstances of the offense and the history and characteristics of the defendant; (2) the need to reflect the seriousness of the offense, to promote respect for the law, and to provide just punishment for the offense; (3) the need for deterrence; (4) the need to protect the public; (5) the need to provide the defendant with needed educational or vocational training or medical care; (6) the kinds of sentences available; (7) the Sentencing Guidelines range; (8) pertinent policy statements of the Sentencing Commission; (9) the need to avoid unwanted sentencing disparities; and (10) the need to provide restitution to victims. Talley, 431 F.3d at 786 (summarizing 18 U.S.C. § 3553 (a)). However, “nothing in Booker or elsewhere requires the district court to state on the record that it has explicitly considered each of the § 3553(a) factors or to discuss each of the § 3553(a) factors.” United States v. Scott, 426 F.3d 1324, 1329 (11th Cir. 2005). Instead, an explicit acknowledgment that the district court has considered the defendant’s arguments and the § 3553 (a) factors will suffice. Id. at 1329-30. “[T]he party who challenges the sentence bears the burden of establishing that the sentence is unreasonable in light of both [the] record and the factors in section 3553(a).” Talley, 431 F.3d at 788. Nothing in the record suggests that the court committed clear error of judgment in weighing the § 3553(a) factors and arriving at Acuna’s sentence. The sentence is reasonable in light of the crimes he committed in furtherance of the RICO conspiracy, the need to provide just punishment, and the need to protect the 32 public. The court explicitly found that the evidence established that Acuna was an enforcer for the enterprise and that he committed the murder of Torres and engaged in the conspiracy to murder Fernandez at the direction of Battle, Sr. Here, Acuna has not met his burden of demonstrating that his within-range sentence is either procedurally or substantively unreasonable. Therefore, we affirm.
Battle, Jr. argues that the court erred in departing upward from the guidelines, and that the guideline range should have been 46 to 57 months’ imprisonment; in light of his range, his 188 months sentence is unreasonable, he claims. Battle, Jr. also argues that the forfeiture order is grossly disproportionate to his offense and, therefore, a violation of his rights under the Eighth Amendment. Because he has not met his burden of demonstrating that his sentence is unreasonable in light of the record and the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors, we affirm. Initially, Battle, Jr. faced a guideline range of 46 to 57 months. The court, however, upwardly departed and sentenced Battle, Jr. to 188 months, and imposed a forfeiture money judgment in the amount of $642 million dollars against him. Battle, Jr. now argues that the district court erred in departing from the guidelines, or in the alternative, the sentence was not reasonable in light of the 18 U.S.C. § 33 3553(a) factors. The district court plainly stated that it would have reached the sentence that it ultimately imposed based on its analysis of the § 3553(a) factors and independent of it resolution of the issues relating to Battle, Jr.'s guidelines calculations. “After the Supreme Court’s decisions in Booker and Gall, the district courts are still required to correctly calculate the advisory Guidelines range.” United States v. Livesay, 525 F.3d 1081, 1089 (11th Cir. 2008). However, “[t]he Supreme Court and this Court have long recognized that it is not necessary to decide guidelines issues or remand cases for new sentence proceedings where the guidelines error, if any, did not affect the sentence.” United States v. Keene, 470 F.3d 1347, 1349 (11th Cir. 2006); see Williams v. United States, 503 U.S. 193, 203, 112 S. Ct. 112, 1120-21, 117 L.Ed.2d 341 (1992) (“[O]nce the court of appeals has decided that the district court misapplied the Guidelines, a remand is appropriate unless the reviewing court concludes, on the record as a whole, that the error was harmless, i.e., that the error did not affect the district court’s selection of the sentence imposed.”). Accordingly, we need not resolve disputed guidelines issues where the district court has stated, as it did here, that “the guidelines advice that results from the decision of those issues does not matter to the sentence imposed after the § 34 3553(a) factors are considered,” and we conclude that “the sentence imposed through the alternative or fallback reasoning of § 3553(a) [is] reasonable.” Keene, 470 F.3d at 1349. “In determining whether it is reasonable we must assume that there was a guidelines error – that the guidelines issue should have been decided in the way the defendant argued and the advisory range reduced accordingly – and then ask whether the final sentence resulting from consideration of the § 3553(a) factors would still be reasonable.” Id.; see United States v. Dean, 517 F.2d 1224, 1232 (11th Cir. 2007) (applying Keene and holding that, assuming the district court erroneously calculated the defendant’s guidelines range, the sentence nevertheless “was reasonable and stands despite the disputed guidelines issue”). In applying the standard of Gall, discussed supra, we find that Battle Jr.'s sentence was reasonable in light of the record and the factors in § 3553(a). The court considered the § 3553(a) factors and specifically detailed the nature and circumstances of the offense, Battle, Jr.'s history and characteristics, the need to promote respect for the law and provide adequate punishment, the seriousness of the RICO offense and Battle, Jr.'s underlying racketeering activities, and the need to avoid unwarranted sentencing disparities. The court stated that he played a leadership role in the enterprise which lasted over a very substantial period of time and was significant in scope. It further found that the amount of gambling 35 proceeds was staggering; we cannot dispute this as the government showed that the Corporation's gambling operations generated $1.4 billion in proceeds, $642 million of which were generated during the time period in which Battle received gambling profits. Moreover, the court stated on the record that it accounted for the sentences of co-conspirators who were only involved in the Corporation's money laundering activities, and not also in the gambling operations. We also note that Battle, Jr.'s 188-month sentence was well below the 240-month statutory maximum. Here, Battle, Jr. has not shown that the court abused its discretion and imposed an unreasonable 188-month sentence, even with an assumed guidelines range of 46 to 57 months. As a result, we affirm without deciding the contested guidelines issues, because even if we resolved those issues in Battle’s favor, the district court “has already told us that it would impose exactly the same sentence” based on the § 3553(a) factors and independent of its application of the guidelines. See Keene, 470 F.3d at 1350.
