Court Opinion

ID: 9626597
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 08:18:54.623288+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:06:35.956568
License: Public Domain

*776BRIGHT, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
Bound by Supreme Court and Circuit precedent, I reluctantly concur with my colleagues in affirming Canania’s and Robinson’s convictions and sentences. I write separately to express my strongly held view that the consideration of “acquitted conduct” to enhance a defendant’s sentence is unconstitutional.
In this ease, the jury acquitted both Canania and Robinson of possessing a firearm in furtherance of a drug-trafficking conviction. Nevertheless, at sentencing, the district court judge enhanced both of their sentences pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 2Dl.l(b)(l) for “possessing” a firearm in connection with a drug offense because it was not “clearly improbable that the weapon was connected [to their] offense[s].” United States v. Gillispie, 487 F.3d 1158, 1162 (8th Cir.2007) (citing U.S.S.G. § 2Dl.l(b)(l), cmt. n. 3). And so, under the guise of “judicial discretion,” we have a sentencing regime that allows the Government to try its case not once but twice. The first time before a jury; the second before a judge.
Before the jury, the Government must prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. But if it loses on some counts, that matters little. Free of the Federal Rules of Evidence, most constitutionally-imposed procedures, and the burden of proving any critical facts beyond a reasonable doubt, the Government gets the proverbial “second bite at the apple” during sentencing to essentially retry those counts on which it lost. With this second chance at success, the Government almost always wins by needing only to prove its (lost) case to a judge by a preponderance of the evidence. See McMillan v. Pennsylvania, 477 U.S. 79, 91-92, 106 S.Ct. 2411, 91 L.Ed.2d 67 (1986) (due process generally satisfied when Government proves a sentencing enhancement by a preponderance of the evidence). Permitting a judge to impose a sentence that reflects conduct the jury expressly disavowed through a finding of ‘not guilty’ amounts to more than mere second-guessing of the jury — it entirely trivializes its principal fact-finding function. But no less significant, this judicial fact-finding deprives a defendant of adequate notice as to his or her possible sentence. This state of affairs is unfair, unjust and I believe plain unconstitutional. Though the Government might have “won” everyone and everything else — the defendant, the jury system, the Constitution — loses.
In the last decade, the Supreme Court re-affirmed the jury’s central role in the criminal justice system. See, e.g., Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000); Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584, 122 S.Ct. 2428, 153 L.Ed.2d 556 (2002); Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. 296, 124 S.Ct. 2531, 159 L.Ed.2d 403 (2004); United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 125 S.Ct. 738, 160 L.Ed.2d 621 (2005). Rather than pretending as if these cases were never decided, we federal judges should acknowledge their clear implication: A judge violates a defendant’s Sixth Amendment rights by making findings of fact that either ignore or countermand those made by the jury and then relies on these factual findings to enhance the defendant’s sentence. Cf. United States v. Mercado, 474 F.3d 654, 658 (9th Cir.2007) (Fletcher, B., J., dissenting) (“Reliance on acquitted conduct in sentencing diminishes the jury’s role and dramatically undermines the protections enshrined in the Sixth Amendment.”); United States v. Faust, 456 F.3d 1342, 1349 (11th Cir.2006) (Barkett, J., specially concurring) (“I strongly believe ... that sentence enhancements based on acquitted conduct are unconstitutional under the Sixth Amendment, as well as the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.”); *777United States v. Ibanga, 454 F.Supp.2d 532, 536 (E.D.Va.2006) (Kelley, J.) (“Sentencing a defendant to time in prison for a crime that the jury found he did not commit is a Kafkaesque result.”) (footnote omitted), vacated by, 271 Fed.Appx. 298 (4th Cir.2008); United States v. Pimental, 367 F.Supp.2d 143, 153 (D.Mass.2005) (Gertner, J.) (“To tout the importance of the jury in deciding facts, even traditional sentencing facts, and then to ignore the fruits of its efforts makes no sense — as a matter of law or logic.”).
I also believe that the use of “acquitted conduct” to enhance a sentence violates the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. As I noted above, the consideration of “acquitted conduct” undermines the notice requirement that is at the heart of any criminal proceeding. A defendant should have fair notice to know the precise effect a jury’s verdict will have on his punishment. It cannot possibly satisfy due process to permit the nullification of a jury’s not guilty verdict, with respect to any given charge, by allowing a judge to thereafter use the same conduct underlying that charge to enhance a defendant’s sentence. It is not unreasonable for a defendant to expect that conduct underlying a charge of which he’s been acquitted to play no determinative role in his sentencing. Otherwise, a defendant can never reasonably know what his possible punishment will be. In determining guilt or innocence, the jury thus serves not only as a fact-finder but as a means of providing a defendant with notice as to his possible punishment. And a judge’s subsequent use of “acquitted conduct” all but eviscerates this latter notice function.
In short, the unfairness perpetuated by the use of “acquitted conduct” at sentencing in federal district courts is uniquely malevolent. The rationale offered is that judges who consider “acquitted conduct” at sentencing are doing so merely as part of exercising their constitutionally-sanctioned sentencing discretion. But that explanation merely obfuscates the reality in which federal district court judges are often acting as automatons — mechanically enhancing sentences with “acquitted conduct” pursuant to the now “advisory” Sentencing Guidelines.
And so, in effect, the Guidelines, with respect to “acquitted conduct,” remain very much mandatory. Neither the Fifth nor Sixth Amendments should tolerate such a practice. But it is not this mechanical adherence to the Guidelines which makes unconstitutional the use of “acquitted conduct” to enhance a defendant’s sentence. That practice is best understood as an artifact of nearly twenty years of mandatory sentencing guidelines. In my view, the Constitution forbids judges — Guidelines or no Guidelines — from using “acquitted conduct” to enhance a defendant’s sentence because it violates his or her due process right to notice and usurps the jury’s Sixth Amendment fact-finding role.
Because I believe the inclusion of “acquitted conduct” to fashion a sentence is unconstitutional, I urge the Supreme Court to re-examine its continued use forthwith. Absent its intervention, I fear the courts of appeals will again refuse to recognize the full import of Apprendi and its progeny. Cf. Gall v. United States, — U.S. -, 128 S.Ct. 586, 169 L.Ed.2d 445 (2007) (reversing the court of appeals for failing to follow Booker’s command to give significant deference to the sentencing decisions of district court judges).3 And as a *778consequence, defendants will continue to receive unfair punishments for years to come.
The federal courts are just emerging from their experience with mandatory Guidelines — a failed experiment — that for nearly twenty years resulted in an untold number of defendants receiving excessive and unfair sentences, that we now know were unconstitutional. By continuing to permit federal judges to consider “acquitted conduct” at sentencing, we needlessly repeat our mistake of wrongly depriving individuals of their freedom. I wonder what the man on the street might say about this practice of allowing a prosecutor and judge to say that a jury verdict of ‘not guilty’ for practical purposes may not mean a thing.4

