Opinion ID: 774104
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: jurisdiction

Text: 17 The government argues this court lacks jurisdiction to hear the appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 because the judgment in the district court is not final, given the 31 counts of the indictment yet to be adjudicated. Under § 1291, the courts of appeals . . . shall have jurisdiction of appeals from all final decisions of the district courts. 28 U.S.C.§ 1291. Final judgment in a criminal case means sentence. The sentence is the judgment. Berman v. United States, 302 U.S. 211, 212 (1937). The government notes that, while King pled guilty to and was sentenced on counts 24 through 42 of the indictment, the remaining counts are still pending in the district court. Therefore, it contends, we do not have jurisdiction to hear King's appeal, because the district court's judgment was not final as to the entirety of the indictment. 18 This court addressed this general issue in United States v. Powell, 24 F.3d 28 (9th Cir. 1994). There, the defendant had been indicted on four counts, including a charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm. Powell successfully moved to sever the firearm charge, was convicted on the other three and immediately appealed the conviction. In a separate trial, he was convicted of the felon-in-possession charge, and he appealed that conviction as well. On appeal, we addressed whether the district court's jurisdiction over the second conviction was proper, given that the appeal on the first conviction was pending. Concluding that [s]everance is analogous to charging the defendant in two separate indictments, we held that the final judgment rule had not been violated, despite the possibility that district court jurisdiction over one of the severed cases, concurrent with appeals court jurisdiction over the other, could lead to a waste of resources in the event the cases involved a commonality of issues. Powell, 24 F.3d at 30-31; see also United States v. Abrams , 137 F.3d 704, 707 (2d Cir. 1998). 19 The Powell rationale applies here. King's pleading guilty to a subset of charges in effect severed the indictment into two parts and made him ready for sentencing on the charges related to the Final Notice scheme. The government has acknowledged as much in its brief. See Appellee's Br. at 22 (Although Powell turned in part on the fact that the count before this Court had been severed from the remaining counts, that difference provides no basis for distinguishing this case. Indeed, if the Court dismissed the current appeal for lack of jurisdiction, the district court could create jurisdiction in this Court simply by formally severing the counts on which appellant had pleaded guilty from the remaining counts.). Because the court imposed sentence on counts 24 through 42, King was entitled to appeal the sentence despite the pending charges. See Powell, 24 F.3d at 31 (When sentence was imposed on the severed counts, [defendant] was entitled to appeal because there was nothing left to be done but to enforce the sentence.). A contrary holding, under which King would begin serving his sentence before obtaining the right to appeal it, would violate fundamental notions of due process. See Abrams, 137 F.3d at 707. The government responds that the district court could stay execution of the judgment if warranted under the circumstances. As execution of the sentence was not stayed here, however, that theoretical possibility is not relevant to our decision. 20 Two other circuits have held they lacked jurisdiction to hear an appeal on one charge of a multiple-count indictment while other charges were pending. See United States v. Leichter, 160 F.3d 33, 34 (1st Cir. 1998); United States v. Kaufmann, 951 F.2d 793, 794 (7th Cir. 1992). Those cases, however, presented distinguishable facts. In Leichter, the district court decided sua sponte to sever for trial one count of a more than 390-count indictment. The jury convicted on that count after a two-month trial, and the court sentenced the defendants accordingly. The government then dismissed all but 38 of the remaining counts of the indictment. The defendants appealed, and execution of the sentences was stayed pending the appellate court's judgment. Concluding that no severance creating two distinct cases had occurred, the court held it lacked jurisdiction to hear the appeal. Leichter, 160 F.3d at 36-37. Here, in contrast, indictment charges 24 through 42 were distinct from the remaining counts, and the counts were effectively severed by King's guilty plea. Thus, the two objectives emphasized by the Leichter court -- preserving a trial judge's authority to sever a case in the interests of litigation management and providing notice to litigants when severance occurs, see id. at 36 -- were not implicated. King created a de facto severance of the case by pleading guilty to a subset of the charges, and accordingly had notice of the severance. 21 Kaufmann, similarly, has no bearing here. The jury in that case acquitted on two counts of a five-count indictment, convicted on one and hung on the remaining two. All counts related to money laundering or attempted money laundering. The appeals court held it lacked jurisdiction over the defendant's appeal of his conviction while retrial on the two closely-related counts was pending. Kaufmann, 951 F.2d at 795. The appeal before us, in contrast, is based on wholly severable counts. Moreover, a later Seventh Circuit opinion by the same panel noted that its previous decision represented a novel approach to the jurisdiction issue, one not followed by other circuits. See United States v. Kaufmann , 985 F.2d 884, 891 (7th Cir. 1993). 22 In sum, the court's interest in ensuring a defendant has the right to appeal a sentence when he begins serving it outweighs the government's concerns about piecemeal appellate review. Powell controls. Accordingly, we hold that jurisdiction over King's appeal under the final judgment rule is proper. 23