Opinion ID: 674659
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: apportionment of pre- and post-guidelines losses (niven claim)

Text: 7 Mr. Caterino first contends that the district court should not have provided for consecutive pre-Guidelines and post-Guidelines sentences without first apportioning the investor losses due to offenses committed before and after the Guidelines took effect. He argues that the district court's failure to apportion the losses conflicts with United States v. Niven, 952 F.2d 289 (9th Cir.1991). We review de novo the legality of a sentence. U.S. v. Mullins, 992 F.2d 1472, 1478 (9th Cir.), cert. denied --- U.S. ----, 114 S.Ct. 556, 126 L.Ed.2d 457 (1993). In particular, where, as here, the facts are undisputed, we review de novo whether a resentencing violates the Double Jeopardy Clause. United States v. Kinsey, 994 F.2d 699, 702 (9th Cir.1993). 8 In Niven, we held that it was a violation of the Double Jeopardy Clause for a district court to count the same loss inflicted by the defendant both when determining a pre-Guidelines sentence and again when calculating a Guidelines sentence, and then to impose the two sentences consecutively to each other. Niven, 952 F.2d at 293-94. Caterino argues that Rule 35 and the remand order obligated the district court to examine the merits of his Niven claim on resentencing after remand. We find first, that the district court was not limited to addressing the specific issue that led to the remand, and that in particular it was not barred from addressing Caterino's Niven claim. Second, we find that Caterino's sentence was inconsistent with Niven, and we therefore remand for resentencing. 9
10 A district court does not have inherent power to resentence defendants at any time. United States v. Lewis, 862 F.2d 748, 750 (9th Cir.1988) (quotation omitted), cert. denied, 489 U.S. 1032, 109 S.Ct. 1169, 103 L.Ed.2d 227 (1989). The authority to change a sentence must derive from some federal statutory authority, most commonly Rule 35 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure (FRCrP). Id. There are two theories under which Rule 35 authorized the district court to exercise authority to examine the merits of Caterino's Niven claim. First, the district court had authority to correct an illegal sentence on remand from this court. See F.R.Cr.P. 35(a). Second, the district court also had inherent authority to do so under the versions of Rule 35 applicable to this case. 1 Despite this authority, the district court declined to rule on the merits of the Niven claim because it thought that the law of the case precluded it from doing so. We address each of these procedural issues in turn. 11 (1) Scope of remand: 12 The general rule is that a district court on remand may take any matter into account and may hear any evidence relevant to sentencing. See United States v. Cornelius, 968 F.2d 703, 705 (8th Cir.1992); United States v. Smith, 930 F.2d 1450, 1456 (10th Cir.) (resentencing on remand is de novo), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 112 S.Ct. 225, 116 L.Ed.2d 182 (1991). We have limited this general rule to preclude consideration of post-sentencing conduct, as well as conduct beyond the scope of a limited remand. See United States v. Gomez-Padilla, 972 F.2d 284, 285-86 (9th Cir.1992) (affirming failure of district court to weigh post-sentencing conduct at resentencing); see also Lewis, 862 F.2d at 750 (district court lacked inherent power or authority under F.R.Cr.P. 35 to resentence on counts other than those remanded). 13 In the case at bar, post-sentencing conduct is not at issue. The only point of contention is whether the district court's authority was abridged by any express or implied limits in the remand order. The relevant portion of Caterino provided as follows: [T]he district court erred by adding multiple vulnerable victim adjustments to Appellant['s] offense level under the Guidelines. We therefore VACATE ... Caterino['s] sentence[ ] and REMAND for resentencing. Caterino, 957 F.2d at 684. 14 This remand order did not expressly limit the district court to correcting the vulnerable victim adjustment. The only question was whether there was any implied limitation, given that no other error was deemed sufficient to warrant a remand. Such a reading might seem plausible because the Niven claim was expressly rejected by the court in Caterino (Mem.Disp.), albeit on procedural grounds. But neither Caterino, the government, nor the district court has adopted such a limited interpretation of the remand order. Rather, everyone has interpreted the order broadly enough to authorize a de novo review of the sentencing factors. Moreover, a narrow reading of the remand order would be inconsistent with our general practice after United States v. Jenkins, 884 F.2d 433, 441 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 1005, 110 S.Ct. 568, 107 L.Ed.2d 562 (1989), which is to vacate the entire sentence and remand for resentencing whenever we find that a sentence was imposed in excess of the sentencing court's authority. United States v. Blue Mountain Bottling Co., 929 F.2d 526, 529-30 (9th Cir.1991). Accordingly, we presume that this general practice was followed unless there is clear evidence to the contrary. Because no such clear evidence exists here, the Caterino decision should be read as granting a general rather than limited remand to the district court. 