Opinion ID: 2772164
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Mr. Bradley’s Sentencing

Text: On appeal to this court, Mr. Bradley challenges the “trial judge’s improper and unfounded comments about [a]ppellant at the time of sentencing,” and alleges a violation of his due process rights. Although Mr. Bradley ascribes bias to the magistrate judge, the foundation of his argument on appeal is, as it was in his Rule 117 (g) motion in Superior Court, that “the [magistrate] judge’s comments, if taken 15 See Super. Ct. Crim. R. 117 cmt. (“The standard of review of a magistrate judge’s decision pursuant to subparagraphs (g)(1) and (2) is the same as applied by the Court of Appeals on appeal of a judgment or order of the Superior Court.”). 17 literally, were not based on anything in the record.”16 We sought and obtained supplemental briefing on that issue, and we review that claim.17 1. The Nature of the Claim and the Standard of Review Preliminarily we acknowledge that, ordinarily, “this court does not review sentences for substantive reasonableness.” Saunders v. United States, 975 A.2d 165, 167 (D.C. 2009). “This does not mean, of course, that the sentencing process . . . is immune from appellate scrutiny.” Matter of L.J., 546 A.2d 429, 434-35 (D.C. 1988) (providing examples of some of the defects in the sentencing process 16 In his motion for review, Mr. Bradley asserted that a number of the magistrate judge’s statements at sentencing were “inappropriate, improper, and shocking, as they are not based on any evidence in the court’s possession or in the record.” Although Mr. Bradley attempted to attach an improper motive—bias—to the magistrate judge’s actions, the government, in its opposition to Mr. Bradley’s Rule 117 (g) motion, understood that Mr. Bradley’s challenge to the record foundation for the magistrate judge’s statements could serve as an independent basis to invalidate his sentence. It addressed this argument separately in its pleading, acknowledged case law holding that the due process clause is violated if the sentencing judge “relie[d] on information or assumptions that are ‘materially false,’” and asserted that the magistrate judge had relied on “permissible considerations.” Thus the associate judge ruling on Mr. Bradley’s Rule 117 (g) motion was aware of the due process implications when she determined there was no reversible error in the imposition of Mr. Bradley’s sentence. 17 We do not address Mr. Bradley’s bias claim other than to observe that we, like the reviewing court, see no manifestation of improper prejudice or bias on this record. 18 that this court reviews). The standard by which we review sentencing procedures varies based on the measure of discretion given to the court under the circumstances. For example, we review for abuse of discretion a sentencing court’s denial of a request for a continuance, which is intimately related to a court’s discretionary management of its docket. See, e.g., Wheeler v. United States, 977 A.2d 973, 991-92 (D.C. 2009). We also afford a sentencing court considerable discretion in marshalling the factual foundation for a sentence; a court “may examine any reliable evidence, including that which was not introduced at trial, and may consider a wide range of facts concerning a defendant’s character and his crime.” Caldwell v. United States, 595 A.2d 961, 966 (D.C. 1991) (internal citation and quotation marks omitted). But “this discretion has some limitations arising from the constitutional guarantee of due process”; in particular, “due process is violated when the sentencing judge relies on “material false assumptions as to any facts relevant to sentencing.” Id. at 967 (quoting Hamid, 531 A.2d at 644).18 18 See Harris v. United States, 612 A.2d 198, 208 (D.C. 1992) (similarly acknowledging due process limitations on a sentencing court’s exercise of discretion and citing United States v. Tucker, 404 U.S. 443, 446 (1972)). 