Opinion ID: 2996511
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Obstruction Enhancement for Sutton

Text: Sutton also challenges the district court’s two-level enhancement of his sentence for obstruction of justice under U.S.S.G. § 3C1.1.5 We review a district court’s find- 5 U.S.S.G. § 3C1.1 says “If (A) the defendant willfully obstructed or impeded, or attempted to obstruct or impede the administration of justice during the course of the investigation, prosecution, (continued...) 14 Nos. 02-1679, 02-1687 & 02-1739 ing that a defendant obstructed justice for clear error. United States v. Sims, 329 F.3d 937, 944 (7th Cir. 2003). Sutton argues that Lashecka Calvin’s testimony recanting her earlier alibi testimony offered at the state trial is a classic case of “he said, she said,” and not sufficient to support the § 3C1.1 enhancement. Additionally, Sutton claims that his acquittal by a jury in state court demonstrates that his alibi was not false and that Calvin’s testimony in federal court recanting the alibi is a lie. Sutton’s arguments are unpersuasive. For the purposes of Sutton’s federal sentencing, the relevant fact is that the district court found that he had attempted to convince Calvin to lie to federal authorities for him. The district court found that “Sutton arranged for false testimony to be given by Lashecka Calvin to give him an alibi for that robbery” and that Sutton “[filed] the alibi notice listing Lashecka Calvin as somebody who would testify . . . that he was with her and not at the bank when it was robbed.” Sutton Sentencing Tr. at 10. The Sentencing Guidelines and this circuit’s precedents make clear that attempting to influence a witness to make false statements to investigating authorities qualifies as an obstruction of justice under § 3C1.1. See U.S.S.G. § 3C1.1, cmt. n.4(a); United States v. Friend, 104 F.3d 127, 130-31 (7th Cir. 1997); United States v. Ross, 77 F.3d 1525, 1534-35, 1549-50 (7th Cir. 1996); United States v. 5 (...continued) or sentencing of the instant offense of conviction, and (B) the obstructive conduct related to (i) the defendant’s offense of conviction and any relevant conduct; or (ii) a closely related offense, increase the offense level by 2 levels.” Application Note 4(a) gives “threatening, intimidating, or otherwise unlawfully influencing a co-defendant, witness, or juror, directly or indirectly, or attempting to do so” as an example of conduct to which the adjustment is supposed to apply. U.S.S.G. § 3C1.1, cmt. n.4(a). Nos. 02-1679, 02-1687 & 02-1739 15 Wright, 37 F.3d 358, 361-62 (7th Cir. 1994). The district court found that Sutton attempted to influence Lashecka Calvin (as well as Angela Cramer) to provide him a false alibi in the present case. Sutton’s argument that this is merely a “he said, she said” situation is simply an attack on the sufficiency of the evidence supporting the court’s findings of fact—in the present case, credibility of witnesses. Sutton’s unsupported assertions are insufficient to make the district court’s credibility finding clearly erroneous. United States v. Agostino, 132 F.3d 1183, 1198 (7th Cir. 1997). Similarly, Sutton’s argument that the state court acquittal precludes a finding that his alibi was false is also unpersuasive. Given his conviction for the Midwest Bank robbery and the district court’s finding that he attempted to influence Calvin and Angela Cramer to lie for him, his insistence that his alibi cannot be false rings of irrational denial. Sutton can provide us with no authority for the proposition that the district court was not permitted as a matter of law to find the alibi false. And otherwise his assertions are nothing more than attacks on the sufficiency of the evidence—attacks that do not persuade us that the enhancement was clearly erroneous.