Opinion ID: 492626
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Sentencing Under the Dangerous Special Offender Statute

Text: 29 Marrapese argues that his sentencing under the dangerous special offender statute, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 3575, violated due process and constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. He claims that his sentence in the stolen goods case had already been enhanced because of his obstruction of justice and that for the court then to enhance his sentence in the obstruction of justice case was fundamentally unfair. 30 In the stolen goods case the prosecutor argued to the sentencing judge that Marrapese deserved more time than the other defendants because he was a professional criminal who was willing to corrupt the criminal justice system to get his way, in contrast to the other defendants who went astray only this time and were remorseful. Thus, in some sense it may be true that Marrapese's relatively long sentence in the stolen goods case was due in part to his obstruction of justice, but the connection is a very weak one. In sentencing Marrapese, the judge stated that he was primarily relying on the presentence report. Furthermore, Marrapese showed a remarkable lack of remorse in his statement to the sentencing judge. 2 Nevertheless, the judge sentenced him to only ten years, far less than the twenty-five year maximum he could have received, and less than the fifteen years the prosecution recommended. That sentence was proportionate to the crime and clearly within the trial court's discretion. It was not an enhanced sentence. 31 In the obstruction of justice case the prosecution sought, for the first time, to enhance Marrapese's sentence under the dangerous special offender statute, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 3575. Marrapese does not claim that the procedural requirements of Sec. 3575 were violated. Nor does he claim that the sentence he received is greater than Sec. 3575 authorizes. Rather, he claims that Sec. 3575 should not have been applied at all. But, if the procedural requirements of Sec. 3575 are followed, the district court has the same broad discretion to sentence under that statute as under the usual sentencing procedure. See United States v. Inendino, 604 F.2d 458 (7th Cir.1979). Having studied the record in this case and having paid particular attention to the statement of the district court at sentencing, we are fully convinced that the sentence satisfies constitutional norms, see Rummel v. Estelle, 445 U.S. 263, 100 S.Ct. 1133, 63 L.Ed.2d 382 (1980), and that the application of the dangerous special offender statute to Marrapese was appropriate. 32 The conviction and sentence are affirmed.