Opinion ID: 1433951
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Application of the Law-of-the-Case Doctrine to Carr's Sentencing Challenges

Text: The law-of-the-case doctrine has two facets. First, when a court has ruled on an issue, that decision should generally be adhered to by that court in subsequent stages in the same case. United States v. Quintieri, 306 F.3d 1217, 1225 (2d Cir. 2002) ( Quintieri ) (internal quotation marks omitted), cert, denied, 539 U.S. 902, 123 S.Ct. 2246, 156 L.Ed.2d 110 (2003); see, e.g., United States v. Williams, 475 F.3d 468, 475 (2d Cir.2007) ( Williams ), cert, denied, ___ U.S. ___, 128 S.Ct. 881, 169 L.Ed.2d 739 (2008); United States v. Minicone, 26 F.3d 297, 300 (2d Cir.) ( Minicone ), cert, denied, 513 U.S. 940, 115 S.Ct. 344, 130 L.Ed.2d 300 (1994); United States v. Fernandez, 506 F.2d 1200, 1203 (2d Cir.1974). Second, when the court of appeals has ruled on an issue and has remanded the case to the district court, the district court on remand is required to follow that ruling. See, e.g., Quintieri, 306 F.3d at 1225; Minicone, 26 F.3d at 300. Both facets of the law-of-the-case doctrine are driven by considerations of fairness to the parties, judicial economy, and the societal interest in finality. See generally County of Suffolk v. Stone & Webster Engineering Corp., 106 F.3d 1112, 1117 (2d Cir.1997); United States v. Stanley, 54 F.3d 103, 107 (2d Cir.), cert, denied, 516 U.S. 891, 116 S.Ct. 238, 133 L.Ed.2d 166 (1995). A court's reconsideration of its own earlier decision in a case may, however, be justified in compelling circumstances, consisting principally of (1) an intervening change in controlling law, (2) new evidence, or (3) the need to correct a clear error of law or to prevent manifest injustice. See, e.g., Quintieri, 306 F.3d at 1230; Minicone, 26 F.3d at 300; United States v. Fernandez, 506 F.2d at 1203-04 & n. 7. For example, a defendant who has obtained a remand on his first appeal will not be barred from raising sentencing issues if they arise[] as a result of events that occur[red] after the original sentence, Quintieri, 306 F.3d at 1230. Applying these principles in the context of an appeal following a Crosby remand on which the district court has concluded that it will not resentence the defendant, we have held that the parties are free to challenge the procedures used by the district court on remand in reaching its conclusion and are free to challenge the reasonableness of the sentence originally imposed. See, e.g., Williams, 475 F.3d at 476. But challenges to rulings made by the sentencing court that were adjudicated by this Courtor that could have been adjudicated by us had the defendant made themduring the initial appeal that led to the Crosby remand are ordinarily barred. Id. at 475; see, e.g., United States v. Negron, 524 F.3d 358, 360 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 129 S.Ct. 252, 172 L.Ed.2d 190 (2008). In other words, when we have reached the Guidelines issuesor other sentencing issuesraised by defendants in their initial appeal, further challenges to our resolution of these issues after a district court has declined to resentence pursuant to Crosby will be foreclosed by the law of the case. Williams, 475 F.3d at 476. In addition, we have applied the law-of-the-case doctrine to foreclose renewal of challenges to jury instructions and Guidelines calculations that had been adjudicated on the defendant's first appeal where, on the Crosby remand, the district court conducted sentencing proceedings anew but reimposed the same sentence. See United States v. Frias, 521 F.3d 229, 231, 235 (2d Cir.), cert, denied, ___ U.S. ___, 129 S.Ct. 289, 172 L.Ed.2d 212 (2008). However, we have not heretofore determined what effect the law of the case doctrine might have on a defendant who is resentenced pursuant to Crosby  and given a different sentence. Williams, 475 F.3d at 476 n. 4. Carr argues that a defendant who is given a different sentence following a Crosby remand is entitled to challenge all components of the sentencing decision, arguing that the sentencing proceedings conducted on such a remand are de novo. If this Court in the prior appeal declined to adjudicate the sentencing challenges before remanding, see, e.g., United States v. Irving, 452 F.3d 110, 126 (2d Cir.2006), we agree that the parties are entitled to raise any properly preserved challenges to the sentencewhether or not the district court on remand imposed a new sentence. But to the extent that this Court has, on the prior appeal, adjudicated challenges to the district court's Guidelines calculations, we disagree. Although a district court, in the wake of Booker and its progeny, is not required to impose the now-advisory Guidelines-recommended sentence, the court is nonetheless