Court Opinion

ID: 9483776
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:31:10.290219+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:49:49.903784
License: Public Domain

JON 0. NEWMAN, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
One of the bizarre aspects of the current Sentencing Guidelines regime is that a defendant can receive the same sentence whether he is convicted or acquitted. That phenomenon occurs when a defendant is charged with multiple counts. The pending case of Nelson Frias illustrates the problem.
Frias was convicted of two firearms violations and acquitted of a drug conspiracy violation. His applicable guideline range based solely on the convicted conduct would have been 12 to 18 months. His actual guideline range, based in part on the drug conspiracy of which he was acquitted, was 210 to 262 months. This is the same range that would have been applicable had he been convicted of the drug conspiracy.
I requested a vote on whether to rehear Frias’s case in banc in order to afford this Circuit an opportunity to reexamine its case law on the permissible uses of acquitted conduct. Prior to the Guidelines, we had permitted a sentencing judge merely to “consider” evidence of misconduct notwithstanding an acquittal. See United States v. Sweig, 454 F.2d 181, 184 (2d Cir.1972). Soon after the Guidelines were adopted, we permitted a sentencing judge to rely on acquitted conduct to increase a guideline range by two levels. See United States v. Rodriguez-Gonzalez, 899 F.2d 177, 181-82 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 844, 111 S.Ct. 127, 112 L.Ed.2d 95 (1990). In Frias’s case, we permitted acquitted conduct to increase a guideline range by twenty-four levels. Acquitted conduct was relied on to increase his sentence from 18 months to 20 years. I regret that my colleagues do not consider this extraordinary outcome to be *396an appropriate occasion to reconsider our case law concerning the permissible uses of acquitted conduct at sentencing.
With the denial of rehearing in banc, only three avenues of redress remain. First, Frias’s case could be selected for further consideration on petition for writ of certiorari to resolve a split among the circuits. See United States v. Brady, 928 F.2d 844, 850-52 (9th Cir.1991) (court may not “reconsider facts during sentencing that have been rejected by a jury’s not guilty verdict”). Second, the Sentencing Commission could revise its approach to the permissible uses of acquitted conduct. The Commission has included in the current amendments circulated for public comment a proposal to prohibit sentencing judges from using acquitted conduct as relevant conduct to increase the base offense level but permitting such conduct to be used for an upward departure from the unadjusted offense level. See United States Sentencing Commission, Proposed Guideline Amendments for Public Comment (Amendment 1) Jan. 1993. Third, Congress could provide a legislative solution. In some way, the law must be modified. A just system of criminal sentencing cannot fail to distinguish between an allegation of conduct resulting in a conviction and an allegation of conduct resulting in an acquittal.
From the denial of rehearing in banc, I respectfully dissent.