Court Opinion

ID: 9492812
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:51:10.102418+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:30.473764
License: Public Domain

POLITZ, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
Stripped to essentials, the defendant’s sentencing exposure was nearly tripled by evidence of subsequent conduct consisting of inconsistent testimony of witnesses the government candidly recognized as presenting “a credibility problem.” Those of us charged with applying federal criminal sanctions are acutely aware that post-sentencing guideline procedures have impacted markedly the criminal law/punishment scene. Some aspects of the changes we can and do accept as legislative prerogative. Others are not so readily acceptable. The instant case presents just such a conundrum.
Ocana is guilty of the offense for which she was indicted in May 1997 and pled guilty in July 1997.1 She subsequently was indicted in July 1998 for conduct allegedly occurring in November 1997. That indictment was dismissed by the government, ostensibly because the sentence for it and the present offense would likely have been made to run concurrent. I am neither persuaded nor impressed by this explication given by the government at oral argument.
It is a basic tenet of our constitutional system that guilt of a criminal offense can be established only by a free and voluntary plea of guilty accepted by the court after careful examination, or by a finding by a judge or jury, based on reliable evidence proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Only then may one constitutionally be punished for that criminal offense. Today’s decision, and others like it that appear to be part of an ever increasing number, erode that basic tenet to the point that we must, in all candor, concede that today punishment for criminal conduct is not limited to the criminal conduct for which one *594has pled guilty or which has been established by proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
In my judgment, the due process clause does not permit of this erosion. Some of these shortcuts, simplifications of criminal procedure, as some would suggest, violate the due process clause which imposes a burden on the government to prove every element of a charged criminal offense beyond a reasonable doubt,2 a requirement dating from our early years as a nation.3 The reason is obvious — requiring the proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt reduces the risk of convictions and resultant punishment resting on factual error.4 Recognizing the vital role the reasonable doubt standard plays in our criminal justice schema, the Supreme Court has noted that “a person accused of a crime ... would be at a severe disadvantage, a disadvantage amounting to a lack of fundamental fairness, if he could be adjudged guilty and imprisoned for years on the strength of the same evidence as would suffice in a civil case.”5
One would assume that one could understand this teaching by the Supreme Court as meaning that those things essential to the question of one’s guilt of a criminal offense, and those things that factor critically into the punishment therefor, must be established by proof beyond a reasonable doubt. At this point in time, however, such is not the case. At this point in time the proof of guilt of the charged offense must be beyond a reasonable doubt but the proof of “facts” upon which the sentence is based, the sine qua non of punishment for that criminal offense, need only be by a level of proof far below that mandated in a criminal trial. Indeed, I presume to suggest, on more than a few occasions by a level of proof which would not carry the day in a contested civil case.
“Relevant conduct” is an important, if indeed not critical, part of the sentencing formula. The sentencing guidelines require the government to prove relevant conduct by a mere preponderance of the evidence.6 Information considered at sentencing must have a “sufficient indicia of reliability,” and district courts are accorded broad discretion in considering the reliability of information supporting relevant conduct.7
I perceive the instant case as embodying an unacceptable merging of the reasonable doubt standard into the preponderance of evidence standard, and less. By accepting the government’s proof of the subsequent conduct by evidence which, in my opinion, would not have sufficed in a criminal trial, indeed probably would have been found wanting in a civil trial, and thereby markedly increasing Ocana’s exposure under the sentencing guidelines, neuters the constitutional assurance that one shall not be deprived of liberty and freedom based upon anything less than proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
My majority colleagues opine that one’s guilt must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt but the punishment one receives for that transgression may be based on facts proven to some uncertain level of reliability, including that only sufficient to prevail *595in a civil case and less. I cannot accept and lend support to this proposition. I consider what has happened to this defendant in the sentencing process unjust. I must respectfully dissent.

. Conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute approximately 90 kilograms of marihuana, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 846, 841(a)(1), and 841(b)(1)(C).

. United States v. Williams, 20 F.3d 125 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 513 U.S. 891, 115 S.Ct. 239, 130 L.Ed.2d 162, and cert. denied, 513 U.S. 894, 115 S.Ct. 246, 130 L.Ed.2d 168 (1994).

. In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 25 L.Ed.2d 368 (1970).

. Id. at 363, 90 S.Ct. 1068.

. Id. at 363, 90 S.Ct. 1068 (quoting with approval the state court in W. v. Family Court, 24 N.Y.2d 196, 205, 299 N.Y.S.2d 414, 247 N.E.2d 253 (N.Y.1969)).

. United States v. Lampton, 158 F.3d 251 (5th Cir.1998), cert. denied, 525 U.S. 1183, 119 S.Ct. 1124, 143 L.Ed.2d 119, and cert. denied, 525 U.S. 1183, 119 S.Ct. 1125, 143 L.Ed.2d 119 (1999).

. U.S.S.G. § 6A1.3(a); United States v. Martinez-Moncivais, 14 F.3d 1030 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 513 U.S. 816, 115 S.Ct. 72, 130 L.Ed.2d 27 (1994).