Opinion ID: 1363132
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The First Contested PSR Recommendation

Text: The PSR recommended that Fink be treated as a career offender under Chapter 4 of the Sentencing Guidelines, an approach that would result in a higher advisory guideline sentencing range (GSR) for Fink. Section 4B1.1(a) of the Sentencing Guidelines sets forth preconditions that must be present if a defendant is to be considered a career offender. U.S.S.G. ß 4B1.1(a). One of these preconditions requires that the defendant have at least two prior felony convictions for either a crime-of-violence or a controlled-substance offense. U.S.S.G. ß 4B1.1(a)(3). In its discussion of Fink's career offender status, the PSR specifically identified three prior crime-of-violence convictions from Fink's criminal record that could serve as career offender predicates. The first was a 1990 Bristol County conviction for assault and battery with intent to murder, and the other two were December 1999 Fall River convictions for resisting arrest and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon (the December 1999 convictions). On December 7, 2005, Fink notified the district court that the two December 1999 convictions could not be career offender predicates because a state court judge Äî Gilbert J. Nadeau Äî had since vacated those convictions. Some additional background is required to understand the complicated facts surrounding this aspect of the parties' sentencing dispute. Fink pleaded guilty to assault and battery in Fall River District Court in Massachusetts on February 2, 1999 (the February 1999 conviction), and was sentenced to suspended jail time and probation for that offense on April 28, 1999. Later that year, Fink was charged with four more crimes in Fall River District Court, including resisting arrest, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, violating a stay-away order, and violating an abuse-prevention order. These four charges were combined, or wrapped-up for disposition purposes. Fink pleaded guilty to them all at once, and was sentenced to serve two and one-half years in prison in satisfaction of all the charges (the four wrapped-up convictions). All five convictions Äî the February 1999 conviction and the four wrapped-up convictions Äî appeared in Fink's PSR in a section on his general criminal history. As already noted, two of these convictions also made a second appearance in the PSR's section on Fink's career offender status, where they were specifically flagged, along with the 1990 Bristol County conviction, as crime-of-violence predicates. After pleading guilty in the present case, Fink moved to withdraw his state court guilty pleas in the four wrapped-up state convictions that raised the specter of career offender status for the present ß 846 violation, claiming that he had been the victim of a constitutionally-infirm plea colloquy. The state court judge who originally accepted Fink's guilty pleas in the four wrapped-up convictions in 1999 had since retired, so the motion was assigned to Fall River District Judge Gilbert J. Nadeau. Judge Nadeau granted Fink's motion in a December 7, 2005, order. Significantly, the order was captioned only with the four wrapped-up convictions' case numbers. Judge Nadeau's order observed that at the same time Fink had pleaded guilty to the four wrapped-up convictions, he had also admitted that they constituted a violation of his probation in the February 1999 case. Judge Nadeau stated that he granted Fink's motion to withdraw his guilty pleas in the four wrapped-up cases because none of their files contained the Tender of Plea or Admission Waiver of Rights form that was standard practice in the Fall River District Court. Finally, Judge Nadeau's order observed that Fink's February 1999 conviction file did contain the important plea colloquy form. Fink then pointed out to the district court in the instant prosecution that only one of the crime-of-violence convictions specifically flagged in the PSR as a qualifying career offender predicate-Fink's 1990 Bristol County conviction Äî remained on his record, and that his record, accordingly, lacked the two convictions that would be necessary to designate him a career offender. One day later, on December 8, 2005, the district court convened a sentencing hearing for Fink, and the government responded to the vacated wrapped-up convictions by noting that the February 1999 conviction listed in Fink's PSR's criminal history qualified as a crime of violence that the district court could weigh in its deliberations. Given the still-evolving developments in the parties' career offender arguments, the district court prudently decided to postpone Fink's sentencing hearing until later in the month. On December 15, 2005, the government filed a pleading titled Memorandum Regarding Scott Fink's Criminal History, arguing that the February 1999 conviction qualified as a crime of violence predicate under ß 4B1.1 of the Sentencing Guidelines. The government appended the case's Complaint, Criminal Docket Sheet, and Tender of Plea for the district court's consideration. The district court convened another sentencing hearing for Fink on December 19, 2005. At the hearing, Fink argued that the February 1999 docket sheet contained an entry dated December 8, 2005, reading D's motion to withdraw guilty plea Äî allowed [Nadeau]. Fink argued that the February 1999 conviction had, according to its own docket, been vacated and could not, as the government alleged, serve as a career offender predicate. The government responded that the docket entry had nothing to do with the continuing force of the February 1999 conviction. In the government's view, the docket entry reflected Judge Nadeau's observation that the vacatur of Fink's wrapped-up convictions could have implications for his February 1999 case insofar as those convictions constituted parole violations for the February 1999 conviction. The government pointed out that this docket entry came only one day after Judge Nadeau's order of vacation. The government also asserted that Fink never moved to have his guilty plea withdrawn in the February 1999 case and offered a copy of the state court criminal file to sustain its point. Fink did not deny that he had never moved to withdraw his guilty plea in the February 1999 case. Instead, he urged that the words motion to withdraw guilty plea Äî allowed appearing on the February 1999 case's docket be taken at face value without any reference to any of the other information submitted to the court by the government. The district court concluded that this approach was mandated by the Supreme Court in Shepard v. United States, 544 U.S. 13, 125 S.Ct. 1254, 161 L.Ed.2d 205 (2005). The district court refused to consider the offered copy of the state court criminal file and accepted Fink's argument that Shepard prohibited it from considering evidence outside of the docket entry's plain language to interpret its meaning. The government requested a continuance so that it could obtain direct clarification from the Massachusetts state court whether the February 1999 conviction remained in force, which the district court denied. Working only from the docket entry's plain language, the district court found the February 1999 conviction had been vacated, and refused to qualify it as a career offender predicate.