Court Opinion

ID: 9894314
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-11-01 15:00:34.550417+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:09:37.632329
License: Public Domain

22-800-cr
United States v. Green

                            UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                                FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
                                      SUMMARY ORDER
RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A
SUMMARY ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY
FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT’S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN
CITING A SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE
EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION
“SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY CITING A SUMMARY ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON
ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL.

        At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, held at the
Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the City of New York, on the
1st day of November, two thousand twenty-three.
Present:
                 PIERRE N. LEVAL,
                 BARRINGTON D. PARKER,
                 WILLIAM J. NARDINI,
                        Circuit Judges.

_____________________________________
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
                         Appellee,
                 v.                                                22-800-cr
KASMIR   GREEN,               AKA       SEALED
DEFENDANT,
                         Defendant-Appellant.
_____________________________________

 For Appellee:                              MATTHEW R. SHAHABIAN (David Abramowicz, on
                                            the brief), Assistant United States Attorneys, for
                                            Damian Williams, United States Attorney for the
                                            Southern District of New York, New York, NY

 For Defendant-Appellant:                   SARAH KUNSTLER, Law Office of Sarah Kunstler,
                                            Brooklyn, NY

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       Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of

New York (Lewis A. Kaplan, District Judge).

       UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND

DECREED that the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.

       Defendant-Appellant Kasmir Green appeals from a judgment of the United States District

Court for the Southern District of New York (Lewis A. Kaplan, District Judge), entered on April

6, 2022, sentencing Green to 100 months of imprisonment, to be followed by three years of

supervised release. Green pled guilty to being a felon in possession of ammunition, in violation

of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1) and 924(a)(2). The Sentencing Guidelines provision applicable to

Green’s offense is § 2K2.1, which contains a cross-reference setting forth a higher base offense

level for the use or possession of a firearm in the attempted commission of another offense. See

U.S.S.G. § 2K2.1(c). In calculating the Guidelines range, the district court determined that

Green’s conduct—which involved him firing numerous shots at a victim from the window of a

speeding car—constituted attempted first-degree murder, and therefore cross-referenced the base

offense level for attempted first-degree murder under U.S.S.G. §§ 2A2.1 and 2X1.1. This resulted

in a base offense level of 33, which was reduced by 3 levels for Green’s acceptance of

responsibility. Coupled with Green’s criminal history category of I, this led to a Guidelines range

of 97-120 months of imprisonment. We assume the parties’ familiarity with the case.

       On appeal, Green argues that his sentence was both procedurally and substantively

unreasonable. “We review a sentence for procedural and substantive reasonableness under a

deferential abuse-of-discretion standard.” United States v. Thavaraja, 740 F.3d 253, 258 (2d Cir.

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2014). 1 “The abuse-of-discretion standard incorporates de novo review of questions of law

(including interpretations of the Guidelines) and clear-error review of questions of fact.” United

States v. Vargas, 961 F.3d 566, 570 (2d Cir. 2020). “A finding of fact is clearly erroneous only if

the appellate court is left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed.”

United States v. Rizzo, 349 F.3d 94, 98 (2d Cir. 2003).

         Beginning with procedural reasonableness, Green argues that the evidence did not support

a finding that he attempted to commit first-degree murder, and in any event that the district court

failed to make adequate findings to support such a conclusion. In the Guidelines, attempted first-

degree murder is defined by reference to the federal murder statute, see U.S.S.G. § 2A2.1

Application Note 1, which requires “a specific intent to kill,” United States v. Kwong, 14 F.3d 189,

194 (2d Cir. 1994). Therefore, to apply the cross-referenced base offense level for attempted

murder under § 2K2.1(c), the district court was required to make “specific factual findings”

regarding Green’s specific intent to kill. United States v. Ahders, 622 F.3d 115, 119 (2d Cir. 2010).

         We hold that the district court made adequate findings regarding Green’s specific intent to

kill, and that its findings were not clearly erroneous. The district court stated that the ammunition

“was possessed in connection with an attempted murder,” and that there was “no other reasonable

explanation for the shooting.” App’x at 83, 84. The district court observed that Green’s claim that

he fired only “warning shots” made “no sense at all,” and that Green fired six shots “at a level

that’s roughly equivalent to the torso of a human being standing on the sidewalk rather than up in

the air.” Id. at 84. These observations immediately followed the district court’s finding that Green

had “attempted murder” and explain the district court’s rationale for rejecting the defense argument

         1
           Unless otherwise indicated, case quotations omit all internal quotation marks, footnotes, and citations and
adopt all alterations.

                                                          3
that Green was not trying to kill his victim. In other words, the district court was articulating why

it believed that Green had, indeed, intended to kill the target. The circumstantial evidence firmly

supports that conclusion. Video recording showed Green driving around the block to apparently

scout the area immediately before the shooting and firing six shots in the direction of the intended

victim, and bullet holes found in a nearby minivan were at a height where the bullets could have

hit the victim. See Kwong, 14 F.3d at 194 (stating that a court is permitted to use circumstantial

evidence to infer a specific intent to kill). Because the district court did not clearly err in finding

that Green intended to kill the victim, it likewise did not commit any procedural error when

calculating Green’s Guidelines range.

       As to substantive reasonableness, Green argues that his 100-month sentence is drastically

higher than the average sentence imposed under § 2K2.1 for all defendants convicted of firearm

offenses, which was 47 months in 2021. That is true, but irrelevant. Unlike most defendants

convicted of a firearms offense, Green’s offense conduct involved attempted first-degree murder.

In 2021, the average sentence imposed under § 2A2.1—the Guideline for attempted first-degree

murder—was 155 months, making Green’s 100-month sentence under that section substantially

below the average for comparable offense conduct. In no way, therefore, can Green’s sentence be

fairly described as so “shockingly high” that “allowing [it] to stand would damage the

administration of justice.” United States v. Broxmeyer, 699 F.3d 265, 289 (2d Cir. 2012).

       Lastly, Green argues that his conviction for being a felon in possession of ammunition

under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) is unconstitutional under the Second Amendment in light of the

Supreme Court’s decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, 142 S. Ct.

2111 (2022). But Green did not seek to raise this argument until after the government had filed its

responsive brief. It was only then—when his reply brief was already due—that he belatedly sought

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to assert the claim in what he styled a “supplemental brief.” The Court denied him permission to

do so, and he raised the claim in his reply brief. This Court has long held that “arguments not

made in an appellant’s opening brief are waived even if the appellant raised them in a reply brief,”

and we see no reason to depart from that position here. Estle v. Int’l Bus. Machs. Corp., 23 F.4th

210, 215 n.3 (2d Cir. 2022) (cleaned up). As this Court previously noted, Bruen was decided on

June 23, 2022, and Green did not file his opening brief until October 19, 2022, leaving sufficient

time to address the application of Bruen in his opening brief. See Motion Order, Dkt. No. 22-800,

ECF No. 60. By failing to raise the constitutional argument in a timely fashion, Green has waived

it, and we therefore do not consider it here.

                                          *      *       *

       For the reasons stated above, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.

                                                             FOR THE COURT:

                                                             Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, Clerk

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