Opinion ID: 3011335
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: introduction

Text: Wilner Saintville appeals from the sentence entered on February 1, 2000, on his guilty plea to an indictment for illegal entry into the United States following his deportation for conviction of an aggravated felony in violation of 8 U.S.C. S 1326(b)(2). The appeal requires us to consider the application of U.S.S.G. S 5G1.3(c) p.s. (section 5G1.3) in a situation in which a court sentences a defendant already subject to an undischarged term of imprisonment for a separate offense. We recently dealt with this issue in Rios v. Wiley, 201 F.3d 257 (3d Cir. 2000), but did so under the version of section 5G1.3 prior to its amendment, effective November 1, 1995, to its current form which the parties agree is applicable in this case. The germane procedural history is as follows. A grand jury returned the indictment for the section 1326(b)(2) 2 violation on June 23, 1999. Subsequently, on November 10, 1999, Saintville was convicted in the Court of Common Pleas of York County, Pennsylvania, for possession of cocaine with intent to distribute and conspiracy to deliver cocaine. On December 27, 1999, the state court sentenced Saintville to a custodial term of 12 to 24 years. On January 31, 2000, Saintville's case came on for sentencing in the district court. After originally asking for a downward sentencing departure, Saintville's attorney changed her request and asked the court to run his sentence on the federal charge concurrently with his state sentence. In support of this request she indicated that she had calculated that the hypothetical combined sentencing range, treating both the federal and state charges as having been prosecuted in the federal court, would have been 51 to 63 months of imprisonment, a calculation with which the government did not take issue then or even now. Thus, in Saintville's view the state sentence adequately punished him for both the federal and state offenses. Moreover, in an attempt to justify her request for concurrent sentences, Saintville's attorney contended that the case was unusual because ordinarily sentences are harsher in federal than state courts. Thus, the state sentence imposed a very substantial punishment even if it encompassed the federal sentence. The prosecutor, however, had a different approach. His position was straightforward and directly to the point. He said that he would simply point out that it is within the Court's discretion to enter this sentence consecutively or concurrently. If the Court does enter a completely concurrent sentence, that would have the effect of imposing no punishment for this offense in the court where it properly sits. App. at 23. Ultimately, after hearing extensive colloquy, including a statement from Saintville, the district court sentenced him to a 46-month imprisonment term which was at the bottom of his imprisonment range of 46 to 57 months. The court reached somewhat of a middle ground on the question of whether the sentence should be concurrent or consecutive to the state sentence, as it provided that ten months would be concurrent and the balance would be consecutive to the 3 state sentence. Saintville then filed a timely appeal. We exercise plenary review of the district court's order to the extent that it implicitly construed the sentencing guidelines, see Rios v. Wiley, 201 F.3d at 262, but review the district court's determination to impose a partially concurrent and partially consecutive sentence on an abuse of discretion basis. See United States v. Spiers , 82 F.3d 1274, 1277 (3d Cir. 1996).