Opinion ID: 2976069
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: reasonableness of defendant’s sentence

Text: This Court reviews challenges to the district court’s sentencing determinations for reasonableness. Gall v. United States, 128 S. Ct. 586, 594 (2007); United States v. Rita, 127 S. Ct. 2456, 2459 (2007); United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 261 (2005). In Booker, the Supreme Court severed the mandatory provisions of the Guidelines, thus rendering them advisory. Booker, 543 U.S. at 224. Consequently, “[t]he range of choice dictated by the facts of the case is significantly broadened.” Gall, 128 U.S. at 602. While the choices available to district courts are varied, the goal of sentencing is the same: to impose a sentence that is sufficient, but “no greater than necessary” to comport with the purposes of 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). In meeting this mandate, district courts are to consider the Guidelines together with other statutory goals embodied in § 3553(a). Booker, 543 U.S. at 246. No. 06-5581 United States v. Moon Page 8 As the Supreme Court recently noted in Gall v. United States, “a district court should begin all sentencing proceedings by correctly calculating the applicable Guidelines range.” 128 U.S. at 596. Indeed, “the Guidelines should be the starting point and the initial benchmark.” Id. While the Guidelines begin the sentencing process, they do not end the inquiry of the district court. Id. Rather, after calculating the Guidelines, a district court is to consider the arguments of the parties with respect to the propriety of a particular sentence over another, while being guided by the statutory factors as set forth in § 3553(a). Id. After considering the arguments of the parties, the district court cannot simply rely on the advisory Guidelines range, but rather “must make an individualized assessment based on the facts presented.” Id. at 597. “After settling on the appropriate sentence, [the district court] must adequately explain the chosen sentence to allow for meaningful appellate review and to promote the perception of fair sentencing.” Id. On appeal, we review the sentence imposed by a district court for reasonableness utilizing the “familiar abuse of discretion standard.” Gall, 128 U.S. at 594. The reasonableness inquiry has both procedural and substantive components. United States v. Caver, 470 F.3d 220, 248 (6th Cir. 2007). Therefore, we must “consider not only the length of the sentence but also the factors evaluated and the procedures employed by the district court in reaching its sentencing determination.” United States v. Webb, 403 F.3d 373, 383 (6th Cir. 2005).
Defendant challenges the sentence imposed by the district court under Booker based on procedural and substantive reasonableness. First, Defendant challenges the procedural reasonableness of her sentence, alleging that the district court improperly calculated the Guidelines range by applying sentence enhancements for vulnerable victims, risk of death or serious bodily injury and obstruction of justice. Second, Defendant challenges the substantive reasonableness of her sentence, alleging that the district court considered an impermissible factor when it heard testimony from family members of Defendant’s deceased patients. After a thorough review of the record, we find that the district court did not err in sentencing Defendant.
When reviewing a sentence for procedural reasonableness, we must “ensure that the district court committed no significant procedural error, such as failing to calculate (or improperly calculating) the Guidelines range, treating the Guidelines as mandatory, failing to consider the § 3553(a) factors, selecting a sentence based on clearly erroneous facts, or failing to adequately explain the chosen sentence . . . .” Gall, 128 U.S. at 597. Our “reasonableness review focuses on the factors listed in § 3553(a), one of which is the Sentencing Guidelines themselves.” United States v. Duckro, 466 F.3d 438, 442 (6th Cir. 2006). We may conclude that a sentence is unreasonable when the district court “fails to ‘consider’ the applicable Guidelines range or neglects to ‘consider’ the other factors listed in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), and instead simply selects what the judge deems an appropriate sentence without such required consideration.” United States v. Jones, 489 F.3d 243, 250-51 (6th Cir. 2007) While the district court need not “engage in a ritualistic incantation” of the § 3553(a) factors, its opinion should be “sufficiently detailed to reflect the considerations listed in § 3553(a)” and to allow for meaningful appellate review. United States v. McBride, 434 F.3d 470, 474 (6th Cir. 2006). The district court’s opinion must also provide some indication that the court considered the defendant’s arguments in favor of a lower sentence and the basis for rejecting such arguments. Jones, 489 F.3d at 250-51.
