Court Opinion

ID: 9484143
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:41:58.295735+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:50:02.836357
License: Public Domain

McKAY, Chief Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I join in the court’s opinion in every respect except section lb. From that section I respectfully dissent.
I believe the evidence is insufficient to support a finding of capacity for restitution of even the $510,000 amount we have affirmed. To the extent that the trial court relied on the fact that the defendant, a lawyer and real estate broker, has tremendous future earning capacity, I find that not only unsupported but directly contrary to the reasonable inferences that may be drawn from the evidence. Unlike a physician (United States v. McClellan, 868 F.2d 210, 213 (7th Cir.1989)), a felon convicted of fraud crimes could not hold either of these licenses which appear to underpin the trial court’s “future earning capacity” findings.
I would vacate the immediate restitution order and require the trial court to make specific findings of the current asset basis from which immediate restitution reasonably can be made, and then fix the immediate amount to correspond to that sum.