Opinion ID: 2978443
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Vassar’s Sentence

Text: Vassar disputes the district court’s decision to find a fact that differed from a jury-found fact. Specifically, the district court found that he “was involved in the distribution or conspiracy to distribute between 3.5 to 5 kilos of cocaine,” while the jury found Vassar not guilty of conspiring to distribute more than 500 grams. According to Vassar, this amounted to sentencing him “for an incorrect conspiracy offense of conviction” in violation of both the Sixth Amendment and the principles of issue preclusion. Appellant’s Br. at 65–68. We disagree. As for his Sixth Amendment jury-trial right challenge, Vassar fundamentally misunderstands the meaning of a jury’s acquittal. An acquittal is not a finding of innocence, but merely a negative statement that the evidence fell short of purging the jury’s reasonable doubts and therefore could not sustain a conviction. United States v. White, 551 F.3d 381, 385 (6th Cir. 2008) (en banc). For Sixth Amendment purposes, this is the important point: The jury found Vassar guilty of conspiring to distribute less than 500 grams of cocaine, and that verdict alone exposed Vassar to a maximum sentence of 30 years’ imprisonment. 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1) & 846. Although the district court, - 19 - No. 07-5299 United States v. Vassar in selecting a sentence within the range authorized by the statute of conviction, not only relied on acquitted conduct but also used a preponderance standard, this does not run afoul of the Sixth Amendment. The district court neither sentenced Vassar for acquitted conduct nor imposed its sentence under an incorrect statute of conviction. See White, 551 F.3d at 385. Thus, Vassar’s Sixth Amendment challenge fails. Vassar is correct that sentencing courts “cannot rely on a finding that directly conflicts with the jury’s verdict.” United States v. Cockett, 330 F.3d 706, 711 (6th Cir. 2003). But here, given the differing standards of proof, there is no conflict. Again, the district court found by a preponderance of the evidence that the conspiracy involved more than 500 grams of cocaine, while the jury found that the evidence did not overcome its reasonable doubt. These findings do not conflict. The differing standards of proof also doom Vassar’s issue-preclusion argument. According to Vassar, “issue preclusion and collateral estoppel prohibit[ed] Judge Greer from acting as a trier of fact to find a conspiracy object different from the object found by the jury.”1 This argument is flawed. Issue preclusion, which bars the relitigation of a previously decided issue, only operates if, among other requirements, the previously decided issue is “identical” to the current issue. N.L.R.B. v. Master Slack and/or Master Trousers Corp., 773 F.2d 77, 81 (6th Cir. 1985). Here, because the standards of proof differed, the issue at trial was not identical to the issue at sentencing, and the 1 Vassar’s brief wrongly implies a distinction between issue preclusion and collateral estoppel; those are merely different names for the same doctrine. Dodrill v. Ludt, 764 F.2d 442, 443 (6th Cir. 1985). - 20 - No. 07-5299 United States v. Vassar jury’s acquittal therefore did not preclude the district court’s drug-weight finding.
Vassar challenges his sentence as procedurally and substantively unreasonable. We begin with his procedural claims, finding that only one merits discussion. Vassar maintains that Amendment 709 to § 4A1.2 of the Sentencing Guidelines, issued several months after his sentencing hearing, retroactively undermines the district court’s criminal history calculation. Not so. The district court correctly sentenced Vassar under the version of the Guidelines in effect at the time of sentencing, United States v. Murillo-Iniguez, 318 F.3d 709, 714 (6th Cir. 2003), and Amendment 709 does not apply retroactively, United States v. Wood, 526 F.3d 82, 88 (3d Cir. 2008); United States v. Marler, 527 F.3d 874, 877 n.1 (9th Cir. 2008); see also United States v. Smith, 307 F. App’x 966, 969 (6th Cir. 2009) (citing Wood and Marler with approval in dicta). Turning to Vassar’s substantive claims, we start by presuming the reasonableness of Vassar’s below-Guidelines sentence. United States v. Bailey, 264 F. App’x 480, 485 (6th Cir. 2008) (Just as we presume the reasonableness of a within-Guidelines sentence, “it follows from simple logic that [a] below-Guidelines sentence . . . is presumed not to be unreasonably severe.”). Vassar fails to rebut this presumption. He first argues that, compared to his coconspirators’ sentences, his belowGuidelines sentence reflects an unwarranted disparity in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(6). And this disparity, so the argument goes, is the product of “prosecutorial misconduct by selective application manipulating the USSGs.” Appellant’s Br. at 62. We disagree. - 21 - No. 07-5299 United States v. Vassar “Disparities between the sentences of coconspirators can exist for valid reasons, such as differences in criminal histories, the offenses of conviction, or one coconspirator’s decision to plead guilty and cooperate with the government.” United States v. Conatser, 514 F.3d 508, 522 (6th Cir. 2008). Here, an important difference justifies the disparity that Vassar challenges—Vassar’s coconspirators accepted responsibility for their criminal conduct and cooperated with law enforcement; Vassar did not. Accounting for that difference—both in the prosecutor’s charging determinations and in the court’s sentencing decisions—neither evidences prosecutorial misconduct nor contravenes substantive reasonableness. And more generally, because Vassar’s sentence fell below the Guidelines’ recommendation, his unwarranted disparity claim stands on especially shaky ground. The