19 We explained in Hamid that “[n]o [judge] can make valid judgments without knowledge of the facts,” 531 A.2d at 645 (quoting Malcolm, 432 F.2d at 819), and that “[f]air administration of justice demands that the sentencing judge will not act on surmise, misinformation and suspicion.” Id. (concluding that a court may not “rely on mistaken information or baseless asumptions”) (internal citation and quotation marks omitted). As support for this pronouncement, we relied on United States v. Tucker, 404 U.S. 443, 447 (1972) (distinguishing between a sentence based on informed discretion and one “founded at least in part upon misinformation of constitutional magnitude”), and Townsend, 334 U.S. at 741 (observing that “whether caused by carelessness or design,” a sentencing determination based on inaccurate information “is inconsistent with due process of law”). Hamid examined a sentencing court’s reliance on misinformation in the context of reviewing a trial court’s grant of writ of error coram nobis; thus it did not address the standard of review that would apply on direct review of such claims. We have, in other contexts, observed that “[w]e review fundamental legal errors in the sentencing process . . . de novo.” Dalton v. United States, 58 A.3d 1005, 1015 (D.C. 2013) (internal quotation marks omitted) (affirming that it 20 violates due process to enhance a defendant’s sentence as a punishment for exercising his right to go to trial). But this court, in Caldwell, stated without further exposition that we reviewed for abuse of discretion the appellant’s claim that the sentencing court had “relied on the prosecutor’s recitation of unsworn evidence, unverified statements of persons unavailable for cross-examination, and incidents of assault which were never adjudicated and which appellant denied but had no opportunity to rebut.” 595 A2d at 966. This court then determined that there was adequate information in the presentence report and in the defendant’s own sentencing memorandum on which the sentencing court could have legitimately relied and that the defendant had “an adequate opportunity to rebut the substance of the prosecutor’s recitation.” Id. at 967-68. Caldwell leads us to conclude that a sentencing-based-on-misinformation claim presents a mixed question of law and fact that requires “unmixing.” See Simms v. United States, 41 A.3d 482, 486 (D.C. 2012). In this case, that means we examine whether there is information in the record that reasonably supported the magistrate judge’s statements at sentencing, and then, in light of that determination, we consider de novo whether Mr. Bradley’s due process rights were compromised at sentencing.19 19 This appears to be the analytic structure used in Wallace v. United States, 936 A.2d 757, 780 (D.C. 2007). After explaining that a defendant making a sentencing-based-on-misinformation claim “must prove that the sentencing judge (continued…) 21 2. Whether the magistrate judge’s statements at Mr. Bradley’s sentencing were adequately supported The magistrate judge described Mr. Bradley as an inveterate gun-wielding, drug-dealing criminal who had managed to evade any real consequences for his actions. But, as the government conceded in supplemental briefing, that portrait lacked an adequate foundation in the record evidence.20 (…continued) actually relied on the unreliable evidence,” it concluded that the trial court’s statements at sentencing were well supported by “a substantial amount of uncontested information and uncontested evidence presented during the sentencing hearing and during prior proceedings” and thus that the court’s statements at sentencing did not “reflect[] an abuse of discretion or den[y] appellant due process.” Id. at 780-81 (emphasis added). 20 Because we determine that the trial court’s statements about Mr. Bradley were not reasonably supported in the record by any measure, we need not address the question on which we ordered additional briefing, i.e., whether, in conducting an inquiry under Hamid and Townsend, this court should assess whether a defendant’s prior criminal conduct has been proved by a preponderance of the evidence. Thus, we need not resolve whether United States v. Watts, 519 U.S. 148, 157 (1997) (holding that proof of a prior acquitted charge by a preponderance of the evidence satisfies due process and allows its consideration at sentencing) overruled this court’s decision in Powers v. United States, 588 A.2d 1166, 1172 (D.C. 1991) (holding that “reliable evidence” of a prior uncharged crime, not “a preponderance of the evidence or any other evidentiary standard,” allows its consideration at sentencing). We note, however, that both the government and amicus (whose arguments Mr. Bradley adopted, supra note 11) agree that, to comply with due process, the standard of proof is, at a minimum, a preponderance of the evidence. 