normally required to calculate the sentencing range that the Guidelines recommend. See, e.g., Gall, 128 S.Ct. at 596 (a district court should begin all sentencing proceedings by correctly calculating the applicable Guidelines range (emphasis added)); Crosby, 397 F.3d at 111 (In order to fulfill this statutory duty to `consider' the Guidelines, a sentencing judge will normally have to determine the applicable Guidelines range.); id. at 115 (a sentencing judge would commit a statutory error in violation of section 3553(a) if the judge failed to `consider' the applicable Guidelines range (or arguably applicable ranges)). And this Court, on reviewing a sentence, is required to determine whether the district court's calculations under the Guidelines are correct: [T]he appellate court, which is to review the sentence under an abuse-of-discretion standard, must first ensure that the district court committed no significant procedural error, such as failing to calculate (or improperly calculating) the Guidelines range . . . . Gall, 128 S.Ct. at 597 (emphasis added). The abuse-of-discretion standard incorporates de novo review of questions of law (including interpretation of the Guidelines). . . . United States v. Legros, 529 F.3d 470, 474 (2d Cir.2008). As the interpretation of a sentencing guideline is a question of law, United States v. Vasquez, 389 F.3d 65, 68 (2d Cir.2004), when a party contends in the initial appeal that Guidelines calculations made by the district court were erroneous, this Court will usually, in the interests of judicial efficiency and economy, address those contentions prior to remanding, in order that the district court either have the assurance that its prior calculations were correct or be sufficiently informed so that it will not repeat an error. See, e.g., United States v. Gonzalez, 407 F.3d 118, 124 (2d Cir.2005) (determining a Guidelines application issue previously decided by the district court, because that issue might be raised again in the district court in the course of the Crosby remand). Thus, in Carr I itself, we addressed Carr's challenge to the calculation of his offense level precisely because [t]his [wa]s a question the district court w[ould] again be required to decide on remand because, post- Booker, it must still consider the appropriate Guidelines sentence along with the other section 3553(a) factors in arriving at the correct sentence. 424 F.3d at 230. Accordingly, given (a) that the sentencing court, regardless of its ultimate sentence, must first calculate the Guidelines-recommended sentence, (b) that interpretations of guidelines are questions of law, and (c) that such questions are addressed by this Court prior to remand in the interests of judicial efficiency and economy, we conclude that, in the absence of compelling circumstances such as those mentioned above that could warrant exceptions to application of the law-of-the-case doctrine, the doctrine bars the district court on remand from revisiting issues that were adjudicated on the prior appeal, and it forecloses the parties from renewing their previously adjudicated challenges on a subsequent appeal, even if the district court has imposed a new sentence on the Crosby remand. In a letter brief submitted subsequent to oral argument of this appealat which this Court solicited briefing with respect to the effects, if any, of Gall and Kimbrough on this appealCarr in effect contends that Kimbrough represents a change in the law that should prevent application of the law-of-the-case doctrine to his renewed challenge to the use of the first-degree murder guideline to calculate his offense level ( see Carr letter brief dated October 29, 2008 (Carr supplemental brief on appeal) at 1-2, 4-7). Carr argues that in light of Kimbrough, the district court has authority to fashion a sentence based in part on its disagreement with this Court's interpretation of a Guideline. ( Id. at 1.) Elaborating, he states as follows: At issue in this case is the district court's authority to deviate from the Guidelines because of disagreements with this Court's interpretation of those Guidelines. In the original appeal of conviction and sentence that lead [ sic ] to the Crosby remand here, Carr challenged the use of the first degree murder guideline in calculating his sentence. This Court held that the most analogous federal offense to New York second degree murder is first degree murder under 18 U.S.C. sec. 1111. United States v. Carr, 424 F.3d 213, 231 (2d Cir.2005), citing United States v. Minicone, 960 F.2d 1099, 1110 (2d Cir. 1992). On resentencing, Carr again challenged the use of the first degree murder guideline. . . . The district court did not revisit the issue, because the debate about exactly what guideline applies to the RICO counts in which