Opinion ID: 570414
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Kikumura's First Appeal

Text: 7 In his first appeal to this court, Kikumura raised three separate arguments. First, he challenged the district court's finding that his bombs were intended to kill people as being clearly erroneous. Second, he argued that the district court was barred by the sentencing guidelines from an upward departure in his case because the guidelines already took into consideration all aspects of his criminal activity. Third, he argued that even if departure was permissible under the guidelines, the extent of the departure taken was unreasonable. 8 We rejected Kikumura's first two arguments in United States v. Kikumura, 918 F.2d 1084 (3d Cir.1990) (Kikumura I ). However, while we upheld the trial court's finding that Kikumura intended to kill people, we found that Kikumura was entitled to greater protection than that afforded by the preponderance of the evidence standard usually applied at sentencing proceedings. We held that a district court contemplating a substantial upward departure must require proof of the facts by clear and convincing evidence, noting that Kikumura had requested no higher standard of proof than clear and convincing evidence. Id. at 1101. We also found that when a district court makes a substantial upward departure from the applicable guideline range, hearsay statements cannot be admitted at sentencing unless the other evidence adduced indicates that the hearsay statements are reasonably trustworthy. Id. at 1103. We rejected Kikumura's argument that the district court must engage in full-blown Confrontation Clause 1 analysis when presented with hearsay at sentencing. Id. at 1102. We did, however, accept Kikumura's third argument that the extent of the district court's departure was unreasonable. We determined that the unstructured upward departure was contrary to the spirit of the Sentencing Reform Act, Id. at 1110-11, and concluded that the applicable guideline range in Kikumura's case was 210 to 262 months. Id. at 1119. As a result, we vacated the sentence of the district court and remanded the case with instructions that the district court resentence Kikumura consistent with our opinion. Id.