Court Opinion

ID: 9398261
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-05-30 18:01:01.354513+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:19:31.961469
License: Public Domain

In the

    United States Court of Appeals
                For the Seventh Circuit
                    ____________________
No. 22-1835
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
                                                  Plaintiff-Appellee,
                                 v.

ANGELA BALDWIN, also known as ANGELA TAYLOR,
                                    Defendant-Appellant.
                    ____________________

        Appeal from the United States District Court for the
        Southern District of Indiana, Indianapolis Division.
        No. 1:20-cr-00270 — Tanya Walton Pratt, Chief Judge.
                    ____________________

      ARGUED APRIL 12, 2023 — DECIDED MAY 30, 2023
                ____________________

   Before SCUDDER, KIRSCH, and LEE, Circuit Judges.
    KIRSCH, Circuit Judge. Angela Baldwin and her then-hus-
band, Russell Taylor, sexually exploited four girls, including
her two daughters and her niece. They conspired to produce
and distributed explicit videos—some secretly recorded—of
the girls. She sexually assaulted three of them. A jury con-
victed her of those crimes. She contends that her prosecution
was vindictive and that her sentence is excessive. Neither con-
tention has merit, so we aﬃrm.
2                                                   No. 22-1835

                                I
    Russell Taylor and Angela Baldwin, then husband and
wife, came to the government’s attention thanks to an investi-
gation into Jared Fogle’s sexual exploitation of young girls.
Even though both were subjects of the government’s investi-
gation, at first only Taylor was charged with crimes stemming
from the couple’s sexual exploitation of minors. Taylor coop-
erated with the government in prosecuting Fogle, pleaded
guilty to sexually exploiting minors and to producing videos
of their exploitation, and received 324 months’ imprisonment
in 2015.
    In 2020, the district court vacated Taylor’s conviction after
finding his counsel ineﬀective. That vacatur forced the gov-
ernment to decide whether to retry Taylor. It elected to do so;
Taylor pleaded guilty to a slightly smaller set of oﬀenses and
received the same sentence. (We recently vacated that convic-
tion for reasons immaterial to this case, see United States v.
Taylor, 63 F.4th 637 (2023)).
    When the government reevaluated its case against Taylor,
new prosecutors took a fresh look at the entire file and elected
to bring similar charges against Baldwin for her involvement
in the girls’ exploitation. Baldwin exercised her right to a jury
trial and was convicted of sexual exploitation of a minor, con-
spiring to produce child pornography, and possession of
child pornography. See 18 U.S.C. §§ 2251(a), 2252(a)(4)(B).
The district court sentenced her to 400 months’ imprisonment,
well below the advisory Guidelines’ range of 1,320 months.
She now appeals.
No. 22-1835                                                      3

                                II
    Baldwin first argues that the district court should have
granted her motion to dismiss because the government’s de-
cision to prosecute her was vindictive. We review the district
court’s denial of a motion to dismiss for prosecutorial vindic-
tiveness de novo and the district court’s underlying factual
findings for clear error. United States v. Jarrett, 447 F.3d 520,
524 (7th Cir. 2006).
    Prosecutors enjoy wide discretion over whether, when,
and who to charge. United States v. Ribota, 792 F.3d 837, 840
(7th Cir. 2015); see Fed. R. Crim. P. 48. But prosecutions can
be vindictive if “pursued in retaliation for the exercise of a
protected statutory or constitutional right.” United States v.
Monsoor, 77 F.3d 1031, 1034 (7th Cir. 1996). To show vindic-
tiveness, Baldwin “must aﬃrmatively show through objective
evidence that the prosecutorial conduct at issue was moti-
vated by some form of prosecutorial animus, such as a per-
sonal stake in the outcome of the case or an attempt to seek
self-vindication.” Ribota, 792 F.3d at 840. We have recognized
a rebuttable presumption of vindictiveness applies in a small
set of cases when the defendant exercises post-trial rights and
confronts more serious penalties for the same conduct at his
retrial. See id.; see also Williams v. Bartow, 481 F.3d 492, 502–04
(7th Cir. 2007) (citing Blackledge v. Perry, 427 U.S. 1 (1974), and
Thigpen v. Roberts, 468 U.S. 27 (1986)). When that happens, the
burden shifts to the government to prove a proper motive. Ri-
bota, 792 F.3d at 840. But in most cases, including this one, no
such presumption applies, and the defendant’s burden re-
mains to show by clear evidence that his prosecution was vin-
dictive. Jarrett, 447 F.3d at 525.
4                                                  No. 22-1835

    Baldwin says that she was prosecuted in retaliation for
Taylor’s success in vacating his first conviction. Her argument
lacks evidentiary or logical support. On the evidentiary front,
Baldwin oﬀers only speculation about the timing of her in-
dictment—five years after Taylor was first indicted—and ar-
gues that timing shows impermissible prosecutorial animus.
The record tells a very diﬀerent story. When compelled to
reevaluate its case, new prosecutors determined that the evi-
dence—including testimony from her now-adult victims—
made charges against Baldwin appropriate. See Ribota, 792
F.3d at 842 (noting that a change in prosecutors diminishes
the “personal stake” at the core of a vindictive prosecution
claim). Moreover, Taylor’s success in vacating his original
conviction stemmed from his counsel’s incompetence, not
missteps by the government, further diminishing any per-
sonal stake. In light of these facts and Taylor’s successful
reprosecution, it is clear that the government was neither re-
sponsible for nor hampered by Taylor’s postconviction suc-
cess. It is thus hardly surprising that Baldwin oﬀers nothing
but timing as evidence of the government’s improper motive.
But “the timing of a federal prosecution, alone, cannot change
a legitimate exercise of prosecutorial discretion into a vindic-
tive prosecution.” Jarrett, 447 F.3d at 528. Just the opposite:
“Waiting to build a stronger case before pursuing an indict-
ment is evidence of responsible, rather than vindictive, gov-
ernment behavior.” Id. at 530. Baldwin falls far short of carry-
ing her burden to show that her prosecution was vindictive.
   Putting aside Baldwin’s evidentiary shortcomings, her
vindictive prosecution claim makes little sense on its own
terms. Baldwin’s comparisons to cases when the government
adds charges after a defendant succeeds on appeal miss the
mark. It was Taylor, not Baldwin, who exercised his rights.
No. 22-1835                                                     5

