Opinion ID: 698644
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Criminal history category increase

Text: 153 Childress raises one challenge unique to his sentence. A Drug Enforcement Agency agent testified at his sentencing that in November 1988 Childress was stopped in Missouri for speeding and that the van he was driving was found to contain over 500 kilograms of cocaine. The agent also testified that this was the second largest inland seizure of cocaine in DEA history. Childress was convicted by a Missouri court of narcotics transportation in June 1989, but he had not yet been sentenced for this offense by the time of his September 1990 sentencing for conspiracy in the present case. The district court here found by a preponderance of evidence that Childress's criminal history category under the Sentencing Guidelines did not adequately reflect the seriousness of his conduct in Missouri; accordingly, it increased that category from I to II under Sec. 4A1.3 of the Guidelines. 154 Childress argues that this increase contravened the explicit language of Sec. 4A1.3. That section of the 1989 version of the Guidelines (the version in place for Childress's sentencing) read, in part, as follows: 155 Sec. 4A1.3. Adequacy of Criminal History Category (Policy Statement) 156 If reliable information indicates that the criminal history category does not adequately reflect the seriousness of the defendant's past criminal conduct ..., the court may consider imposing a sentence departing from the otherwise applicable guideline range. Such information may include, but is not limited to, information concerning: ... 157 (d) whether the defendant was pending trial, sentencing, or appeal on another charge at the time of the instant offense. 14 158 Childress argues that his instant offense was the conduct for which he is deemed to have participated in the Edmond conspiracy--that is, his 50-kilogram cocaine sale in August 1988. He notes that both his arrest and his conviction in Missouri took place after this date; hence, he argues, they could not be pending ... at the time of the instant offense. 159 Childress's argument, however, neglects the fact that he was being sentenced for conspiracy, not simply for the possession or distribution of the cocaine involved in his 50-kilogram delivery. Conspiracy is an ongoing offense that lasts, absent one's affirmative withdrawal from the enterprise, as long as any co-conspirator continues to further common ends; because he does not claim he affirmatively withdrew from the conspiracy, Childress is criminally responsible--as noted above in part IV--for all of his compatriots' foreseeable conduct in furtherance of those goals. Thus, Childress's instant offense for purposes of Sec. 4A1.3(d) lasted until the Edmond enterprise ceased operations, an event the district court placed in April 1989. See Edmond, 746 F.Supp. at 203 n. 3. At that point, Childress was pending trial for his actions in Missouri, and the district court could properly consider those actions under Sec. 4A1.3(d). Furthermore, because the court did not clearly err in its factfinding and the extent of its departure was reasonable under the Guidelines as they then stood, 15 we uphold the increase in Childress's criminal history category. Cf. United States v. Fadayini, 28 F.3d 1236, 1241-42 (D.C.Cir.1994). D. Columbus Daniels 1. Counsel of choice 160 Appellant Columbus Daniels asks that his murder and conspiracy convictions be set aside because he was denied his right to his counsel of choice in each of his two trials. See Wheat v. United States, 486 U.S. 153, 159, 108 S.Ct. 1692, 1697, 100 L.Ed.2d 140 (1988) (Sixth Amendment right to counsel includes the right to select and be represented by one's preferred attorney....). The Supreme Court has made it clear, however, that the right to counsel of choice is qualified in several important respects. For example, a defendant may not insist on representation by an attorney he cannot afford or who for other reasons declines to represent the defendant. Id. Similarly, the presumption in favor of [a defendant's] counsel of choice ... may be overcome not only by a demonstration of [the attorney's] actual conflict [of interest] but by a showing of a serious potential for conflict. Id. at 164, 108 S.Ct. at 1700. 161 By way of background, on August 8, 1988, Daniels was charged with murder in the District of Columbia Superior Court and retained R. Kenneth Mundy to represent him. Nine months later, Daniels was indicted in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia for the same murder and for membership in an alleged drug conspiracy. The D.C. murder charge was then joined with the federal charges. When a tentative date had been set for the trial of these charges, Mundy moved for a continuance and, on June 22, 1989, sent the district court two letters. In the first of these, he advised the court that his prepaid vacation conflicted with the proposed trial date, that he had been paid only a portion of his fee for his services, and that his requested fee had been set with only a homicide trial in mind whereas he now found himself stuck with a conspiracy trial that was vastly more complicated than the one he had originally undertaken. Mundy's second letter, which was written on behalf of his partner, Robert Mance, informed the court that Mance had not received his fee for representing a co-defendant, Emanuel Sutton. 