Opinion ID: 2751913
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Alleged penalty for Fermin's exercise of right

Text: against self-incrimination Finally, Fermin argues that he was penalized during sentencing for having exercised his constitutional right against self-incrimination. Specifically, Fermin contends that the district court improperly focused on his refusal to admit knowledge of the contents of the suitcase, drawing an adverse inference from the refusal and meting out a harsher sentence as a result. Because Fermin did not raise this objection below, our review is for plain error. United States v. Paladin, 748 F.3d 438, 452 (1st Cir. 2014). In short, the record does not bear out Fermin's assertion. Toward the end of the sentencing hearing, the district court discussed a letter that Fermin had sent to the court following trial, in which he voiced regret for taking the suitcase but still maintained that he had not known of its contents. The court did not focus on Fermin's silence, but rather on the version of events he articulated during the suppression hearing and again in the letter, expressing skepticism at his insistence that he did not know what was in the suitcase. However, the court did not translate this skepticism into an additional sentence enhancement; in fact, the forty-one-month sentence Fermin ultimately received -24- was at the lowest end of the guideline range for his offense level.12 There is no indication that the court imposed a more severe penalty as a result of Fermin's failure to admit that he knew what was in the suitcase.