Court Opinion

ID: 9556552
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-17 18:00:23.680581+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:09:48.300940
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-20388      Document: 00516861534         Page: 1    Date Filed: 08/17/2023

            United States Court of Appeals
                 for the Fifth Circuit                                  United States Court of Appeals
                                                                                 Fifth Circuit
                                  ____________                                 FILED
                                                                         August 17, 2023
                                   No. 22-20388
                                  ____________                            Lyle W. Cayce
                                                                               Clerk
   United States of America,

                                                             Plaintiff—Appellee,

                                         versus

   Robert Allen Stanford,

                                            Defendant—Appellant.
                   ______________________________

                   Appeal from the United States District Court
                       for the Southern District of Texas
                            USDC No. 4:09-CR-342-1
                   ______________________________

   Before King, Smith, and Elrod, Circuit Judges.
   Jennifer Walker Elrod, Circuit Judge:
          We require the denial of a motion for compassionate release to be sup-
   ported by “specific factual reasons.” United States v. Chambliss, 948 F.3d
   691, 693 (5th Cir. 2020). Those reasons may be articulated in the denial order
   itself or incorporated by reference to something else in the record. The
   touchstone is the facilitation of meaningful review. Cf. Concepcion v. United
   States, 142 S. Ct. 2389, 2404 (2022). We order a limited remand for the dis-
   trict court to explain its reasons.
Case: 22-20388         Document: 00516861534              Page: 2       Date Filed: 08/17/2023

                                          No. 22-20388

                                                I
           The 2008 financial crisis prompted investors in Stanford International
   Bank to seek redemption of their certificates of deposit at greater rates than
   new buyers were purchasing them. When the bank was unable to pay its ob-
   ligations, federal authorities launched an investigation that culminated in the
   “collapse and exposure” of Defendant Robert Allen Stanford’s multi-billion
   dollar “fraudulent financial empire.” United States v. Stanford, 805 F.3d 557,
   564 (5th Cir. 2015).
           Stanford was eventually convicted of thirteen financial crimes. At
   sentencing, Stanford’s attorney asked the court to impose a 120-month
   prison term, a significant downward variance from the Sentencing Guide-
   lines’ recommended sentence of life in prison. Counsel asserted that this
   downward variance would satisfy the sentencing goals enumerated in 18
   U.S.C. § 3553(a), a list of “purposes” Congress requires courts to consider
   when determining what sentence to impose.1
           The district court disagreed with counsel’s assessment of the
   § 3553(a) factors. It observed that Stanford had “perpetrat[ed] one of the
   most egregious criminal frauds ever presented to a trial jury in a federal
   court.” It found that the “testimony graphically depicted that [Stanford’s]
   actions ruined [the] lives of thousands of victims all over the world who en-
   trusted him with their life savings.” The court further stated that it received
   “about 350 letters” from victims of Stanford’s scheme, and that it had read

           _____________________
           1
             These factors are: (1) the nature and circumstances of the offense and the history
   and characteristics of the defendant; (2) the need for the sentence imposed; (3) the kinds
   of sentences available; (4) the kinds of sentence and sentencing range established for the
   applicable category of offense or defendant; (5) any pertinent policy statement; (6) the need
   to avoid unwarranted sentence disparities among defendants with similar records; and (7)
   the need to provide restitution to any victims of the offense. 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a).

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Case: 22-20388       Document: 00516861534          Page: 3    Date Filed: 08/17/2023

                                     No. 22-20388

   each letter and considered each victim’s “anger and grief.” Noting that it
   had considered the sentencing goals of § 3553(a), the court then implicitly
   denied Stanford’s request for a downward variance by imposing the equiva-
   lent of a life sentence.
          After an unsuccessful collateral attack on his convictions under
   28 U.S.C. § 2255, Stanford filed a series of pro se motions for compassionate
   release. This appeal arises from Stanford’s third such motion. Stanford asks
   to be released based on the dangers posed by the pandemic, his close confine-
   ment with other prisoners, his age, and his preexisting heart condition. He
   also states that his wire fraud conviction was wrongful because it was predi-
   cated on a purely intrastate wire transmission, and that a wrongful conviction
   is an extraordinary and compelling reason justifying relief. Similarly, he con-
   tends that the district court could have considered whether the Government
   violated his right to counsel at trial by freezing assets that he could have used
   to hire the attorney of his choice.
          The motion was denied in a brief order shortly after being filed. The
   entirety of the order denying relief stated:
          Pending before the Court is the Motion for Compassionate Re-
          lease (Document # 1577). Having considered the motion and
          the applicable law, the Court determines that the foregoing mo-
          tion should be denied. Accordingly, the Court hereby OR-
          DERS that the Motion for Compassionate Release (Document
          # 1577) is DENIED.