Defendant alleges that the district court erred in calculating the applicable Guidelines range, thus rendering her sentence procedurally unreasonable. As noted above, district courts are required No. 06-5581 United States v. Moon Page 9 to “consult” the Guidelines as part of their consideration of the § 3553(a) factors. We have observed that “a district court’s misinterpretation of the Guidelines effectively means that it has not properly consulted the Guidelines.” United States v. Hazelwood, 398 F.3d 792, 801 (6th Cir. 2005). In reviewing a district court’s application of the Sentencing Guidelines, this Court will “accept the findings of fact of the district court unless they are clearly erroneous and [will] give due deference to the district court’s application of the Guidelines to the facts.” United States v. Williams, 355 F.3d 893, 897-98 (6th Cir. 2003); 18 U.S.C. § 3742(e). A factual finding is clearly erroneous “when the reviewing court on the entire evidence is left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed.” Tran v. Gonzales, 447 F.3d 937, 943 (6th Cir. 2006). We review a district court’s legal conclusions regarding the Sentencing Guidelines de novo. United States v. Latouf, 132 F.3d 320, 331 (6th Cir. 1997). Defendant argues that the district court erred in applying a sentencing enhancement for a “large number of vulnerable victims” and “risk of death or serious bodily injury.” Additionally, Defendant alleges that the district court engaged in impermissible “double counting” in sentencing her to both 60 months for making false statements and enhancing her sentence under the Guidelines for obstruction of justice. We address each allegation in turn. 1. Large Number of Vulnerable Victims Under § 3A1.1(b)(1) of the Guidelines, a two-level enhancement is proper “[i]f the defendant knew or should have known that a victim of the offense was a vulnerable victim.” A “vulnerable victim” is defined as a person who “is a victim of the offense of conviction and any conduct for which the defendant is accountable under 1.3 (Relevant Conduct); and . . . who is unusually vulnerable due to age, physical or mental condition, or who is otherwise particularly susceptible to criminal conduct.” USSG § 3A1.1(b)(1), cmt 2. “Relevant conduct” is defined as “all acts and omissions committed, aided, abetted, counseled, commanded, induced, procured or willfully caused by the defendant . . . that occurred during the commission of the offense of conviction, in preparation for that offense, or in the course of attempting to avoid detection or responsibility for that offense.” USSG § 1B1.3. Where there are a “large” number of vulnerable victims, the enhancement may further increase by two levels. USSG § 3A1.1(b)(2). Defendant challenges the district court’s application of the large number of vulnerable victims enhancement. Before the district court, Defendant did not challenge the district court’s determination that a “large” number of vulnerable victims were affected by Defendant’s behavior nor did Defendant challenge the district court’s determination that her cancer patients were “vulnerable” within the meaning of the enhancement. Rather, Defendant alleges that the district court erred in characterizing her patients as “victims” and her administration of chemotherapy medication as “relevant criminal conduct.” Defendant argues that only those parties who were actually defrauded as a result of her offenses of conviction constitute “victims” for sentencing purposes. The government, for its part, asserts that Defendant’s patients were properly considered victims of Defendant’s conduct as a result of the partial doses of medication she administered as part of her fraudulent billing scheme. For the reasons discussed below, we find that the district court properly applied the vulnerable victims enhancement to Defendant’s “relevant criminal conduct.” As an initial matter, it appears that Defendant’s patients are squarely within the class of “vulnerable victims” contemplated by the Guidelines to serve as a basis for the enhancement. The Application Commentary suggests that “[t]he adjustment would apply, for example, in a fraud case in which the defendant marketed an ineffective cancer cure . . . .” USSG § 3A1.1(b)(1), cmt. 2. We believe that the hypothetical presented in the commentary and the factual scenario of the case at bar are analogous. In this case, the Defendant was convicted of fraud which related to the amount of medication used in treating cancer patients. While her fraudulent conduct did not stem from No. 06-5581 United States v. Moon Page 10 representations of a “cure” for cancer, Defendant did present an ineffective treatment for cancer as a central aspect of her fraud conviction. Despite the language contained in the commentary, Defendant argues that her patients were not “victims” for purposes of the vulnerable victims enhancement. Defendant correctly notes that the application of the vulnerable victims enhancement is inappropriate where the statutory scheme defining the offense of conviction does not speak to the protection of individual victims but of broad societal interests. See, e.g., United States v. Madden, 403 F.3d 347, 350 (6th Cir. 2005) (vote sellers could not be deemed victims of a defendant convicted of violating a federal vote buying statute because “[t]he vote buying statute protects ‘society at large’ from corruption of the electoral process” rather than “individuals who value money more highly than their right to vote in a given election.”); United States v. Smith, 139 F. App’x 681 (6th Cir. 2005) (unpublished) (same). However, it appears that Defendant’s argument regarding “relevant conduct” is foreclosed by our decision in United States v. Gawthrop, 310 F.3d 405 (6th Cir. 2002). In Gawthrop, we held that the vulnerable victims enhancement was properly applied based on “relevant conduct” as provided by the Guidelines, notwithstanding the fact that a societal interest or a governmental entity is the primary victim of the offense of conviction. Id. at 410-411. Although Gawthrop is a pre-Booker case, its reasoning nevertheless remains in force. Indeed, we have noted that while Booker severed the mandatory provisions of the Sentencing Guidelines, it “recognized that [t]he remainder of the [Sentencing Reform Act] functions independently.” United States v. Milan, 398 F.3d 445, 456 (6th Cir. 2005) (internal citations omitted). Thus, where provided by the Guidelines, a district court may examine relevant conduct to determine the applicable Guidelines range, even if not captured as an element of the offense of conviction. See United States v. Stone, 432 F.3d 651, 654-655 (6th Cir. 2005). In the case at bar, the district court considered evidence that Defendant provided partial doses of life-saving chemotherapy medication without notifying the patients that their doses were being so adjusted and without any medical justification. Defendant’s act of depriving her patients of the opportunity to receive the full benefit of their treatment through her failure to administer the recommended dosage of medication certainly qualifies as “harm” within the meaning of the vulnerable victims enhancement. Significantly, this “harm” occurred during the course of Defendant’s scheme to defraud a number of healthcare benefit programs. Accordingly, we see no error in the district court's application of the vulnerable victims enhancement on the basis of Defendant’s conduct with respect to her patients, despite the fact that her offenses of conviction were fraud offenses.