22 The magistrate judge said that Mr. Bradley had “engaged in risky conduct [his] whole life, selling drugs, being around guns, fleeing from the police,” a statement that the reviewing associate judge recognized as “overstated and exaggerated.” Mr. Bradley was thirty years old at the time of his sentencing in 2010 and his four 2008 convictions—a felony and misdemeanor each from two discrete incidents—were his only priors.21 These convictions coupled with his convictions in this case do not adequately support a statement that Mr. Bradley had been “selling drugs” and had been “around guns” his “whole life.”22 The magistrate judge further observed, “no matter how much time I give you, you’re going to sell your drugs, you’re going, you’re going to shoot somebody.” But as the reviewing associate judge noted, not only had Mr. Bradley never been convicted of selling drugs, there also was no indication that Mr. Bradley had ever used or attempted to use a gun to threaten or injure anyone. 21 The CourtView records that the magistrate judge later identified as a foundation for his statements show a number of other arrests and charges, but either there is no information about the disposition of these charges or the records indicate that these charges were dismissed. Such entries, on their own, do not establish the commission of prior criminal conduct. 22 Even if we assume the court meant Mr. Bradley’s whole adult life, we do not think the court’s statement is supported by the two prior incidents on Mr. Bradley’s record (the first of which occurred when he was approximately 28 years old), coupled with his conviction in this case. 23 Although Mr. Bradley’s prior possession of a gun was illegal, carrying a pistol without a license is a far cry from assault with a dangerous weapon. In fact, the government never specifically pressed the point that Mr. Bradley was a dangerous person. Rather, the prosecutor argued that Mr. Bradley deserved jail time because he had “had run-ins with the law around drug[s] and guns, which are not small potatoes,” and his past convictions showed “disregard for police officers and for their orders.” Mr. Bradley’s single prior conviction for drug possession, in conjunction with his present convictions related to illegally and recklessly driving an ATV, did not provide an adequate foundation for a prediction that he would sell drugs in the future. Nor did his single conviction for illegal possession of a gun, either alone or in conjunction with his past or present convictions, reasonably support the judge’s prediction that Mr. Bradley would shoot someone in the future. Lastly, the magistrate judge determined that Mr. Bradley was a bad apple who had duped the judge in his 2008 cases and had gotten off too easily. The magistrate judge asserted that Mr. Bradley “could have gone to jail for about 40 years, 60 years maybe, I don’t know, and Judge Jackson gave you probation.” But that statement has no record foundation, as the government volunteered at oral argument. As a result of his 2008 convictions, Mr. Bradley was required to serve an aggregate of 10 months in jail; he was not merely given probation. Perhaps 24 more importantly, he never faced anything approaching 40 to 60 years of prison time on the charges for which he was convicted.23 By our calculation, the maximum sentence the court could have imposed in 2008, if it had thought Mr. Bradley was the worst of offenders (and there is no record evidence that it did), was approximately eleven years imprisonment,24 and we note, as we are certain that the sentencing court in the 2008 cases did, that Mr. Bradley was accepting responsibility and pleading guilty. Thus, as the government has conceded, the magistrate judge vastly overstated Mr. Bradley’s sentencing exposure in his 2008 cases and erroneously understood the sentences Mr. Bradley had received to be unduly lenient.25 23 Particularly in the absence of further information, it would have been unreasonable for the magistrate judge to consider the charges for which Mr. Bradley had not been convicted; those charges obviously could not have defined Mr. Bradley’s potential sentencing exposure. 24 The two felonies, carrying a pistol without a license and fleeing from a law enforcement officer, both carry maximum sentences of five years. D.C. Code § 22-4504 (a)(1) (2001); D.C. Code § 50-2201.05b (b)(2) (2005 Supp.). And the two misdemeanors, assault on a police officer and drug possession, carry maximum sentences of 180 days. D.C. Code § 22-405 (b) (2001); D.C. Code § 48904.01 (d)(1) (2001). 