Court Opinion

ID: 9490716
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:52:29.169227+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:54:16.559639
License: Public Domain

HILL, Senior Circuit Judge,
concurring separately, in which BARKETT, Circuit Judge, joins:
The opinion prepared for the court by Judge Dubina is a fine one. Yet, it seems to me that it has more in it than does the case.1
Two equally correct propositions seem to be in contest.
First, I continue to believe that if a defendant admits his guilt and all acts, omissions or other doings charged against him by the government, he may not be denied whatever benefit results from acceptance of responsibility merely because, at sentencing, his lawyer argues that the government’s lawyer is mistaken as to the application of the guidelines to these admissions.
Second, and on the other hand, a defendant may enter a guilty plea and admit all the alleged facts, yet argue at sentencing that, indeed, he is not guilty of the charged offense. In this case, the sentencing judge may deny a benefit which would have followed acceptance of responsibility.
Insofar as the law is concerned, I believe that we are all in agreement.
The panel thought this case to be governed by the first proposition, above. As I read it, I believe the full court holds that this case invokes the second proposition.
So be it. It is a question to be ascertained by reading the record. Being confident that the full court can read better than one of its panels, I concur.

. Or, as better said by Chief Justice Logan E. ' Bleckley of the Supreme Court of Georgia in Lukens v. Ford, 87 Ga 541, 13 S.E. 949 (1891): "In the ornithology of litigation this case is a tomtit furnished with a garb of feathers ample enough for a turkey."