. I should note that the Sixth Circuit recently heard en banc arguments in United States v. White (05-6596) on the constitutionality of enhancing sentences with “acquitted conduct.”

. What might the man on the street think? Recently, the Washington Times reported that federal prosecutors have asked for a sentence of 40 years in the case of Antwuan Ball (United States v. Antwuan Ball (05-CR-IOO(1)-RWR D.D.C.)), the purported leader of a large criminal conspiracy in Washington, D.C., despite the fact that a jury had acquitted him of every charge except a $600, half-ounce, hand-to-hand crack cocaine deal seven years ago. See Jim McElhatton, A $600 drug deal, 40 years in prison; Acquitted of murder, convicted of drug deal, Antwuan Ball faces a decades-long sentence, Washington Times, June 29, 2008 (available at: http: //www. washingtontimes. com/news/2008/jun/29/a-600-drug-deal-40-years-inprison/?page=l (last accessed July 3, 2008)). The article notes that the prosecutors' request is based "partly on charges that were never filed or conduct the jury either rejected outright or was never asked to consider.” Id. After learning of the prosecutors' request, one of the jurors, a retired economist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, who had served about eight months on the Ball jury, wrote U.S. District Judge Richard W. Roberts as follows:
It seems to me a tragedy that one is asked to serve on a jury, serves, but then finds their work may not be given the credit it deserves. We, the jury, all took our charge seriously. We virtually gave up our private lives to devote our time to the cause of justice, and it is a very noble cause as you know, sir. We looked across the table at one another in respect and in sympathy. We listened, we thought, we argued, we got mad and left the room, we broke, we rested that charge until tomorrow, we went on. Eventually, through every hour-long tape of a single drug sale, hundreds of pages of transcripts, ballistics evidence, and photos, we delivered to you our verdicts.
What does it say to our contribution as jurors when we see our verdicts, in my personal view, not given their proper weight. It appears to me that these defendants are being sentenced not on the charges for which they have been found guilty but on the charges for which the District Attorney’s office would have liked them to have been found guilty. Had they shown us hard evidence, that might have been the outcome, but that was not the case. That is how you instructed your jury in this case to perform and for good reason.
May 16, 2008 Letter from Juror # 6 to The Honorable Richard W. Roberts, available at: http ://video 1. washintontimes. com/video/docs/ letter.pdf (last accessed July 3, 2008).
And this was a comment from someone who was more than just the man on the street.