162 The district court responded with an order which, among other things, directed Magistrate Judge Attridge to determine whether the participation in the trial of both Mundy and Mance posed a potential conflict of interest and whether one or both of them should remain in the case. The magistrate judge took note of the complex nature of the conspiracy and the large number of defendants in the case. He concluded that no one could fully anticipate what problems might develop as the government presented its case and as the defense attorneys for the 27 other defendants proceeded with their cross-examinations. Accordingly, he decided that he could not find that a conflict of interest would be unlikely to arise. He also concluded that although the two defendants had voluntarily waived their rights to conflict-free counsel, these waivers were not fully informed and, as a consequence, were ineffectual. He therefore recommended that both Mance and Mundy be disqualified from the case. The district court adopted that recommendation and subsequently appointed Arthur Levin to represent Daniels. 163 The court later divided the counts of the indictment into three groups, each to be the subject of a separate trial. As a result, the counts under which Sutton was indicted were assigned to Group I, while Daniels' counts (which included a firearms violation charge in addition to the conspiracy and murder charges) were divided between the other two. Levin represented Daniels in his Group II conspiracy trial and in his Group III murder and firearms violation trial. 164 As mentioned above, Daniels argues that the court improperly denied him his counsel of choice in both trials. In the alternative, he contends that, even if the court did not err when it first removed Mundy, it committed reversible error when it denied his subsequent request to be represented by Mundy in the separate murder trial. 165
166 Although Daniels challenges the court's decision to disqualify Mundy from representing him in the conspiracy trial, he recognizes that its decision to reject his waiver of the right to conflict-free counsel is reviewed for an abuse of discretion. See Wheat, 486 U.S. at 164, 108 S.Ct. at 1700. Because the Supreme Court has made it clear that the presumption in favor of a defendant's counsel of choice may be overcome ... by a showing of a serious potential for conflict, id., and because a conflict between Sutton and Daniels could have developed during the evolution of the government's conspiracy case, we find that the district court did not abuse its discretion when it disqualified Mundy. 167
168 After the conspiracy trial ended in a conviction for Daniels, Levin informed the court three weeks prior to the date proposed for the murder trial that Daniels wanted Mundy to defend him in the Group III proceeding. The court denied Daniels' motion on the ground that the issue of Mundy's capacity to represent Daniels had already been decided. In response, Levin argued that although Mundy might have had a potential conflict in the conspiracy trial, that possibility was not present in the impending murder trial. Unpersuaded, the district court denied the motion. A week later, Daniels reiterated his argument, and the court again rejected it. 169 On June 6, 1990, the court granted Rayful Edmond's motion to sever his murder trial from that of Daniels and ruled that Edmond's trial would commence after Daniels' trial. Daniels was tried alone for murder and for carrying a pistol without a license and was convicted as charged on June 21, 1990. On appeal, Daniels argues that even if the district court did not err when it initially disqualified Mundy, it did so when it refused to reconsider Mundy's ability to represent him in the murder trial. 170 In response, the government first contends that even after the conclusion of the Group II trial, a potential for conflict continued to exist in the Group III trial because the homicide charge was related to the complex drug conspiracy. We are unable to discern how Mundy's representation of Daniels in the Group III trial could have presented a serious potential for conflict. There were only four defendants in the Group III proceedings, and the issues involving Daniels were well-defined. The government's murder case would not have required the kind of sweeping inquiry that was necessary to prove the conspiracy charges. 