25 The magistrate judge, also noted that Mr. Bradley “almost kills a guy while he’s on a probation, almost kills a guy.” As the associate reviewing judge acknowledged, however, the magistrate judge “was certainly aware that Mr. Mgongo had not, in fact, almost died from being struck by the ATV.” Indeed, although Mr. Mgongo had to have surgery, followed by physical therapy, to repair his broken leg, the record contained no testimony that Mr. Mgongo was ever near death, and, in fact, the government had “no papered” the charge for aggravated (continued…) 25 3. Whether Mr. Bradley’s due process rights were violated Having determined that the magistrate judge’s statements at sentencing contained a number of unfounded assertions regarding Mr. Bradley, we consider whether Mr. Bradley’s due process rights were violated. We conclude they were, for two, interrelated reasons. To begin with, “courts must be concerned . . . when the sentencing process [has] created a significant possibility that misinformation infected the decision.” (internal citation and quotation marks omitted). Here there can be no question that the magistrate judge’s unfounded statements were material to his decision-making. See Hamid, 531 A.2d at 644. Indeed, the reason the magistrate judge made these statements was to explain why he, unlike the judge who had sentenced Mr. Bradley (…continued) assault, a charge that requires the defendant to cause serious bodily injury to another person. See D.C. Code § 22-404.01 (2001). Nevertheless, we acknowledge the possibility that the magistrate judge meant to say that Mr. Mgongo “could have died” as a result of the accident. Caldwell, 595 A.2d at 967-68 (finding permissible judge’s statement at sentencing that the victim “could have died” even though victim never went to the hospital for her injuries). And if that is what the magistrate judge meant, we would not question such an assessment of the severity of the injury that a pedestrian could suffer as the result of being hit by an ATV, and ultimately of the riskiness of Mr. Bradley’s conduct driving an ATV in the District. 26 in 2008, was “not going to be kind.” The magistrate judge announced that “the buck stops here,” and that Mr. Bradley was “not going to fool [him].” Rather, the magistrate judge asserted he “knew” Mr. Bradley and that he had “a picture of Jerome Bradley as we know him.” And it was with that “picture” in mind that the magistrate judge sentenced Mr. Bradley, expressing disappointment that he could not “put [Mr. Bradley] away for longer . . . because [he] would.” For this reason alone, remand for resentencing is thus necessary. In addition, a due process violation warranting remand arises from the record in this case, or, more to the point, from the lack of a record—a condition that was only cured by this court’s order of a record remand. The magistrate judge failed to document his reliance on extra-record information, namely, Mr. Bradley’s records in CourtView. Although the magistrate judge was unable to recall, by the time of the record remand, which CourtView records in particular he relied upon, he represented to this court that he had “studied” the entirety of Mr. Bradley’s “juvenile and criminal history.” We can only conclude that this study at least contributed to the magistrate judge’s inaccurate portrait of Mr. Bradley; meanwhile, Mr. Bradley was left entirely in the dark about the source of the court’s information about him and was unable to correct the court’s mistaken understanding of his criminal history. Indeed, unaware that the magistrate judge 27 had an extra-record source of information, Mr. Bradley could only make sense of the magistrate judge’s sentencing statements by ascribing bias to the magistrate judge. It is fortuitous that this court even ordered a record remand, as it is not obvious from the trial transcript that the magistrate judge examined materials outside the trial record, other than an alleged violation report that the magistrate judge referenced in passing in rendering Mr. Bradley’s sentence.26 We presume that the magistrate judge did not review Mr. Bradley’s CourtView records prior to issuing his verdict27 and this case went directly from verdict to sentencing without 26 The only express reference in the trial record to this document is the magistrate judge’s statement,“[y]ou’re telling me what a good guy you are, but I got your alleged probation violation report here.” It is not evident that Mr. Bradley’s trial counsel (who did not represent Mr. Bradley in his 2008 cases) either possessed a copy of this report prior to sentencing or knew that the magistrate judge had a copy and would be relying on information therein to make his sentencing determination. Rather, in his Rule 117 (g) motion, Mr. Bradley expressed some uncertainty about the identity of the document to which the magistrate judge had referred. We possess a copy of this report only because the government, in the proceedings before Judge Pan, first moved to supplement the record with this document and then, in conjunction with its initial briefing to this court, moved to include it in the appellate record. 