Pursuant to § 2B1.1(b)(12), a two-level sentencing enhancement is appropriate where “the offense involved . . . the conscious or reckless risk of death or serious bodily injury.” In seeking the enhancement, the government need only prove that Defendant’s conduct created a risk of death or serious bodily injury by a preponderance of the evidence. United States v. Dupree, 323 F.3d 480, 491 (6th Cir. 2003). In the instant case, the district court applied this enhancement, over the objection of Defendant, after crediting the testimony of Dr. Mace Rothenburg, an expert witness for the government. Dr. Rothenburg testified that partial doses of chemotherapy medication, such as Procrit, would not result in the full beneficial effect of treatment such that the “patient is at higher risk for having their cancer progress or return and potentially die from that.” (J.A. at 1378-1379) Based on the evidence that was before the district court with respect to risk of death or serious bodily injury, we conclude that there was no error in its application of the two-level enhancement. No. 06-5581 United States v. Moon Page 11
Lastly, Defendant challenges the district court’s application of an enhancement for obstruction of justice pursuant to § 3C1.1. At sentencing, Defendant’s PSR recommended the application of a two-level enhancement for obstruction of justice. Such an enhancement is proper where “the defendant willfully obstructed or impeded, or attempted to obstruct or impede, the administration of justice with respect to the investigation, prosecution, or sentencing of the instant offense of conviction, and (B) the obstructive conduct related to (i) the defendant’s offense of conviction and any relevant conduct; or (ii) a closely related offense.” USSG § 3C1.1. Defendant asserts that the district court erred in its application of the two-level enhancement because it constitutes impermissible “double counting” inasmuch as she was already convicted of an offense relating to her obstructive conduct—i.e., lying to government agents. In making this argument, Defendant relies on this Court’s decision in United States v. Farrow,198 F.3d 179, 195 (6th Cir. 1999), which held that “impermissible ‘double counting’ occurs when precisely the same aspect of the defendant’s conduct factors into his sentence in two separate ways.” On the other hand, this Court has also noted that where a defendant is penalized for “distinct aspects of the defendant’s conduct, no double counting will be found.” United States v. Eversole, 487 F.3d 1024, 1030 (6th Cir. 2007) (citing United States v. Perkins, 89 F.3d 303, 310 (6th Cir. 1996)). We find that the district court did not err in applying the two-level enhancement for obstruction of justice. While Defendant correctly notes that impermissible double counting occurs where a defendant’s conduct factors into her sentence in two separate ways, the rule applies with respect our evaluation of a single count. Farrow, 198 F.3d at 193-194 (“If a single aspect of the defendant’s conduct both determines his offense level and triggers an enhancement, [the] defendant’s final offense level will be the same as that of a defendant who engages in two forms of conduct deemed punishable under the Sentencing Guidelines.”). In the case at bar, it appears that the two-level enhancement was applied to counts one through three, which relate to Defendant’s conviction for health care fraud. According to Defendant’s PSR, “Count Four, False Statements Regarding Health Matters, is . . . grouped with Counts One through Three, because Court Four embodies conduct that is treated as an adjustment to the guidelines for the other counts.” (J.A. at 1526) Counts one through three concerned infractions for health care fraud, while count four separately involved the misrepresentations made by Defendant to the officers during their investigation of the health care fraud. The misrepresentations made to the officers with respect to the health care fraud investigation constituted behavior by Defendant which subjected her to the obstruction of justice enhancement, but that behavior was not duplicative of the factual allegations involved in the health care fraud set forth in counts one through three. Therefore, Defendant’s specific conduct of lying to government agents did not factor into her sentence in two separate ways with respect to count four. Thus, the sentencing scheme utilized by the district court does not constitute impermissible double counting. b. Consideration of Section 3553(a) Factors and Explanation of the Sentence Imposed In addition to properly calculating the Guidelines range, the record indicates that the district court considered the § 3553(a) factors and adequately explained the rationale for the imposition of a within Guidelines sentence. For example, the district court demonstrated an understanding of the advisory nature of the Sentencing Guidelines and heard testimony regarding the factors enumerated in § 3553(a). Additionally, the district court heard arguments from Defendant’s counsel as well as Defendant herself. In sentencing