Opinion ID: 429180
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Reliability of Information Used in Sentencing

Text: 80 The requirements of due process are not suspended with the pronouncement of guilt, but continue to operate in the sentencing process. Gardner v. Florida, 430 U.S. 349, 97 S.Ct. 1197, 51 L.Ed.2d 393 (1977). Thus, the sentencing judge may not rely on mistaken information or baseless assumptions. Roberts v. United States, 445 U.S. 552, 556, 100 S.Ct. 1358, 1362, 63 L.Ed.2d 622 (1980); United States v. Tucker, 404 U.S. 443, 447, 92 S.Ct. 589, 591-592, 30 L.Ed.2d 592 (1972); Townsend v. Burke, 334 U.S. at 740-41, 68 S.Ct. at 1255. As we noted in United States v. Bass, 535 F.2d 110 (D.C.Cir.1976), however, courts must be concerned not merely when a sentencing judge has relied on demonstrably false information, but when the sentencing process created a significant possibility that misinformation infected the decision. 33 81 The defendant especially urges on us the reasoning and result of United States v. Weston, 448 F.2d 626 (9th Cir.1971), cert. denied, 404 U.S. 1061, 92 S.Ct. 748, 30 L.Ed.2d 749 (1972), in which the court vacated a sentence that was based on government allegations that, although not proven false, were denied by the defendant and not supported by reliable evidence. Weston had been convicted of possession of heroin. In its sentencing allocution, the government asserted in the presentence report that she was the chief supplier to the Western Washington area, according to federal investigators. 34 The defendant strenuously denied these allegations. Nevertheless, on the basis of the government's information, the judge imposed the maximum sentence of twenty years. 82 The evidence supporting the government's allegations was found by the reviewing court to be sorely inadequate. In addition to the facts surrounding the defendant's arrest and the search of her house, a named informant had indicated that on one occasion a trip to Mexico was about to be made, and that Weston was distributing quantities of heroin for delivery to select customers. The reviewing court decried the sentencing court's reliance on unsworn evidence detailing otherwise unverified statements of a faceless informer, id. at 631, and vacated the sentence, directing the district court not [to] rely upon the information contained in the presentence report unless it is amplified by information such as to be persuasive of the validity of the charge there made. Id. at 634. 83 We discussed Weston at length and with approval in United States v. Bass, 535 F.2d 110. The defendant in Bass, however, had not disputed the accuracy of the government's allegation that he was a well-known and persistent narcotic trafficker. Id. at 117. We saw no reason to bar sentencing judges from considering relevant information whose accuracy is not disputed, and refused to vacate the sentence. Id. at 121. In the event that the defendant contested the allegations in later proceedings, we suggested that the district court might request the Government to submit some verification .... Alternatively, the court might find existing factual support or indicia of reliability for the allegations .... Or the district court simply could resentence appellant, making clear that it was not considering the disputed information. Id. 35 84 Other circuits have also recognized the validity of the Weston principle. 36 The Second Circuit confronted the question of the reliability of information considered in sentencing in a context not dissimilar from this. In United States v. Fatico, 579 F.2d 707 (2d Cir.1978), the government had alleged that the defendants were members of the Gambino organized crime family and important figures in the upper echelon of organized crime activity. Id. at 709. The defendants denied this allegation and the trial court therefore properly called for corroboration from the government. Id. at 713. 85 The Government then offered to support its allegations at a sentencing hearing by the testimony of the former head of the FBI's Organized Crime section in the New York office, based upon information furnished to him by a reliable confidential informant, allegedly a member of the Gambino Family. The Government objected to disclosure of the confidential source for the obvious reasons that both his life and usefulness as an informant would be jeopardized. However, the Government proffered additional evidence to corroborate the informant, consisting of the testimony of two coconspirators who turned Government's evidence in the trial and who are under the Government witness protection program. 86 Id. at 709. The co-conspirators had given detailed descriptions of incidents that strongly supported the government's allegations. In addition, the government offered the testimony of two police officers who had independently observed the defendant with leading members of the family, and at a funeral service for the boss of bosses to which only family members were admitted. Finally, the defendants had long records of criminal activity clearly associated with organized crime. Faced with this evidence, the sentencing judge nevertheless ordered the evidence suppressed on the basis of its unreliability. While stressing the importance of reliability, the Second Circuit reversed, holding that the standards suggested by Weston had been met, and that Due Process does not prevent use in sentencing of out-of-court declarations by an unidentified informant where there is good cause for the non-disclosure of his identity and there is sufficient corroboration by other means. Id. at 713 (citation omitted). 87 Courts in these cases have confronted simultaneously two evidentiary issues: what kind of evidence is sufficiently reliable and how much evidence is enough. It is with good reason that these questions have not been neatly scissored. As in Fatico, the statements of an unidentified informant, otherwise of dubious value, may be useful if corroborated by additional means. By the same token, many pieces of evidence may be unpersuasive if each depends on uncorroborated hearsay. In short, the requirements of due process in the context of a challenge to the accuracy of information to be used in sentencing cannot be reduced to a simple formula. The extensive discussion of the supporting evidence found insufficiently reliable in Weston and that found sufficiently reliable in Fatico provide useful guideposts at each end of the spectrum. In locating this case along that spectrum, we continue the case-by-case development of a necessarily flexible due process standard. We begin that process by first identifying the allegations that properly could be considered if supported by sufficiently reliable evidence. We consider the government's contentions, first, that the defendant failed to cooperate in its investigation of the Black Hebrews, and, second, that he was a member of the Black Hebrews. 88