27 The magistrate judge had no apparent, legitimate cause to do so (e.g., to assess a detention ruling or to rule on an evidentiary issue at trial), and it would have been inappropriate for him to prepare for sentencing before an adjudication of Mr. Bradley’s guilt. See Super. Ct. Crim. R. 32 (b)(1) (a trial court may not look at presentence reports until after the defendant “has pleaded guilty, or nolo contendere, or has been found guilty,” unless the defendant gives consent on the record to such inpection); see also Gregg v. United States, 394 U.S. 489, 491-92 (continued…) 28 any break in the proceedings. The court opted not to order a presentence report28 and gave no indication that it needed more information beyond that which had been presented at trial to make an informed sentencing decision. This court ordered a record remand only because it seemed improbable that the record available to us had served as the basis for the magistrate judge’s harsh statements about Mr. Bradley. The trial transcript29 reflected only that Mr. Bradley had one felony conviction for CPWL and one misdmeanor conviction for possession of cocaine, see supra note 8, and the alleged violation report referenced only one additional felony, fleeing a law enforcement officer. Accordingly, we deemed it necessary to direct the magistrate judge to identify any and all (…continued) (1969) (“To permit the ex parte introduction of this sort of material to the judge who will pronounce the defendant's guilt or innocence or who will preside over a jury trial would seriously contravene the ... purpose [of Criminal Rule 32] of preventing possible prejudice from premature submission of the presentence report.”); In re D.M., 993 A.2d 535, 542 (D.C. 2010) (expressing concern about pre-adjudication review of a probation report in a case where the trial judge also sits as finder of fact: “This was dangerous.”). 28 We acknowledge that the magistrate judge consulted with the prosecutor and defense counsel, but, pursuant to Super. Ct. Crim. R. 32, it is the court’s decision whether to order a presentence report. 29 The transcript was the entirety of the trial record prior to the litigation concerning the Rule 117 (g) motion. 29 documents he had relied upon to see if adequate support for his sentencing statements in fact existed. But by ordering such a record remand, we did not mean to imply that it was acceptable for the magistrate judge to examine extra-record CourtView documents without identifying them and without making them part of the record in this case. And we now clarify that the magistrate judge should not have done this. We have previously acknowledged that a “defendant has the right to be informed of [the] information” a trial court considers “in evaluating the appropriate sentence for a defendant.” Foster v. United States, 615 A.2d 213, 220-21 (D.C. 1992). This right is intertwined with a defendant’s right to allocute and speak to the issue of appropriate punishment, a right which is acknowledged by statute30 and court rule,31 but ultimately is “a fundamental one which implicates the due process clause.” Warrick v. United States, 551 A.2d 1332, 1334 (D.C. 1988). In 30 D.C. Code § 23-103 (a) (2012 Repl.) (requiring that “prior to imposing sentence” the trial court “shall afford counsel an opportunity to speak on behalf of the defendant and shall address the defendant personally and ask him if he wishes to make a statement in his own behalf and to present any information in mitigation of punishment”). 31 Super. Ct. Crim. R. 32 (c)(1) (at sentencing defendant’s counsel shall be given the opportunity to address the court and “present any information in mitigation of punishment”). 30 order to have a meaningful opportunity to allocute, a defendant must know what information is under consideration. Likewise, a defendant’s ability to seek a sentence correction or reduction via Super. Ct. Crim. R. 35 or appellate review by this court may be compromised if the information that the sentencing court relied upon in making its sentencing determination is not part of the record. See Johnson v. United States, 398 A.2d 354, 364 (D.C. 1979) (“[T]he act of compiling and preserving a factual record enables the reviewing court to determine whether the decision-maker’s choice was both reasonable and proper in the specific factual context.”). We acknowledge that the extra-record documents consulted by the magistrate