Defendant, the district court expressly invoked the § 3553(a) factors, including the seriousness of the offense and the need to afford adequate deterrence. Therefore, we conclude that Defendant’s sentence was procedurally reasonable. No. 06-5581 United States v. Moon Page 12 2. Substantive Reasonableness In addition to procedural reasonableness, we must determine that a sentence is substantively reasonable. United States v. Webb, 403 F.3d 373, 383 (6th Cir. 2005). We have noted that a sentence may be substantively unreasonable where the district court “selects the sentence arbitrarily, bas[es] the sentence on impermissible factors, fail[s] to consider pertinent § 3553(a) factors or giv[es] an unreasonable amount of weight to any pertinent factor.” United States v. Collington, 461 F.3d 805, 808 (6th Cir. 2006) (internal citations omitted). Sentences within a properly calculated Guidelines range are afforded a rebuttable presumption of reasonableness. United States v. Williams, 436 F.3d 706, 708 (6th Cir. 2006). Here, Defendant’s sentence falls within the advisory Guidelines range of 188 to 235 months, and is thus entitled to a presumption of reasonableness. At sentencing, the district court considered testimony from family members of Defendant’s deceased patients. The family members testified regarding the treatment their family members received from Defendant and the emotional harm suffered as a result of not knowing whether sufficient medication was administered to their loved ones. Defendant contends that the district court considered an inappropriate factor when it heard such testimony. Defendant asserts that the patients’ relatives were not “relevant” for purposes of § 3553(a) as they were not “victims” of the Defendant’s offenses of conviction. We disagree. Section 3553(a)(1) requires district courts to consider “the nature and circumstances of the offense . . . .” 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(1). The testimony of the family members was clearly relevant to the nature and circumstances of Defendant’s health care fraud offenses. The fraud for which Defendant was convicted was part and parcel to the treatment rendered to her patients. Indeed, Defendant was convicted of the fraud offenses based on evidence that she deliberately administered partial doses of medication to her patients in order to reap the profit from payments made by health care entities for full doses of medication. The fact that Defendant involved patient care in her fraud offenses separates her from others who may defraud the government by other means. Clearly, the proximity of the fraud to patient care is an appropriate consideration for the district court to weigh as it determined the proper sentence to impose in the exercise of its judicial discretion. Moreover, § 3553(a)(2)(A) requires district courts to consider the “need for the sentence imposed . . . to reflect the seriousness of the offense, to promote respect for the law, and to provide just punishment for the offense.” Under Booker and its progeny, the sentencing choices available to district courts in meeting the requirements of § 3553(a)(2) have “significantly broadened.” Gall, 128 U.S. at 602. Consequently, the ability of district courts to weigh the factual circumstances regarding an offense to determine the appropriate sentence is paramount. In this case, the impact of Defendant’s health care fraud on her patients is a factor, or factual circumstance, that the district court properly considered in evaluating the seriousness of the offense as well as the need to provide just punishment for the offense. In sum, we conclude that the district court properly considered relevant factors as part of its required inquiry under § 3553(a). Therefore, Defendant’s sentence is procedurally and substantively reasonable. IV. ADMISSION OF EVIDENCE PURSUANT TO FEDERAL RULES OF EVIDENCE 803(6) AND 1006 A. Standard of Review In her last assignment of error, Defendant challenges the district court’s admission of evidence regarding her prior purchasing, billing and administration of chemotherapy drugs. We review an evidentiary determination by a district court for abuse of discretion. United States v. Jamieson, 427 F.3d 394, 409 (6th Cir. 2005). No. 06-5581 United States v. Moon Page 13 B. Analysis Defendant challenges the district court’s decision to admit the government’s evidence regarding her drug purchases, administration and billing, claiming that its introduction in summary form was impermissible under Rule 1006. The government disputes this characterization of the evidence. While acknowledging that some of the evidence challenged was “summary evidence,” and thus governed by Rule 1006, the government asserts that evidence of Defendant’s drug purchases from various drug companies’ computer records were properly deemed business records and admitted under Rule 803(6). 