Court Opinion

ID: 9491246
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:08:02.683185+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:54:36.590209
License: Public Domain

McKAY, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I must respectfully dissent. Today’s decision represents a lack of respect for the finality of judgments and is contrary to our reasoning and jurisprudence on that issue. I find no authority in the Constitution, laws, sentencing guidelines, or Rules of Criminal Procedure for the court to ignore our long and well-settled law of finality of judgments in order to facilitate a judicially-created fiction of “bundling.”
The judgment of the Court of Appeals in this case reads: “Mr. Hicks’s conviction for using or carrying a firearm in relation to a drug trafficking crime is REVERSED, his sentence for that offense is VACATED, and the case is REMANDED for a new trial on *1204that offense. The convictions and sentences are AFFIRMED in all other respects.” United States v. Miller, 84 F.3d 1244, 1263 (10th Cir.), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 117 S.Ct. 443, 136 L.Ed.2d 339 (1996), overruled by United States v. Holland, 116 F.3d 1353 (10th Cir.), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 118 S.Ct. 253, 139 L.Ed.2d 181 (1997). The mandate directed the trial court to take further proceedings in accordance with that judgment. See Judgment, United States v. Hicks, No. 95-3045 (10th Cir. May 20, 1996). There is nothing ambiguous about that judgment. Unless reviewed on certiorari by the Supreme Court or on a timely-filed motion for reconsideration, the above-quoted language was, and remains, a final judgment.
Contrary to the majority opinion, see ante, at 1201, I find a significant difference between the mandate in United States v. Smith, 82 F.3d 1564, 1568 (10th Cir.1996), and the mandate in this case. In Smith, the mandate set aside the firearm conviction and sentence but did not mention the remaining drug conviction. See id. With our statement in this case that Defendant’s “convictions and sentences are AFFIRMED in all other respects,” we clearly and unmistakably affirmed the final judgment on all the counts except the firearm count. Miller, 84 F.3d at 1263. We emphasized that fact by stating that both the convictions and sentences were affirmed “in all other respects.” Id. We did not say “in most other respects” or “unless the government or the trial court wants to change those judgments.” Nor were we silent about the scope of remand, as the majority opinion maintains. See ante, at 1201-02. The instruction regarding the other convictions and sentences was direct and specific. “AFFIRMED in all other respects” meant that those convictions and sentences were final and should stand as rendered by the district court before we reviewed them. Miller, 84 F.3d at 1263. The distinct treatment of, and language relating to, the firearm count versus the other counts further reinforces the finality of the judgment. Our final determination upon appeal was that we concurred in the correctness of those convictions and sentences. This is not a ease “where the appellate court has not specifically limited the scope of the remand,” allowing the district court “discretion to expand the resen-tencing beyond the sentencing error causing the reversal.” United States v. Moore, 83 F.3d 1231, 1234 (10th Cir.1996).
The majority holds that
after we vacate a count of conviction that is part of a multi-count indictment, a district court “possesses the inherent discretionary power” to resentence a defendant on the remaining counts de novo unless we impose specific limits on the court’s authority to resentence. Moore, 83 F.3d at 1235. Simple commands such as “vacate,” “set aside,” and “affirm” are not sufficiently specific to limit that power.
Ante, at 1202. The majority is saying that we did not enter a final judgment as to the convictions and sentences that we “AFFIRMED in all other respects,” Miller, 84 F.3d at 1263, on direct appeal and to which we denied a petition for rehearing. See id. at 1244. To highlight the flaws in this holding, consider this scenario. On remand, immediately after the 18 U.S.C. § 924 conviction and sentence were reversed and vacated, the trial judge dies. The case is reassigned to a judge well known for exercising her discretion at the bottom of the range in similar cases. Does the court really mean to suggest that the defendant can ask the trial judge to find the enhancement inappropriate, exercise her discretion and reduce the sentences to the bottom of the range, or reconsider whether the government has sustained its burden on all the sentencing factors? Such is the inevitable force of the majority’s decision, unless the court is saying, without any authority to suggest that judgments are less binding on the government than on defendants, that our judgment was final as to the defendant, but not as to the government.
There is sound reason for the body of law concerning the finality of judgments. As the Supreme Court explained, “‘Inroads on the concept of finality tend to undermine confidence in the integrity of our procedures’ and inevitably delay and impair the orderly administration of justice.” Custis v. United States, 511 U.S. 485, 497, 114 S.Ct. 1732, 128 L.Ed.2d 517 (1994) (quoting United States v. Addonizio, 442 U.S. 178, 184 n. 11, 99 S.Ct. 2235, 60 L.Ed.2d 805 (1979)). There is no compelling reason to undermine the concept *1205of finality as the majority’s decision does in favor of the fiction called “bundling” and in order to stack on some additional prison time for a man who will be incarcerated for the better part of 15 years.
I would reverse and remand with directions to vacate this new and enhanced sentence, and reinstate the sentence previously entered and made final on appeal by this court’s judgment.