judge in this case were located in the Superior Court’s own electronic filing system; and we do not question that a court may take judicial notice of these records,32 even though Rule 32 suggests the better course is to allow Court 32 See Daniels v. United States, 33 A.3d 324, 330 (D.C. 2011) (concluding that the trial judge did not “err in taking judicial notice of the Superior Court’s electronic records database, CourtView, in determining Mr. Daniels’ release status. CourtView is the modern equivalent of the case jacket. [I]t has long been settled that a court may take judicial notice of its own records, which is precisely what the trial court did here”) (internal quotation marks omitted). Of course, beyond court records and matters that are properly the subject of judicial notice, there are limits on a court conducting its own investigation of (continued…) 31 Services and Offender Supervision Agency (CSOSA)33 to compile this information for the court. See infra at note 37; see also Harrison v. United States, 76 A.3d 826, 833 (D.C. 2013) (cautioning that taking judicial notice of court records sua sponte “may create an appearance of partiality”). What is objectionable is for a court to take judicial notice of CourtView records sub silentio. Cf. Harrison, 76 A.3d at 833 (where court took judicial notice of court records, “the procedures employed . . . were fair”: “[t]he trial court disclosed the facts that were being noticed, explained why, and gave appellant an opportunity to contest those facts”); FED. R. EVID. 201 (e) (entitling a party upon request “to be heard on the propriety of taking judicial notice and the nature of the fact to be noticed,” thus assuming that the court will notify the parties that judicial notice is being contemplated or has been taken). This limitation on the court’s review of CourtView materials is critical, because even court records may contain inaccurate or incomplete information. And accurate records can be misinterpreted or misunderstood. (…continued) matters related to sentencing. See Belton v. United States, 581 A.2d 1205, 1214-15 (D.C. 1990). 33 Rule 32 refers to the Social Services Division, but sentencing information is now compiled by CSOSA. D.C. Code § 24-133 (b)(2)(H) (2012 Repl.). 32 Indeed, this is precisely what happened in this case. See supra.34 It is also precisely what happened in Townsend, a case we relied on heavily in Hamid.35 While the Supreme Court in Townsend acknowledged that “[f]air prosecutors and conscientious judges sometimes are misinformed” and that not all mistakes give rise to constitutional concerns, the Court held that the due process violation in that case stemmed from appellant’s inability (there caused by a lack of counsel36) to “take[] steps to see that the conviction and sentence were not predicated on misinformation or misreading of court records . . . .” 334 U.S. at 741. This, according to the Court, was “a requirement of fair play.” Id. In our view, the same requirement of fair play required the sentencing court here to identify the CourtView records consulted and to make them a part of the record.37 34 It is a mystery when exactly the magistrate judge “studied” the 68 pages of documents available on CourtView regarding Mr. Bradley. But his examination could only have been quick and cursory, given that there were no apparent breaks in the proceedings from the beginning of trial to the pronouncement of sentence. 35 As we recounted in Hamid, 531 A.2d at 644, “[t]he sentencing judge in Townsend read aloud a list of eight convictions, passing sentence in reliance thereon too quickly for the uncounseled defendant to object that, in fact, in two of the cases he had been found not guilty, and that the charge at the basis of a third ‘conviction’ had indeed been dismissed.” 36 Townsend was decided prior to Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963). 37 The principles of due process that undergird this rule of transparency are reflected in Rule 32. Subsection (b) spells out when CSOSA must conduct a presentence investigation and report, or at least generate documentation of the defendant’s prior criminal record, for use by the parties and the court at sentencing. (continued…) 33 In short, we conclude that Mr. Bradley’s due process rights were violated both because the magistrate judge relied on misinformation in making its sentencing determination and because the magistrate judge failed to disclose and make a record of the extra-record information in CourtView that it erroneously thought provided a foundation for its sentencing determination.38