1. Evidence of Defendant’s Business Records During Defendant’s trial, the government introduced evidence regarding Defendant’s purchases of Taxol, Camptosar and Procrit. Computer records of various drug companies served as the basis for such evidence. As part of its case in chief, the government called custodians of the drug companies to testify regarding the records of Defendant’s purchases. Contrary to Defendant’s assertions, the government insists that this evidence was properly admitted pursuant to Federal Rule of Evidence 803(6), which governs admission of business records.2 Specifically, the government argues that the evidence provided by the drug companies constitute business records within the meaning of Rule 803(6). We agree. In United States v. Russo, 480 F.2d 1228 (6th Cir. 1973), this Court found a computer generated “statistical run” to be a business record, rather than a summary, for purposes of the Federal Business Records Act. Id. at 1240. More recently, in United States v. Catabran, 836 F.2d 453 (9th Cir. 1988), the Ninth Circuit relied on Russo to find a computer generated business ledger to be a business record under Rule 803(6). Id. at 457. There, the court found that its treatment of “general ledgers as business records, not summaries,” did not change because a computer produced the ledger. Id. Moreover, as the court noted, Rule 803(6) “specifically allows the admission of ‘data compilation,’ in any form.” Id. Because of the similarities between the computer produced records at issue in Russo and Catabran and the evidence at bar, we find that the evidence of Defendant’s drug purchases falls within the business records hearsay exception. Consequently, the district court did not err in admitting such evidence pursuant to Rule 803(6). 2. Summaries of Defendant’s Business Records Defendant challenges the admission of “summary evidence” presented by the government in the form of charts created by HHS-OIG Special Agent Robert Turner. The charts offered into evidence summarized and compared the drugs Defendant purchased with the amount she claimed to administer. The charts also presented an estimate of the profits alleged to have resulted from Defendant’s billing and purchase practices. In particular, Defendant challenges the propriety of the admission of the summaries under Rule 1006. Rule 1006 provides, in pertinent part, that: 2 This Court has explained that: A business record must satisfy four requirements in order to be admissible under Rule 803(6): (1) it must have been made in the course of a regularly conducted business activity; (2) it must have been kept in the regular course of that business; (3) the regular practice of that business must have been to have made the memorandum; and (4) the memorandum must have been made by a person with knowledge of the transaction or from information transmitted by a person with knowledge. United States v. Jenkins, 345 F.3d 928, 935 (6th Cir. 2003). In addition, “[t]his information must be presented through the testimony of the custodian or other qualified witness.” Id. (quoting Fed. R. Evid. 803(6)). No. 06-5581 United States v. Moon Page 14 The contents of voluminous writings, recordings, or photographs which cannot conveniently be examined in court may be presented in the form of a chart, summary or calculation. The originals, or duplicates, shall be made available for examination or copying, or both, by other parties at [a] reasonable time and place. In applying Rule 1006, this Court has held that the Rule imposes five requirements for the admission of summary evidence: (1) the underlying documents are so voluminous that they cannot be conveniently examined in court; (2) the proponent of the summary must have made the documents available for examination or copying at a reasonable time and place; (3) the underlying documents must be admissible in evidence; (4) the summary must be accurate and nonprejudicial; and (5) the summary must be properly introduced through the testimony of a witness who supervised its preparation. United States v. Jamieson, 427 F.3d 394, 409 (6th Cir. 2005). After considering the five requirements of Rule 1006, we find that the district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the summary evidence. First, the documents underlying the summary charts satisfy the voluminousness requirement inasmuch as the charts were based on raw data provided by drug companies and health programs which were billed by Defendant. Second, Defendant does not dispute the fact that all documents utilized to create the summaries were submitted or otherwise made available to her. Third, the documents that provided the basis for the summary charts were admissible as business records under Rule 803(6). See Martin v. Funtime, Inc., 963 F.2d 110, 115 (6th Cir. 1992) (concluding personnel records admissible under 803(6) made summaries of such records admissible under Rule 1006). Fourth, Defendant has not alleged that the summaries were inaccurate or prejudicial. Fifth, the summaries were properly introduced through Special Agent Turner, who supervised their preparation. Thus, the summary evidence meets the standard for admissibility under Rule 1006. Therefore, the district court did not err in admitting into evidence the summary charts concerning drug transactions in Defendant’s office.