Opinion ID: 1040104
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Dunn’s Crack Cocaine Sentence

Text: Dunn entered into a plea agreement with the Government and pleaded guilty to the crack cocaine charge. In the plea agreement, Dunn and the Government agreed to propose a 84-month prison sentence, with 8 years of supervised release. The parties agreed that Dunn’s base offense level was 23, but they did not specify a criminal history category.2 The parties separately agreed that Dunn would serve a 16-month consecutive sentence for his supervised release violation, which was pending before Judge Maxine Chesney, in Case No. CR-01-0083. 1 In 2002, Dunn pleaded guilty to a firearm charge, and was sentenced to 78 months in prison and 36 months of supervised release. 2 The Government later stated in its sentencing memorandum that it had miscalculated the criminal history category to be V instead of VI, but that it intended to honor its 84-month agreement with Dunn. UNITED STATES V. DUNN 5 The Probation Officer disagreed with the proposed 84month sentence. He calculated a total offense level of 23 and a criminal history category of VI, which corresponded to the Guidelines range of 92 to 115 months in prison. With that calculation in mind, the Officer recommended 100 months in prison and 8 years of supervised release. In December 2009, the district judge sentenced Dunn to 100 months in prison and 8 years of supervised release. The judge rejected the plea agreement’s proposed 84 months of incarceration and concurred with the Probation Officer’s recommendation, stating that “100 months is the overall right total.” Tr. Mot. Proceeding (Dec. 15, 2009), at 11:12. He also stated that he was taking into account the 16-month sentence for Dunn’s supervised release violation, and that he wanted to ensure Dunn serve that amount of time in the event Judge Chesney chose to impose a lesser sentence. Because the district judge rejected the parties’ agreed-upon sentence, he gave Dunn the option of moving to set aside his guilty plea within six weeks if he objected to the combined sentence. Judge Chesney later imposed a 16-month sentence to run concurrently with Dunn’s 100-month sentence in this case, thereby leaving Dunn’s total sentence intact. Dunn did not move to withdraw his guilty plea.