   According to Stanford, it was error for the court to deny his motion before
   receiving the Government’s response and without addressing his arguments
   or indicating the standard that it applied. Stanford therefore asks that we
   remand the case with instructions for the district court to explain its decision.

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Case: 22-20388      Document: 00516861534           Page: 4   Date Filed: 08/17/2023

                                     No. 22-20388

                                          II
          When a district court denies a motion for compassionate release, it
   must give ‘“specific factual reasons’ for its decision.” United States v. Hand-
   lon, 53 F.4th 348, 351 (5th Cir. 2022) (quoting Chambliss, 948 F.3d at 693).
   The order here only announces that the appropriate analysis has been done.
          Nor can we infer the district court’s reasons from something else in
   the record. Cf. United States v. Montoya-Ortiz, No. 21-50326, 2022 WL
   2526449, at *3 (5th Cir. July 7, 2022) (affirming the district court’s “per-
   functory one-page order” that denied a motion for compassionate release be-
   cause “the district court’s engagement with the substance of this motion is
   attested by its fifteen-page order addressing Montoya-Ortiz’s prior mo-
   tion”). The Government is correct that the record offers strong indicia of a
   potential rationale for denying Stanford’s compassionate release motion
   based on the § 3553(a) factors. That is because the same district judge has
   ably presided over every chapter of the Stanford saga, and has previously
   found that Stanford “perpetrat[ed] one of the most egregious criminal frauds
   ever presented to a trial jury in federal court.”
          But the district court’s order does not tell us that the court based its
   decision on the § 3553(a) factors. It states only that the court “considered
   [Stanford’s] motion and the applicable law” and determined that the motion
   should be denied. We therefore have no reliable indication of the reason for
   the court’s decision to deny relief. We do not know whether the court denied
   Stanford’s motion because it concluded—despite new arguments and alleg-
   edly new facts—that the § 3553(a) factors still do not warrant early release,
   or because it concluded that Stanford’s situation is insufficiently “extraordi-
   nary and compelling,” or both. See Handlon, 53 F.4th at 353 (remanding be-
   cause it was not clear whether the district court based its decision on a legal
   error or on its evaluation of the § 3553(a) factors); United States v. Sauseda,

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Case: 22-20388      Document: 00516861534          Page: 5   Date Filed: 08/17/2023

                                    No. 22-20388

   No. 21-50210, 2022 WL 989371, at *2 (5th Cir. Apr. 1, 2022) (remanding
   because the district court’s order did not indicate whether the defendant
   “failed to meet one, the other, or both requirements for compassionate re-
   lease”).
                                         III
          To quote a previous decision by this court, Stanford’s “third compas-
   sionate-release motion may have little chance of success. But judges have an
   obligation to say enough that the public can be confident that cases are de-
   cided in a reasoned way.” Handlon, 53 F.4th at 353. Because the district
   court’s order does not tell us what we need to know to exercise our review
   function, we order a limited remand “for the district court to explain its rea-
   sons for denial.” United States v. McMaryion, No. 21-50450, 2023 WL
   4118015, at *2 (5th Cir. June 22, 2023) (internal quotation marks and citation
   omitted). See also Handlon, 53 F.4th at 353 (remanding for the district court
   to explain its reasons); United States v. Suttle, No. 21-50576, 2022 WL
   1421164, at *1 (5th Cir. May 5, 2022) (same); Sauseda, 2022 WL 989371, at
   *3 (same). We do not mean to intimate what explanation the conscientious
   district court should provide.
          LIMITED REMAND.

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