the charge of murder is contained ... has been settled and the guideline range is forthe level is a level 43 and the guideline range is simply life. [S.Tr. 17.] However, the district court's comments and questions at the resentencing hearing (which took place over two days) show that the court was concerned that federal first degree murder was not the most analogous federal offense in the circumstances of this case. (Carr supplemental brief on appeal at 2-3 (footnote omitted) (emphasis in original).) Pointing out that in imposing sentence originally in 2004, the court stated `because of the guideline calculations, based on the jury's verdict and their specific findings, it is my duty to impose a sentence of life imprisonment on Count One and on Count Two' ( id. at 3 n. 1 (quoting Original S.Tr. 17)), Carr states that the district court on remand inquired extensively and repeatedly about Carr's culpability for the murder. [Aug. Tr.] at 16 (Let's talk about the question of culpability.); [Aug. Tr.] at 16-17 (court notes that this murder was not premeditated); [Aug. Tr.] at 21 (court finds that killing was on the spot); [Aug. Tr.] at 27 ([T]he degree of culpability is important, and this is not something that is listed in some numerical list in the guidelines.); [S.Tr. 18] (I have been very concerned to assess the degree of culpability in the shooting.). The court's inquiries and statements at the sentencing hearing suggest that it disagreed with this Court's interpretation of the Guidelines, but felt itself boundas it was at that point by this Court's jurisprudenceto use the first degree murder guideline as its baseline for determining sentence. However, in light of Kimbrough, disagreement with the Commission's policy judgment (as interpreted by this Court in Minicone and Carr[I] ) is a permissible reason to deviate from the guideline. (Carr supplemental brief on appeal at 3-4 (emphasis in original).) In support of this argument, Carr cites United States v. Boardman, 528 F.3d 86 (1st Cir.2008) ( Boardman ), stating that [t]he First Circuit . . . held that Kimbrough allows district judges to deviate from the Guidelines on the basis of categorical policy-disagreements, including disagreements with the Court's interpretation of those Guidelines.  (Carr supplemental brief on appeal at 4 (emphases added).) We disagree with Carr's interpretations of both Kimbrough and Boardman. Preliminarily, however, we note our disagreement as well with his description of the district court as disagree[ing] with this Court's interpretation of [the pertinent] Guidelines (Carr supplemental brief on appeal at 2, 4), and as being concerned that federal first degree murder was not the most analogous federal offense in the circumstances of this case ( id. at 3 (emphasis in original)). Although the district court indicatedentirely properlythat the propriety of its application of the federal first-degree murder guideline was no longer in question, it did not express any disagreement with the appropriateness of that guideline as the analog for Carr's murder of Morton. Indeed, that was the guideline originally applied by the district court; in Carr I, we held that the district court's ruling was correct. The transcripts of the hearings held on remand do not indicate that the district court disagreed with this Court's jurisprudence; rather, they reveal clearly that the district court was concerned simply with assessing the degree of Carr's culpability for a callous murder that seemed senseless even to his fellow gang members. Even had the district court disagreed, however, with this Court's jurisprudence reflected in Carr I, Minicone, and Diaz  as to the propriety of using the federal first-degree murder guideline as the most appropriate analog for a RICO-related murder such as that committed here, we reject Carr's contention that the district court would have been free to disregard that jurisprudence after Kimbrough. Kimbrough, which concerned the Guidelines recommendations for severe sentencing of defendants convicted of offenses involving cocaine in the form of crack, as contrasted with cocaine in powder form, held that under Booker, the cocaine Guidelines, like all other Guidelines, are advisory only, 128 S.Ct. at 564, and that a district court may consider arguments that `the Guidelines sentence itself fails properly to reflect § 3553(a) considerations,' id. at 570 (quoting Rita v. United States, 551 U.S. 338, 127 S.Ct. 2456, 2465, 168 L.Ed.2d 203 (2007)). The Kimbrough Court discussed the fact that in adopting Guidelines provisions which, as they then stood, equated one gram of crack with 100 grams of powder cocaine, the Sentencing Commission had looked to certain statutory mandatory minimum prison terms, rather than to empirical evidence as was its