Opinion ID: 6336968
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Proper Standard of Review

Text: The first question we address is whether Abreu’s arguments in the District Court were sufficiently particularized to preserve his challenge to Hightower. We clarified the degree of particularity required in United States v. Joseph, where we explained that “a party must make the same argument in the District Court that he makes on appeal” in order to preserve it.2 730 F.3d 336, 341 (3d Cir. 2013). We distinguished between raising an issue before the district court, which “is insufficient to preserve for appeal all arguments bearing on that issue,” and raising an argument, which can be pressed on appeal, but only if it “depend[s] on both the same legal rule and the same facts as the argument presented in the District Court.” Id. at 341–42. That condition is “essential to the proper functioning of our adversary system because even the most learned judges are not clairvoyant” and “we do not require [them] to anticipate and join arguments that are never raised by the parties.” United States v. Dupree, 617 F.3d 724, 728 (3d Cir. 2010) (citations omitted). 2 We had declined to determine in Joseph whether this framework applies beyond the context of Rule 12 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, which requires parties to raise certain defenses, objections, and requests by pretrial motion to avoid waiver. United States v. Joseph, 730 F.3d 336, 339 n.3 (3d Cir. 2013). But we have since used it to determine whether we should review an argument de novo or for plain error in the context of Rule 52(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which provides that arguments not brought to the district court’s attention are generally reviewable for plain error. See United States v. Grant, 9 F.4th 186, 199–200 (3d Cir. 2021); see also Spireas v. Comm’r of Internal Revenue, 886 F.3d 315, 321 n.9 (3d Cir. 2018) (clarifying that although Joseph arose out of the Rule 12 context, it “provides the governing rule” for the “threshold question of whether an argument was made” in the district court for both civil and criminal cases). 5 Notably, we did not say that a party must have made the same argument verbatim before the district court. To the contrary, we observed that “[p]arties are free . . . to place greater emphasis and more fully explain an argument on appeal than they did in the District Court . . . [or] even, within the bounds of reason, reframe their argument.” Joseph, 730 F.3d at 341. And although we cautioned that “[t]here is a limit . . . on the extent to which an argument may be reframed,” as “[r]evisions at some point become differences in kind,” we made clear that parties have leeway to change the way they present their arguments on appeal so long as they do not “change the[ir] substance.” Id. at 341 & n.5. The ultimate question is whether the parties “g[a]ve the District Court the opportunity to consider the argument.” Dupree, 617 F.3d at 731. Abreu met that standard here. In the sentencing memorandum he submitted objecting to the § 2K2.1(a)(4) enhancement, he argued that the District Court “must ignore” the commentary to § 4B1.2 because it was inconsistent with the text. App. 64–65. Specifically, he urged that the commentary may have related to the “residual clause” of the Armed Career Criminal Act, but once the Supreme Court held in Johnson v. United States, 576 U.S. 591, 597 (2015), that the “residual clause” was unconstitutionally vague and the Sentencing Commission struck an identical clause from § 4B1.2(a), see Brown v. United States, 139 S. Ct. 14, 15 (2018) (Sotomayor, J., dissenting), the commentary could no longer be viewed as interpreting or explaining the text that remained. In support of his argument, Abreu cited Stinson, 508 U.S. at 43–45, which addressed the weight courts should give to the Commission’s commentary by analogizing it to an agency’s interpretation of its own legislative rule, and he argued that no weight was due § 4B1.2’s commentary because it did not merely interpret the term “crime of violence” but expanded its textual definition. On appeal, although he frames it slightly differently, Abreu makes the same argument. He contends that § 4B1.2(a)’s definition of “crime of violence” unambiguously excludes conspiracy crimes, so it would be improper to defer to commentary that says they are included. Although he now cites to Kisor, 139 S. Ct. at 2414–15, a different, more recent 6 Supreme Court case, preservation requires advancement of the same legal principle, not citation to the same legal precedent. In any event, Kisor merely clarified the same doctrinal rule at issue in Stinson: the deference owed to an agency’s interpretation of its own regulations, with the same implications for Hightower. Abreu’s argument thus rests on “both the same legal rule,” i.e., that courts should not defer to contrary agency guidance in the face of clear text, “and the same facts . . . presented in the District Court,” i.e., the tension between the commentary and the definition of “crime of violence” in the text. Joseph, 730 F.3d at 342. Were there any doubt that Abreu “g[a]ve the District Court the opportunity to consider the argument” at sentencing, Dupree, 617 F.3d at 731, we need look no further than the sentencing hearing, where the District Court explained it was applying the § 2K2.1(a)(4) enhancement because it still “regard[ed] [Hightower] as binding.” App. 126–27. Because Abreu preserved his argument, we proceed to review it de novo.