Opinion ID: 760180
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Authority to Depart Downward on the Basis of Uncredited Incarceration

Text: 21 Before addressing the issue of whether the district court's belief that it could not credit Montez-Gaviria's sentence directly affected its choice not to depart downward by an additional level, we must determine whether Montez-Gaviria's uncredited incarceration itself constitutes a valid reason for departing from the Guidelines. We conclude that nothing in the Sentencing Guidelines precludes the district court from departing downward under § 5K2.0 on the basis of Montez-Gaviria's uncredited time served in state custody. 3 22 We have held under circumstances that are quite similar to those of this case that a district court has discretion to grant a downward departure. In United States v. Ogbondah, 16 F.3d 498 (2d Cir.1994), the defendant was arrested and arraigned on federal charges for importing heroin. Id. at 499. She was then released on bail. See id. Immediately upon her release, however, the INS, having lodged a detainer against her, took her into custody. See id. Although the defendant promptly requested revocation of her bail, bail was not revoked for two more weeks. See id. As a result, the defendant was incarcerated for two weeks that did not yield sentence credit. See id. The district court, expressing a concern that departing downward on account of the defendant's uncredited incarceration was outside its authority, declined to grant the defendant a departure. See id. We vacated the defendant's sentence, holding that such a departure was in fact within the court's authority, and remanded the case to the district court for it to determine whether it understood the full scope of its authority. Id. at 501. 23 In United States v. Restrepo, 999 F.2d 640 (2d Cir.1993), on the other hand, we held that a district court exceeded its authority under the Guidelines when it granted a downward departure to compensate for the period of INS confinement that convicted aliens who complete their sentences may have to serve later, pending deportation. Id. at 646. For the reasons that follow, we believe that Montez-Gaviria's case more closely resembles Ogbondah than Restrepo. 24 The most important factor distinguishing the instant case (and Ogbondah) from Restrepo is that in Restrepo, the district court granted a downward departure in anticipation of the defendant's possible post-imprisonment, pre-deportation confinement. The court did so by estimating the likely length of this period based on the average time of pre-deportation confinement. We pointed out that departing downward in anticipation of a possible delay ... is speculative and inappropriate. Restrepo, 999 F.2d at 646. 4 By contrast, neither Montez-Gaviria's nor Ogbondah's requests for downward departures anticipated a period of indeterminable uncredited confinement. Their periods of uncredited incarceration were not merely certain; they had already occurred by the time they were sentenced. 25 We conclude that a period of time during which an alien is incarcerated solely due to the federal government's delay in transferring him to federal custody and for which the alien does not receive credit toward his sentence provides a valid ground for departing from the Guidelines, at least to the degree that the departure approximately compensates the alien for the uncredited time of confinement. We do not, of course, express any opinion as to whether the district court in this case should exercise its discretion to grant such a downward departure to Montez-Gaviria.