general practice, see id. at 567, and that numerous reports of the Commission revealed that the 100 to 1 ratio did not reflect the view of the Commission itself as to appropriate proportionality, see id. at 568. The Kimbrough Court held that [g]iven all this, it would not be an abuse of discretion for a district court to conclude when sentencing a particular defendant that the crack/powder disparity yields a sentence `greater than necessary' to achieve § 3553(a)'s purposes, even in a mine-run case. Id. at 575. See also id. (questioning, but not deciding, whether closer review may be in order when the sentencing judge varies from the Guidelines based solely on the judge's view that the Guidelines range fails properly to reflect § 3553(a) considerations even in a mine-run case as to which the Commission formulated the Guidelines range based on its institutional strengths, taking into account empirical data and national experience (internal quotation marks omitted)). Thus, Kimbrough stands for the proposition that the sentencing court has discretion to deviate from the Guidelines-recommended range based on the court's disagreement with the policy judgments evinced in a particular guideline. Kimbrough did not suggest that the district court may simply disregard the relevant guidelines; to the contrary, the Kimbrough Court noted that, [a]s explained in Rita and Gall, district courts must treat the Guidelines as the `starting point and the initial benchmark,' 128 S.Ct. at 574 (quoting Gall, 128 S.Ct. at 596). And we see nothing in Kimbrough that suggests, as Carr would have it, that a district court is free to disregard its circuit court's interpretation of a particular guideline, which is a ruling on a question of law. Nor do we interpret the First Circuit's decision in United States v. Boardman, 528 F.3d 86, as authorizing its district courts, in light of Kimbrough, to deviate from the Guidelines on the basis of categorical policy disagreements ... with the Court[ of Appeals'] interpretation of those Guidelines (Carr supplemental brief on appeal at 4). The Boardman court, in addressing a Guidelines calculation for burglary of a nonresidential building, noted the interpretation it had given the pertinent guideline in a prior case ( Flore ) and observed that the sentencing court in Boardman had indicated that it would have imposed a lower sentence if it had had discretion to do so. See Boardman, 528 F.3d at 86-87. The First Circuit in Boardman remanded to the district court, reasoning that a sentencing court has broader freedom tha[n] it did before Kimbrough  to deviate from the Guidelines based on the sentencing judge's disagreement with the Commission's policy judgment (as expressed in the guideline as we interpreted it in Fiore ). Id. at 87 (emphasis added). But nothing in Boardman stated that the district court was free to deviate from the Court of Appeals' interpretation of the relevant guideline itself. Indeed, the First Circuit preceded its discussion of the effect of Kimbrough by pointing out that the district court [wa]s still required to calculate and consider the guidelines range, and that [t]he district court properly recognized that it was bound by Fiore to treat the guideline as we had interpreted it, id. Finally, Carr argues that the law-of-the-case doctrine should not be applied to his sentencing challenges because of a change in circumstances, to wit, that his first sentencing had t[aken] place under the mandatory guidelines scheme. (Carr brief on appeal at 12.) He concedes, however, his convictions having been upheld, that the constellation of offenses for which he was sentenced remained the same. ( Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).) And it is indisputable that the change consisting of the Guidelines' being advisory rather than mandatory was dealt with by the remand itself. The remand instructed the district court to resentence Carr if it determined that it would have imposed a nontrivially different sentence had it known the Guidelines were not mandatory; and on remand the district court acknowledged its understanding that [t]he guidelines are now advisory and the court can apply the guidelines or take a different course if there's a reasonable ground[] to do so (S.Tr. 17). We see no change in circumstances that would warrant nonapplication of the law-of-the-case doctrine here. Certainly there was no change in the circumstances surrounding the Morton murder. In sum, we conclude that there was no relevant change in the law or the circumstances, nor any interest of justice that would indicate that the law-of-the-case doctrine should not be applied to foreclose Carr's present challenges to the Guidelines calculations that were approved in Carr I. We accordingly decline to revisit those issues.