Opinion ID: 152880
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Recidivism Cases

Text: The majority reason by analogy to decisions, including those of the Supreme Court, upholding recidivism statutes those that punish crimes committed by a person with a specified level of criminal record more harshly than those committed by a person without such a record. The one-book rule, the majority say, when it leads to a higher sentencing range than would be applied to a single offense, operates in a manner similar to that of the recidivist statutes and `three strikes' laws upheld by the Supreme Court and our sister circuits in the past. Maj. Op. at 629. They cite Gryger v. Burke, 334 U.S. 728, 68 S.Ct. 1256, 92 L.Ed. 1683 (1948), as having rejected the defendant's argument that the consideration of his past offenses in determining his sentence for a later offense was foreclosed by the Ex Post Facto clause. Id. at 732, 68 S.Ct. 1256. Maj. Op. at 629. The majority then assert that [t]he fact that the impetus for enacting the recidivist statutes was to reflect the greater culpability associated with the latter offenses, whereas the impetus for the enactment of the one-book rule is to avoid `piecemeal' sentencing is of no relevance for the purposes of determining the retroactivity of the legal consequences of the defendant's actions. Maj. Op. at 629 (citation omitted). The majority therefore conclude that the distinction between the recidivist statutes and the one-book rule makes neither a practical nor a logical difference for purposes of an analysis under the Ex Post Facto clause, because the defendants' obstruction offense is the `actual crime' triggering the application of the one-book rule, the defendants had prior notice of the consequences of that crime, and therefore the application of the one-book rule is proper. Maj. Op. at 630. I think, to the contrary, that there is a crucial difference between the legislative branch deciding that a particular crime is more serious when committed byand that the public is in need of more protection froma person who has a specified level of past criminal behavior than someone who does not, and increasing a penalty for a completed crime triggered by the commission of a subsequent oneindeed, irrespective, in the majority's view, of whether there is a connection between those crimes committed before the change and those committed afterward. Justice Jackson, writing for the Court in Gryger, put it thus: Nor do we think the fact that one of the convictions that entered into the calculations by which petitioner became a fourth offender occurred before the Act was passed, makes the Act invalidly retroactive or subjects the petitioner to double jeopardy. The sentence as a fourth offender or habitual criminal is not to be viewed as either a new jeopardy or additional penalty for the earlier crimes. It is a stiffened penalty for the latest crime, which is considered to be an aggravated offense because a repetitive one. Gryger, 334 U.S. at 732, 68 S.Ct. 1256 (emphasis added). The later crime may, as the majority say, trigger the change in the sentence for the earlier crimes, but what it triggers is what the Gryger court said was improper: an additional penalty for the[ir] earlier crimes. Whatever the trigger, the revisions increased the offense levels applicable to the earlier fraud and conspiracy crimes, not the later obstruction of justice offenses. The revisions added an increase based upon the amount of money lost by the victims of the fraud and conspiracy crimes; they expanded the loss table for the fraud and conspiracy offenses, not the obstruction of justice offenses, by adding new categories for losses of $200 and $400 million; and they created a new 6-level enhancement for fraud, not obstruction of justice, involving 250 or more victims; and added a 4-level enhancement for violations of securities laws, not the obstruction of justice laws, by defendants who were officers or directors of public companies. See U.S.S.G. § 2b1.1(b)(2) & (b)(13); cf. Cooper, 35 F.3d 1248, 1251 (8th Cir.1994) (It is well settled that habitual offender statutes do not offend the ex post facto clause, even though such statutes impact imposition of an instant sentence in consideration of past criminal conduct. [Citing Gryger, 334 U.S. at 732, 68 S.Ct. 1256.] The enhanced sentence is considered to impose a stiffer penalty for the latest crime, which is considered to be an aggravated offense due to its repetitive nature. (emphasis added)). This is, of course, the critical difference between recidivist statutes and the circumstances we are faced with here: that while, as the majority point out and as Gryger makes clear, the consideration of [ ] past offenses in determining [the] sentence for a later offense may be permissible for ex post facto purposes, Maj. Op. at 629, it is the consideration of a later offense in determining the sentence for past offenses, as we do here, that runs afoul of ex post facto considerations. As a practical matter, to be sure, Congress, or perhaps the Sentencing Commission, might haveand may stilladopt a permissible recidivism statute to cover a circumstance very much like the present one: A person who commits an obstruction of justice in order to cover up a fraud in which the losses inflicted by the fraud are $ X will receive a Y level increase in offense level. It does not follow, logically or otherwise, that reaching a similar result by the present methodby retroactively increasing the punishment for fraudis constitutional. The hypothetical law would provide punishment for behavior of which the potential violator would be fully and fairly warned before engaging in that behavior. It would reflect the perceived seriousness of future obstruction offenses, publically disseminated before any such offense is committed, and not an attempt to re-punish completed past acts. To increase the punishment for fraud and conspiracy after they are completed provides no fair notice and evokes the inherent injustice associated with retroactivity itself. Sash, 439 F.3d at 64.