15 (2) Inherent authority under Rule 35: 16 In addition, the district court had inherent authority to correct an illegal sentence under the old version of F.R.Cr.P. 35. For offenses committed before the Guidelines became effective, a district court was empowered to correct an illegal sentence at any time. United States v. Minor, 846 F.2d 1184, 1188 (9th Cir.1988). For offenses committed after the effective date, district courts maintained their authority to correct illegal sentences, but only until the expiration of the time for appeal. See United States v. Cook, 890 F.2d 672, 674 (4th Cir.1989) (district court retained power to correct obvious mistakes after passage of the Sentencing Reform Act); United States v. Rico, 902 F.2d 1065, 1066-67 (2nd Cir.) (same), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 943, 111 S.Ct. 352, 112 L.Ed.2d 316 (1990); see also F.R.Cr.P. 35 Notes on 1991 Amendment (the 1991 amendment codified Cook and Rico but provided a more stringent time requirement). Because the time for appeal had expired by the time of resentencing, the district court would not have had authority to modify the Guidelines sentences. But it could have modified the pre-Guidelines sentences to run concurrently with the Guidelines offenses. 17 (3) The law of the case doctrine: 18 The district court appears to have agreed that it had de novo authority to resentence Caterino. But it failed to address the merits of Caterino's Niven argument on remand because it thought it was barred from doing so by the law of the case doctrine. This was error. 19 The law of the case doctrine ordinarily precludes a court from re-examining an issue previously decided by the same court, or a higher appellate court, in the same case. United States v. Maybusher, 735 F.2d 366, 370 (9th Cir.1984) (quoting Moore v. Jas. H. Matthews & Co., 682 F.2d 830, 833 (9th Cir.1982)), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 1110, 105 S.Ct. 790, 83 L.Ed.2d 783 (1985). It does not bar a district court from acting unless an appellate decision has issued on the merits of the claim sought to be precluded. Mirchandani v. United States, 836 F.2d 1223, 1225 (9th Cir.1988). 20 Caterino tried to raise his Niven claim in Caterino (Mem.Disp.), but we explicitly precluded him from doing so, holding that Caterino waived his claim by his actions before the district court during the sentencing phase. Even though we prevented Caterino from raising the merits of his claim in Caterino (Mem.Disp.), the government now insists that we did decide the same procedural issue that Caterino asked the district court to address during resentencing. We do not agree. The procedural issue we decided was whether Caterino was barred from raising his Niven claim on appeal. Our response turned on whether Caterino's actions in district court had effectively waived his rights under Niven on appeal. By contrast, the issue considered by the district court on remand was whether Caterino could raise the Niven claim at resentencing. The outcome of this question depended on the scope of the district court's authority on remand to modify Caterino's sentence, and on whether the waiver at the initial sentencing survived into the resentencing phase. Since these inquiries are distinct from the issue addressed on appeal, the law of the case doctrine did not bar the district court from addressing the merits of the Niven claim. 21 (4) Conclusion: 22 As discussed above, the scope of the district court's authority on remand was broad enough to allow it to address Caterino's Niven claim; its mandate was to conduct a de novo resentencing. The only remaining question is whether Caterino was still bound at the resentencing phase by his waiver of Niven rights during the initial sentencing. He was not. Just as the district court was free to review the entire sentencing calculus, so too, Caterino was free to make any new arguments or concessions he deemed appropriate given the new set of circumstances. He exercised this freedom to zealously argue his Niven claim, contending both in his briefs and in oral argument that the pre- and post-Guidelines offenses must be apportioned or else set to run concurrently. 23 It is significant that the district court not only believed it had the authority to go beyond the vulnerable victim adjustment, but actually exercised this authority, choosing to reduce the sentences imposed on some counts, and to change one of the counts from a concurrent to a consecutive sentence. See discussion below. It was error for the district court to opt to change one portion of a sentence not specifically mentioned on remand, while at the same time refusing to exercise the same authority to re-examine another portion of the same sentence that the defendant alleged was illegal. 24
25 We would have no reason to remand if Caterino's Niven claim were not meritorious. The government's briefs are silent on this issue. We find the facts in this case indistinguishable from those in Niven, and therefore hold that Caterino's sentence violated the Double Jeopardy Clause. 26 Niven prohibits a court from applying consecutive sentences for pre- and post-Guidelines conduct unless it first apportions the losses attributable to each. Niven, 952 F.2d at 293-94. Where, as here, mail and wire fraud offenses straddle the Sentencing Guidelines' effective date, the losses attributable to the pre-Guidelines offenses and Guidelines offenses must be apportioned, or else the sentences must be imposed concurrent to one another. Mullins, 992 F.2d at 1479. 27 There is no evidence that the district court actually apportioned the losses here. The sentencing level for the Guidelines offenses was based on the Probation Office's estimate of $2.1 million to $5.2 million loss to investors, which was the full amount of the loss estimated by the Probation Office. There are no estimates in the record of the portion of loss attributable to the pre-Guidelines offenses, nor is the subject even broached. As the losses were not apportioned, there was no basis for apportioning the sentences based on the loss. Therefore, the district court was required to run the pre- and post-Guidelines sentences concurrently to avoid sentencing Caterino twice for the same offense, in violation of the Double Jeopardy Clause. Niven, 952 F.2d at 293-94. Since the district court did not do so, the sentence on remand violated the Double Jeopardy Clause. 28