Cf. United States v. Bullis, 77 F.3d 1553, 1558 (7th Cir. 1996)
(“A prosecution is vindictive and a violation of due process if
undertaken to punish a person because he has done what the
law plainly allowed him to do.”) (cleaned up). Indeed, until
the government charged her, Baldwin exercised no rights at
all, so she is entitled to no presumption of vindictiveness. See
Ribota, 792 F.3d at 841 (“[T]he spectre of vindictiveness is lack-
ing where the challenged charge is independent of the one
that formed the basis of the exercise of the legal right.”). More
to the point, Taylor stood to gain from Baldwin’s prosecution:
Taylor might have received additional sentencing considera-
tion in exchange for his cooperation against Baldwin. See
U.S.S.G. § 5K1.1. Baldwin’s contention that she was prose-
cuted to punish Taylor holds no water.
   Because nothing in the record suggests that the govern-
ment’s decision was guided by anything improper, Baldwin’s
vindictive prosecution claim fails.
                               III
    Baldwin next attacks her sentence as procedurally infirm
and substantively unreasonable. We review procedural chal-
lenges de novo but review the court’s factual findings only for
clear error. United States v. Chagoya-Morales, 859 F.3d 411, 423
(7th Cir. 2017). When considering a sentence’s substantive
reasonableness, we review for an abuse of discretion. United
States v. Baker, 56 F.4th 1128, 1133 (7th Cir. 2023).
    The gist of Baldwin’s procedural argument is that Tay-
lor—whose conduct she argues was more reprehensible and
sustained than her own—received a lighter sentence, thus vi-
olating the general rule against unwarranted sentencing dis-
parities. See 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(6). The district court
6                                                      No. 22-1835

sentenced both Taylor and Baldwin on the same day, and
Baldwin does not argue that the district court was unaware of
or overlooked Taylor’s conduct and sentence when sentenc-
ing Baldwin. Instead, Baldwin points to the fact that, on a per-
count basis, her sentence is roughly an order of magnitude
higher than Taylor’s. That is, Taylor pleaded guilty to 30
counts and was sentenced to 324 months, or 10.8 months per
count; Baldwin was convicted on 4 counts and sentenced to
400 months, or 100 months per count.
    We have repeatedly and unambiguously rejected the idea
that sentences must be evaluated on a per-count basis.
See, e.g., United States v. Jett, 982 F.3d 1072, 1080 (7th Cir. 2020)
(“The Supreme Court has bluntly rejected the argument that
a sentencing judge must consider each count in isolation
when fashioning a sentence.”). Nothing in the federal code or
the rich body of case law that governs sentencing gives any
hint that comparative months-per-count has any relevance to
a district court’s sentencing determination. See Dean v. United
States, 581 U.S. 62, 67 (2017) (explaining that sentences may be
considered in the aggregate); see also U.S.S.G. § 3D1.1 et seq.
(setting forth rules governing how multiple counts of convic-
tion aﬀect a defendant’s total oﬀense level). We therefore de-
cline Baldwin’s invitation to consider her sentence on a per-
count basis.
    Baldwin contends that her sentence is procedurally defi-
cient because Taylor received a lighter sentence for more seri-
ous conduct, but we reject that framing. The Guidelines aim
to treat like oﬀenders alike and are themselves an anti-dispar-
ity tool. As a result, a below-Guidelines sentence like Bald-
win’s cannot stem from an unwarranted disparity. United
States v. Oregon, 58 F.4th 298, 304 (7th Cir. 2023). That Taylor
No. 22-1835                                                   7

also received a below-Guidelines sentence is irrelevant to the
procedural soundness of Baldwin’s sentence. Comparing be-
low-Guidelines sentences involves only a weighing of the
§ 3553(a) factors, something firmly committed to the district
court’s discretion.
    Properly reframed as a substantive challenge, Baldwin
faces an uphill battle to show that her below-Guidelines sen-
tence is unreasonable. She again points to the diﬀerence be-
tween her sentence and Taylor’s. We note that while both sen-
tences fell well below each defendant’s Guidelines range, sen-
tences of 400 and 324 months are significant. At any rate, the
diﬀerence can be—and indeed was—explained by Taylor’s
cooperation and contrition. A “diﬀerence justified by the fact
that some wrongdoers have accepted responsibility and as-
sisted the prosecution, while others have not, is not ‘unwar-
ranted.’” United States v. Bartlett, 567 F.3d 901, 908 (7th Cir.
2009). Baldwin’s other contentions amount to a request that
we reweigh the § 3553(a) factors, something we do not do. Or-
egon, 58 F.4th at 303. Finally, Baldwin contends that the dis-
trict court’s implication that she was a bad mother is evidence
of untoward prejudice. But the district court can consider the
facts before it, and the record speaks for itself.
                                                     AFFIRMED