Opinion ID: 2994322
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Sentencing Departure

Text: Guidelines sec. 2J1.1 requires courts sentencing a defendant for contempt to apply sec. 2X5.1 [b]ecause misconduct constituting contempt varies significantly. U.S.S.G. sec. 2J1.1 application note 1. Guidelines sec. 2X5.1 directs courts to apply the most analogous offense guideline. U.S.S.G. sec. 2X5.1. In this case, the district court concurred with the recommendation of the PSR to apply Guidelines sec. 2J1.5, failure to appear as a material witness, as the most analogous offense guideline. Guidelines sec. 2J1.5 provides a base offense level of six when a witness has failed to appear for a felony trial, U.S.S.G. sec. 2J1.5(a)(1), and directs courts to increase by three levels if the failure to appear resulted in substantial interference with the administration of justice. U.S.S.G. sec. 2J1.5(b). Simmons does not dispute that sec. 2J1.5 was the most analogous offense guideline, and we have previously held that sec. 2J1.5 is most closely analogous to refusal to comply with an order to testify. See United States v. Ortiz, 84 F.3d 977, 981-82 (7th Cir. 1996). However, the district court felt that Simmons’s refusal to testify was a factor that removed his conduct from the heartland of conduct contemplated by the Sentencing Commission and departed upward an additional eight levels, to produce a total offense level of seventeen. Simmons appeals this departure, claiming that a refusal to testify on the grounds of a breach of a plea agreement does not constitute a factor that would remove Simmons’s conduct from the heartland established for sec. 2J1.5. This court employs a three-part approach in reviewing a district court’s decision to depart upward from the applicable Guideline range. See Leahy, 169 F.3d at 439. First, we determine whether the grounds for departure were appropriate. See id. Second, we determine whether the court committed any clear errors in its findings of fact regarding the departure. See id. Third, we consider whether the extent of the departure was reasonable. See id. A district court may depart from the applicable Guidelines range and sentence a defendant outside that range only if the court finds ’that there exists an aggravating or mitigating circumstance of a kind, or to a degree, not adequately taken into consideration by the Sentencing Commission in formulating the guidelines that should result in a sentence different from that described.’ U.S.S.G. sec. 5K2.0 (quoting 18 U.S.C. sec. 3553(b)). In Koon v. United States, the Supreme Court explained this requirement by noting that the Sentencing Commission intended the sentencing courts to treat each guideline as carving out a ’heartland,’ a set of typical cases embodying the conduct that each guideline describes. 518 U.S. 81, 93 (1996) (quoting U.S.S.G. ch. 1 pt. A, intro. cmt 4(b)). In an atypical case, where a particular guideline linguistically applies but where conduct significantly differs from the norm a court is permitted to depart from the applicable Guidelines sentencing range, U.S.S.G. ch. 1 pt. A, intro. cmt. 4(b). In the instant case, the district court felt that Simmons’s outright refusal to testify, coupled with his change of heart as to his decision to testify, served to distinguish Simmons’s behavior from other behavior within the heartland of sec. 2J1.5. Guidelines sec. 2J1.5 applies in all cases where a material witness, for any reason, fails to testify in a criminal trial. This guideline contemplates a broad variety of conduct within its heartland. Nonetheless, the district court did not err in determining that Simmons’s conduct went beyond the level of conduct contemplated by the Sentencing Commission when it promulgated sec. 2J1.5. Simmons participated in the crimes for which Reed was tried, and his cooperation enabled the government to indict Reed. For this cooperation and his testimony at Reed’s trial, Simmons was given a significantly reduced sentence on his own bank robbery conviction. After he received his sentence reduction, Simmons had a change of heart, writing to Reed that I told them people fuck that shit . . . never can I help them people take your life like that. . . . I told them people I aint with it and that’s for real. However, even Simmons’s protestations to Reed proved inaccurate, for Simmons would have been willing to testify at Reed’s retrial, had the government agreed to provide Simmons with extra time off his sentence. The government refused to accede to this demand, and Simmons petulantly refused to testify, despite a clear court order compelling him to do so. In addition, Reed presented Simmons’s letter at his retrial in an attempt to compromise the credibility of Simmons’s previous testimony, which had been read into the record. In this context, Simmons’s refusal to testify demonstrates many elements of obstruction, and his conduct exceeds the type of absenteeism contemplated by the Sentencing Commission in sec. 2J1.5. Therefore, we find that the court’s decision to depart was reasonable under the circumstances. Simmons does not contend that the district court’s findings of fact were in error, so we must determine only whether the extent of the court’s upward departure was reasonable. Sentencing courts need not adhere to a mathematic approach in determining the extent of a departure. Instead, [t]he law merely requires that district judges link the degree of departure to the structure of the Guidelines and justify the extent of the departure taken. United States v. Scott, 145 F.3d 878, 886 (7th Cir. 1998). Here, the district court determined that Simmons’s conduct merited an eight-level departure upward, and this determination is articulated within the methodology of the Guidelines and linked to the general structure of the Guidelines, which applies a higher total offense level to obstructive conduct like Simmons’s. See, e.g., U.S.S.G. sec. 2J1.2 (applying base offense level of twelve for obstruction of justice). In addition, the court found that Simmons’s actions constituted a repudiation of his previous agreement to cooperate with the government. In return for his cooperation at Reed’s first trial, Simmons’s sentence was reduced by at least 55 months. On this basis, the court felt that a sentence of 57 months was appropriate because it took away the benefit conferred upon the defendant by the government. The district court did not abuse its discretion in making this determination.