In support of its verdict of guilty of conspiracy to commit racketeering, the jury found that Battle, Jr. committed eight predicate acts of money laundering, along with numerous predicate acts of, inter alia, gambling and conspiracy to 36 commit money laundering. At the hearing on the issue of forfeiture, Detective David Shanks testified to his review of the evidence that the government demonstrated at trial the amount of money collected by the Corporation during various parts of the RICO conspiracy. He stated that in the time period from 1979 until 1980, the Corporation’s gambling operations generated an average of $175,000 per week and that during the period from 1981 until 1988, it generated an average of $1.5 million per week. Battle, Jr. was a leader of the Corporation’s gambling operations and until 1989, received a share of the gambling proceeds. We also note that the jury entered a special verdict finding that the Corporation’s racketeering activities generated $1.4 billion in proceeds. “We review de novo the district court’s legal conclusions regarding forfeiture and the court’s findings of fact for clear error.” United States v. Browne, 505 F.3d 1229, 1278 (11th Cir. 2007) (citations and quotations omitted), petition for cert. filed U.S. March 17, 2008 ) (No. 07- 1190). “Whether a forfeiture order is constitutionally excessive under the Eighth Amendment is also subject to de novo review.” Browne, 505 F.3d at 1278. An individual who violates § 1962 “shall forfeit to the United States . . . (1) any interest the person has acquired or maintained in violation of [§] 1962 . . . and . . . (3) any property constituting, or derived from, any proceeds which the person 37 obtained, directly or indirectly, from racketeering activity or unlawful debt collection in violation of [§] 1962.” 18 U.S.C. §§ 1963(a)(1) and (3). “Forfeitures are subject to the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against excessive fines ‘if they constitute punishment for an offense[,]’” and “[s]ubject forfeitures violate the Excessive Fines Clause if they are ‘grossly disproportional to the gravity of the defendant’s offense.’” Brown, 505 F.3d at 1281 (quoting United States v. Bajakajian, 524 U.S. 321, 328, 337, 118 S.Ct. 2028, 2033, 141 L.Ed.2d 314 (1998)). “This, in turn, is determined by examining three factors: (1) whether the defendant falls into the class of persons at whom the criminal statute was principally directed; (2) other penalties authorized by the legislature (or the Sentencing Commission); and (3) the harm caused by the defendant.” Browne, 505 F.3d at 1281 (summarizing Bajakajian). As to these factors, Battle is “precisely the type of person toward whom RICO is principally directed . . .” because he committed racketeering activities, as the contemplated by the foreiture statute. Browne, 505 F.3d at 1282. Moreover, as to the second factor, the maximum sentence that could have been imposed was 20 years imprisonment, and the maximum fine was twice the amount of gross gain that Battle derived from the RICO enterprise. See 18 U.S.C. §§ 1963(a), 3571 (d). Unlike Bajakajian, these penalties suggest a significant level of culpability. See 38 524 U.S. at 338, 118 S.Ct. at 2038; see also Browne, 505 F.3d at 1282 (That Congress authorized a maximum fine of $250,000 and 20 years' imprisonment each for Counts 1 and 2 further underscores that it viewed such violations as serious transgressions.). Turning to the third factor, the harm caused by Battle, Jr.'s involvement in this RICO enterprise was also significant. The jury found that he committed eight separate acts of money laundering, and this Court has observed that [e]ach unlawful monetary transaction harms society by impeding law enforcement's efforts to track ill-gotten gains. United States v. Martin, 320 F.3d 1223, 1227 (11th Cir. 2003). The laundered funds were derived from illegal gambling operations, which involved numerous acts of violence targeted at rival businesses; Battle, Jr. was in a leadership position at the time such violent acts were committed and approved payments for such acts from the UNESCO account. In sum, we find that the forfeiture order, albeit a huge sum, was not grossly disproportionate to the RICO offense, which at one point generated $1.5 to $2 million per week in gambling proceeds, and which involved acts of violence to protect gambling operations and acts of money laundering to conceal the unlawful funds derived therefrom. The court’s $642 million forfeiture order was not grossly disproportionate to Battle’s RICO offense. Therefore, we affirm. 39 SENTENCES AND FORFEITURE ORDER AFFIRMED. 40