Seventh Circuit has observed that “it is pointless” for defendants who receive within-Guidelines sentences to raise unwarranted-disparity claims. United States v. Shrake, 515 F.3d 743, 748 (7th Cir. 2008); see also United States v. Kirchhof, 505 F.3d 409, 416 (6th Cir. 2007). The Guidelines exist to help ensure that similarly-situated defendants are punished similarly. United States v. Boscarino, 437 F.3d 634, 638 (7th Cir. 2006). Thus, “[s]entencing disparities are at their ebb when the Guidelines are followed. . . . The more out-of-range sentences that judges impose . . . , the more disparity there will be. A sentence within a properly ascertained range therefore cannot be treated as unreasonable by reference to § 3553(a)(6).” Id. This rationale applies with greater force to defendants like Vassar, who receive a below-Guidelines sentence. - 22 - No. 07-5299 United States v. Vassar Vassar nevertheless insists, despite the absence of supporting evidence, that prosecutors “secretly manipulated” his coconspirators’ sentences. Even if that allegation were true—Vassar offers nothing suggesting it is—it would not change our review here, which concerns only Vassar’s sentence. The district court, addressing Vassar’s prosecutorial misconduct and unwarranted disparity claims at the sentencing hearing, clearly articulated the flaw in Vassar’s position: Your attorney . . . doesn’t argue that somehow the government has made your sentence potentially higher through its charging decisions; he argues that the government has made others’ sentences lower than the real conduct justified. I frankly don’t see how you or any defendant in your situation can legitimately complain that somebody else has gotten a lesser sentence. To the extent that the government’s charging decisions or plea bargaining decisions result in disparities, it seems to me that is up to the congress to address or the public to address; and that to [grant a larger downward variance in this case] would simply require this court to lower all sentences down to the level of the most lenient sentence that’s been imposed. I don’t think that’s what the law requires . . . and I reject that as a legitimate consideration in sentence. Sentencing Tr. 173–74. We agree with the district court. That his coconspirators may have received lesser sentences does not by itself prove that Vassar’s sentence is unreasonably severe, but is just as likely to show that his coconspirators were sentenced too leniently. And accepting Vassar’s position would create a race to the bottom in sentencing, forcing district courts to select increasingly lenient sentences. Vassar also attacks his sentence’s substantive reasonableness on the ground that, in his estimation, his conduct does not qualify as a “per se a serious offense,” but instead amounts to - 23 - No. 07-5299 United States v. Vassar nothing more than a “casual exchange of drugs.” This characterization belittles the seriousness of Vassar’s actions and belies the record in this case, which supports the district court’s finding that Vassar trafficked at least 3.5 kilos of cocaine. Sentencing Tr. at 171. Vassar’s 144-month sentence, which is well below the Guidelines range of 168 to 210 months, already includes a large downward variance, and he fails to show that his situation is so extraordinary as to require an even larger variance. We reject Vassar’s substantive reasonableness challenges.
Vassar takes issue with the district court’s decision denying him discovery for sentencing purposes. Appellant’s Br. at 72–73. Vassar does not, however, specify the information he would have sought in discovery. Nor does he explain how the publically available sources of information proved inadequate for his purposes, a defect that other circuit courts have relied on in affirming denials of sentencing discovery. See, e.g., United States v. Spotted Elk, 548 F.3d 641, 672 (8th Cir. 2008) (affirming decision denying defendant access to his coconspirators’ PSRs). Vassar merely maintains that Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 32(i)(4)(ii) and U.S.S.G. § 6.A1.3 support his discovery requests. We read those rules more narrowly. Rule 32(i)(4)(ii), rather than providing a broad right to discovery, only requires a sentencing court “to address the defendant personally in order to permit the defendant to speak or present any information to mitigate the sentence.” The rule, in other words, allows defendants to present the information they have. - 24 - No. 07-5299 United States v. Vassar Nor does U.S.S.G. § 6.A1.3 aid Vassar. That Guideline tells us, among other points, that “[w]hen any factor important to the sentencing determination is reasonably in dispute, the parties shall be given an adequate opportunity to present information to the court regarding that factor.” Id. U.S.S.G. § 6.A1.3 mentions nothing concerning discovery. In the absence of express statutory authority, and without explicit guidance from the Sentencing Commission, we leave the matter of sentencing discovery to the district court’s sound discretion. And because we discern no abuse of discretion here, we reject Vassar’s discovery arguments. Vassar makes a related argument that U.S.S.G. § 6.A1.3 somehow constrains the timing of sentencing hearings. More specifically, he says that the district court erred by “set[ting] Vassar’s sentencing after co-conspirators who were not asserting §3553(a)(1)(6) disparity, [thereby failing] to provide Vassar an adequate opportunity to present relevant information.” Appellant’s Br. at 73–74 (internal quotation marks omitted). Vassar again runs roughshod over the actual language of U.S.S.G. § 6.A1.3, which says nothing about scheduling sentencing hearings. Vassar raises other arguments challenging his conviction and sentence. We have considered those arguments and view them as lacking. AFFIRMED. - 25 -