Opinion ID: 174521
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Ex Post Facto Challenge to Use of the Amended Guideline

Text: The Appellant contends that use of the amended guideline for an obliterated serial number is barred by the Ex Post Facto Clause because the amendment was adopted after the date of his offense. The Defendant's sentencing range under the unamended Guidelines would have been 151 to 188 months; under the amended Guidelines the range would have been 168 to 210 months. However, the District Court imposed a non-Guidelines sentence of 120 months. A preliminary issue is the standard of review. At oral argument the Government contended that plain-error review applies because the Defendant did not make an Ex Post Facto Clause argument in the District Court. The Defendant responded that the Government has forfeited insistence on the strict standard of plain-error review because the Government did not urge that standard in its appellate brief. We have found no decision explicitly considering this sauce for the goose argument in the context of a sentencing appeal. In other contexts, however, the argument has prevailed. In Gronowski v. Spencer, 424 F.3d 285 (2d Cir.2005), after a verdict and judgment for the plaintiff, the defendants unsuccessfully moved for judgment n.o.v. under Rule 50(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. On appeal, the defendants sought reversal on the ground that their compliance with a civil service law precluded the plaintiff's claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. See id. at 297. The plaintiff contended that the defendants had waived that defense by failing to raise it in their Rule 50(a) motion for a directed verdict at the close of the plaintiff's case, although it had been raised in their Rule 50(b) motion. See id. We ruled that the plaintiff had waived her waiver argument by failing to assert it in her opposition to the defendants' Rule 50(b) motion. See id. See also Atkins v. N.Y. City, 143 F.3d 100, 103 (2d Cir.1998) (by not objecting in district court, appellees waived their argument that appellant waived his objection to the jury verdict by not objecting to jury charge or to inconsistent verdicts); Gibeau v. Nellis, 18 F.3d 107, 109 (2d Cir.1994) (by not objecting in district court, appellees waived their argument that appellants had waived their right to judgment n.o.v. by not moving for directed verdict); cf. Kone v. Holder, 596 F.3d 141, 147 n. 4 (2d Cir.2010) (Government waived objection to appellant's failure to exhaust issue on appeal to Board of Immigration Appeals). These waive-the-waiver (more accurately, forfeit the forfeiture) rulings suggest that the same approach should apply in the sentencing context, especially in view of the relaxed standard of plain-error review that we have sometimes found applicable for unpreserved sentencing errors because a resentencing is not nearly as burdensome as a retrial. See, e.g., United States v. Gamez, 577 F.3d 394, 397 (2d Cir.2009); United States v. Williams, 399 F.3d 450, 456-57 (2d Cir.2005); United States v. Simmons, 343 F.3d 72, 80 (2d Cir.2003). We need not rule definitively on the standard of review, however, because even if the alleged claim of error is available for appellate review, we reject it on the merits, as we now explain. Whether application of a guideline amended after the date of an offense violates the Ex Post Facto Clause under the advisory Guidelines regime, as it did when the Sentencing Guidelines were mandatory, see Miller v. Florida, 482 U.S. 423, 432-36, 107 S.Ct. 2446, 96 L.Ed.2d 351 (1987), has divided the courts of appeals. [3] In United States v. Demaree, 459 F.3d 791 (7th Cir.2006), the Seventh Circuit ruled that the Clause was not violated because the applicable guideline, used to make the initial Guidelines calculation, only nudges the sentencing judge toward the sentencing range, but the judge's freedom to impose a reasonable sentence outside the range is unfettered. Id. at 795. See also United States v. Barton, 455 F.3d 649, 655 n. 4 (6th Cir.2006). Other circuits, in holdings or dicta, have stated that an amended guideline enhancing punishment can violate the Ex Post Facto Clause even under the advisory Guidelines regime. See United States v. Duane, 533 F.3d 441, 446 & n. 1 (6th Cir.2008); United States v. Thompson, 518 F.3d 832, 870 (10th Cir.2008); United States v. Carter, 490 F.3d 641, 643 (8th Cir.2007); United States v. Rodarte-Vasquez, 488 F.3d 316, 322-24 (5th Cir. 2007); United States v. Wood, 486 F.3d 781, 790-91 (3d Cir.2007). The D.C. Circuit has also upheld an Ex Post Facto Clause challenge to a non-Guidelines sentence that was thought to have been influenced by a post-offense increase in the Guidelines sentencing range, but adopted a more nuanced approach to the issue. In United States v. Turner, 548 F.3d 1094 (D.C.Cir.2008), the D.C. Circuit held that a 33-month sentence, even though imposed under the advisory Guidelines regime, violated the Clause where the sentencing judge sentenced at the bottom of a guideline range that had been increased, after the offense, from 21-27 months to 33-41 months. See id. at 1100. The Court explained that, had the sentencing judge looked to the unamended guideline range, it is likely that [the defendant's] sentence would have been less than 33 months. Id. The Court's rationale, however, does not apply to every sentence imposed after calculation of a guideline range that has been increased after the date of the offense. As the Court further explained, [the defendant] did not have to show definitively that he would have received a lesser sentence had the district court used the [unamended] Guidelines. It is enough that using the [amended] Guidelines created a substantial risk that [the defendant's] sentence was more severe, thus resulting in a violation of the Ex Post Facto Clause. Id. (citation omitted). The risk was deemed substantial in Turner's case because of the likelihood that the judge whose non-Guidelines sentence was at the bottom of the amended sentencing range would have given a non-Guidelines sentence below that range had a lower sentencing range been calculated based on the unamended guideline. The judge would not necessarily have sentenced at the bottom of the unamended range, but there was at least a substantial risk that the sentence would have been below the bottom of the amended range. We think the substantial risk standard adopted by the D.C. Circuit appropriately implements the Ex Post Facto Clause in the context of sentencing under the advisory Guidelines regime, and is faithful to Supreme Court jurisprudence explaining that the Clause protects against a post-offense change that create[s] a significant risk of increas[ing] [the] punishment, Garner v. Jones, 529 U.S. 244, 255, 120 S.Ct. 1362, 146 L.Ed.2d 236 (2000). This standard does not invalidate every sentence imposed after a Guidelines range has been increased after the date of the offense, but, unlike the approach of the Seventh Circuit, which rejects an Ex Post Facto challenge to any non-Guidelines sentence, [4] it recognizes that there may be circumstances where an amended Guidelines range can influence a sentence that violates the Ex Post Facto Clause. In the pending appeal, however, the D.C. Circuit's substantial risk standard does not benefit Ortiz. His adjusted offense level under the unamended Guidelines would have been 29, yielding a sentencing range, in Criminal History Category VI, of 151 to 188 months. Under the amended Guidelines, his adjusted offense level was 30, yielding a sentencing range of 168 to 210 months. [5] The non-Guidelines sentence imposed was 120 months, 48 months below the bottom of the applicable sentencing range. We conclude that there is no substantial risk, indeed, no risk at all, that the sentencing judge, having made such a generous deviation from the amended Guidelines range, would have imposed a non-Guidelines sentence of less than 120 months had the bottom of the applicable sentencing range been 151 months, as it was before the Guidelines amendment, rather than 168 months.