Opinion ID: 6331472
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Bacon’s Childhood Sexual Abuse

Text: Bacon first challenges his sentence as both procedurally and substantively unreasonable because, according to Bacon, the district court either made an unsupported factual finding that he was “lying about his [childhood] experience with sexual assault” or improperly treated this experience as an aggravating, not mitigating, factor. Appellant’s Br. 11. We disagree. At the start, even assuming arguendo that Bacon preserved this argument, the district court did not make a factual finding that Bacon’s account of childhood sexual abuse was untruthful, nor did the credibility of Bacon’s statement factor into its sentencing decision. The district court instead concluded that Bacon had not shown a “nexus or connection between his childhood experiences and his adult conduct decades and decades later.” Joint App’x 106. This was not an abuse of 3 discretion. And given its conclusion that Bacon had failed to show a “connection” between his childhood experience and the offense conduct, the district court did not err in declining to afford substantial mitigating weight to that experience. Moreover, because the district court did not base its sentencing decision on whether Bacon had been sexually abused as a child, it did not err in failing to hold a Fatico hearing. See United States v. Lohan, 945 F.2d 1214, 1216 (2d Cir. 1991) (explaining that “[a] ‘Fatico’ hearing is a sentencing hearing at which the prosecution and the defense may introduce evidence” on disputed issues of fact relating to the appropriate sentence (citing United States v. Fatico, 603 F.2d 1053 (2d Cir. 1979)). Bacon’s additional arguments that the district court treated his childhood experiences as an aggravating factor or otherwise burdened his right to allocution are similarly unsupported by the record. II. Bacon’s Prior Conviction for Public Indecency Bacon next contends that the district court again engaged in impermissible factfinding, rendering his sentence procedurally and substantively unreasonable, by going “beyond the record to conclude that Mr. Bacon’s prior misdemeanor offense involved or had a nexus to child[ren].” Appellant’s Br. 7. We disagree. Again, even assuming arguendo that Bacon preserved this objection, the district court did not err in its evaluation of Bacon’s misdemeanor offense. Bacon does not dispute that he was previously arrested and pleaded guilty to public indecency for masturbating at a campground. See, e.g., Joint App’x 93. Addressing this prior offense at sentencing, the district court observed that children are often present at campgrounds. See id. at 89–90. Defense counsel agreed. See id. at 93 (“I assume all campgrounds are family campgrounds. I’m not going to dispute that.”). The district court noted that Bacon had also been charged with risk of injury to a child in connection with this conduct and observed that there “must have been a probable cause finding” associated with that charge. Id. at 97. Defense 4 counsel countered that because the prosecutor had voluntarily dismissed that charge, the state court did not necessarily make a probable cause finding as to that specific charge. Id. at 97–98. The district court agreed with defense counsel’s argument. Id. at 98. Later in the sentencing, the district court expressed concern that Bacon’s conduct was “[e]scalating from simply exposing himself to attempting to entice others to gratify him sexually after exposing himself.” Id. at 105. Upon a careful review of the record, we discern no abuse of discretion in the district court’s assessment of Bacon’s prior conviction. The district court suggested that by publicly exposing himself at a campground, Bacon may have risked exposing himself to children because families with children often stay at campgrounds. That common-sense inference was not an abuse of discretion. See United States v. Rogers, 972 F.2d 489, 495 (2d Cir. 1992) (noting “the traditional role of a district judge in bringing … common sense to the sentencing process”); United States v. Cavera, 550 F.3d 180, 205 (2d Cir. 2008) (en banc) (Raggi, J., concurring) (“[W]hen the issue to be resolved is factual, the law expects the factfinder—whether judge or jury—to draw on common sense and experience in making any determination.”). The district court did not suggest that Bacon was targeting children by exposing himself at a campground and, after discussion with counsel, agreed that as to this conduct, the record did not provide a basis for concluding that a judicial officer had found probable cause that Bacon had committed the offense of risk of injury to a child. The district court thus did not, as Bacon now argues, make a factual finding that his prior offense involved children. The district court’s primary concern about Bacon’s prior conviction was that his behavior was “escalating” from “simply exposing himself to attempting to entice others to gratify him sexually.” Joint App’x 105. We discern no error in the district court’s consideration of Bacon’s prior conviction. 5 III. Substantive Reasonableness of 84-Month Sentence Finally, Bacon suggests that his 84-month sentence is substantively unreasonable because the district court imposed a sentence four months above the maximum the government recommended. As Bacon acknowledges, however, an 84-month sentence was substantially below his 108 to 135 month Sentencing Guidelines range. Cf. United States v. Alcius, 952 F.3d 83, 89 (2d Cir. 2020) (“It is … difficult to find that a below-Guidelines sentence is [substantively] unreasonable.”). In any event, it is “not unreasonable for the District Court to impose a sentence longer than that recommended by the probation officers or the government, because the recommendations of the probation officers or the prosecution do not bind the District Court’s discretion in sentencing defendants.” United States v. Adams, 378 F. App’x 55, 57 (2d Cir. 2010) (citing United States v. Avello-Alvarez, 430 F.3d 543, 545–46 (2d Cir. 2005)). The district court did not abuse its discretion in weighing the § 3553(a) factors, see Joint App’x 103–05, so we decline to “second guess,” Pope, 554 F.3d at 247, the district court’s considered judgment that an 84-month sentence was appropriate in this case.