171 The government argues, in the alternative, that because Daniels moved for new counsel a month after a Group III trial date had been set and only three weeks before that trial was to take place, Daniels' request to be represented by Mundy constituted a last-minute request and, therefore, was properly denied as untimely. We have declared that a defendant's right to counsel must be weighed against the public's interest in the orderly administration of justice. United States v. Rettaliata, 833 F.2d 361, 362 (D.C.Cir.1987). We believe, however, that the government exaggerates matters when it asserts that Daniels waited until the last minute and that his motion would have unduly disrupted matters in the district court. His motion to be represented by Mundy was made at the first Group III pre-trial hearing. The cases on which the government relies all involved a far shorter period of time between the initial request for substitute counsel and the scheduled trial date. See, e.g., United States v. Poston, 902 F.2d 90, 96-97 (D.C.Cir.1990) (district court did not abuse discretion when it refused motion for continuance the day before trial to allow new counsel appointed at defendant's request to prepare more thoroughly); United States v. Richardson, 894 F.2d 492, 496-97 (1st Cir.1990) (defendant asked to substitute counsel for the first time on the morning of trial). 172 Finally, noting that Mundy's June 22, 1989, letters cited other problems with his representation of Daniels, the government argues that the record does not indicate that Mundy would have been willing and able to represent Daniels in his Group III murder trial. Indeed, not only had Mundy complained, in June 1989, that Daniels had paid him only a portion of the fee set for the defense of the murder charge, but later, after Mundy had been removed from the case, Daniels sought and obtained court-appointed counsel on the claim that he had become indigent. Levin (who also represents Daniels in this appeal) replies that Mundy was willing to reenter the case and that this fact was communicated to the district court in a status hearing for which the reporter's notes have been lost. Although we are confident that Levin's statement was made in good faith, the gap in the record created by the loss of the reporter's notes leaves us without an adequate basis for determining whether and on what terms Mundy would have reentered the case in May 1990. Having concluded that a serious potential for a conflict of interest no longer existed and that enough time remained before the scheduled trial date to accommodate Daniels' request, we remand the matter to the district court for an inquiry into whether Mundy would have been willing and able to reenter the case in May 1990. 173 If, after a hearing, the district court concludes that Mundy would have reentered the case on financial terms that Daniels could have met, the district court must vacate his murder and firearms convictions. Mundy's death during the pendency of this appeal does not moot this issue because the deprivation of his counsel of choice would entitle Daniels to a reversal of his conviction as a matter of constitutional right. See United States v. Panzardi Alvarez, 816 F.2d 813, 818 (1st Cir.1987) (The right to choose one's counsel is an end in itself; its deprivation cannot be harmless). Mundy's death does not deprive the district court of its power to grant Daniels the relief to which he would be entitled. Should the government elect to retry Daniels on these charges, Daniels must be afforded a reasonable opportunity to retain new counsel of choice with his own resources and be provided with court-appointed counsel if he proves unable to do so. 174 If, on remand, the district court concludes that Mundy would not have reentered the case on terms that Daniels could have met, we hold that Daniels was not denied counsel of choice and that his murder and firearms convictions must stand. Although the Sixth Amendment affords Daniels the right to be represented by a retained attorney absent a sufficient justification for removing that attorney, he has no constitutional right to appointed counsel of choice. See Wheat, 486 U.S. at 159, 108 S.Ct. at 1697. 175 We recognize that the district court's inquiry will be complicated immeasurably by Mundy's death. We ask only that the district court examine the available evidence to determine whether and on what terms Mundy would have represented Daniels in the 1990 murder trial. We caution the court that Daniels should not be asked to bear the burden of producing a deceased witness. We note, finally, that even if the murder and firearms convictions are vacated on remand, the concurrent sentence for the conspiracy conviction will be unaffected. 2. Sentencing 176 Daniels also challenges the district court's upward departure from the guideline range when sentencing him on the conspiracy conviction. We believe that the court quite properly concluded that the guideline range did not reflect the seriousness of Daniels' crime in light of his role as an enforcer and executioner for the conspiracy. Moreover, the two-level enhancement imposed by the court falls well within the bounds of reasonableness. Cf. United States v. Goines, 988 F.2d 750, 778 (7th Cir.1993) (affirming two-level upward departure based in part on defendant's incitement of co-conspirators' acts of violence).