Court Opinion

ID: 9487183
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:10:32.48486+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:08.493468
License: Public Domain

POSNER, Chief Judge,
concurring.
The district judge increased the sentence because Jackson had, in the judge’s view, abused a position of trust. No one warned Jackson that his sentence might be increased on that basis. The judge did it out of the blue. But it was an upward adjustment, rather than a departure, so Burns v. United States, 501 U.S. 129, 111 S.Ct. 2182, 115 L.Ed.2d 123 (1991), is not strictly applicable; and two circuits, in decisions that cannot in my view be distinguished from the present case, have held that no warning is required when a mere adjustment is involved; all grounds for adjustment are specified in the guidelines, so if the defendant or his lawyer reads the guidelines carefully he will be pre*1112pared to meet any and all grounds for adjustment. United States v. Canada, 960 F.2d 263, 266-67 (1st Cir.1992); United States v. Adipietro, 983 F.2d 1468, 1473-74 (8th Cir.1993); United States v. Willis, 997 F.2d 407, 416-17 (8th Cir.1993). Especially given the too-frequent inadequacy of criminal defense lawyers, these decisions may be unrealistic, as Part IIB of Judge Coffey’s opinion explains, and may, as he powerfully argues, be inconsistent with Fed.R.Crim.P. 32(a)(1), which entitles the defendant or his lawyer “to comment upon ... matters relating to the appropriate sentence.” But I see no compelling reason to resolve the issue (and by doing so create an intercircuit conflict), given the alternative ground for decision set forth in Part IIA of Judge Coffey’s opinion, which I join. Although the point is not argued by Jackson’s lawyer, it is virtually certain that the district judge erred in holding that Jackson had abused a position of trust. He was a “money marketing clerk” paid $15,000 a year. A job so denominated and so meagerly remunerated is most unlikely to have been more responsible than that of a teller, and the application note to the relevant guideline says that “embezzlement or theft by an ordinary bank teller” does not warrant an adjustment for abuse of trust. U.S.S.G. § 3B1.3 Application Note 1. In a criminal case we can notice a plain error even if it is not argued to us. See Silber v. United States, 370 U.S. 717, 82 S.Ct. 1287, 8 L.Ed.2d 798 (1962) (per curiam); 3A Charles Alan Wright, Federal Practice and Procedure— Criminal § 856, p. 338 (2d ed. 1982). As there conceivably is more to a “money marketing clerk” than meets the eye, the proper course is (as all three of us agree) to remand for a further sentencing hearing at which the government can if it wants present evidence establishing that Jackson’s job, rather than being equivalent to that of an ordinary bank teller, was (in the language of the application note) “characterized by professional or managerial discretion.”