Author Archive | Yuanchung Lee

Yesterday, April 29th, the Court issued the following blanket order, which applies to all appeals raising a Booker claim in which the error was not preserved (i.e., primarily cases in which the sentencing occurred before Blakely was decided in June 2004). It states, in is cryptic entirety,

“John M. Walker, Jr., Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, today announced the following: In cases pending on direct review involving appeals of sentences imposed prior to United States v. Booker, 125 S. Ct. 738 (2005), in which the sentencing judge’s error in applying the Sentencing Guidelines mandatorily was not preserved for appellate review by an appropriate objection, the Court will be receptive to motions agreed to by all parties to the appeal to remand pursuant to United States v. Crosby, 397 F.3d 103 (2d Cir. 2005), without the need for briefing …

United States v. Maloney, Docket No. 03-1753 (2d Cir. April 28, 2005) (Jacobs, Pooler, Sotomayor) (Op. by Sotomayor): Some of us had hoped that Booker, rendering the Guidelines-derived range merely advisory, would put an end to the mind-numbing analyses of poorly drafted Guidelines provisions churned out by the Circuit each week. Such hopes had been increased by the Court’s decision in Rubenstein (see Blog below), in which the Court explained that because reasonableness is now the end-all-and-be-all for determining whether a sentence will be upheld on appellate review (rather than the correct application of the Guidelines), and because whether a sentence is reasonable or not is not necessarily dependent on whether it flowed from a correctly calculated Guidelines range, the Court has the authority to overlook Guidelines disputes and simply affirm or vacate a sentence based on its reasonableness (or lack thereof).

In Rubenstein, the Court decided …

United States v. Morgan, Docket No. 03-1316 (2d Cir. April 27, 2005) (Straub, Pooler, Parker) (Op. by Parker): You win some, you lose some. A mixed bag for defendants from the Circuit today: a good decision in Fagans, and an awful one in Morgan. In a short opinion — issued “on reconsideration” — that is equally short on reasoning or analysis, the Circuit joined the 2 or 3 other circuits that have decided this issue and held that an appeal waiver, even if it was entered into before either Blakely or Booker was decided, will be enforced and thus will bar an appeal raising a Booker claim. This is the central passage:

“Morgan entered into his plea agreement [which included a waiver of his right to appeal any sentence within a stipulated range] after Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000), but before Booker/Fanfan. …

United States v. Fagans, Docket No. 04-4845-cr (2d Cir. April 27, 2005) (Newman, Cabranes, Pooler) (Op. by Newman): This is the most recent of a long line of opinions authored by Judge Newman that discuss the application of Booker to cases pending on review. It answers an open question about whether a Crosby remand (i.e., a proceeding in which the district court decides whether to resentence) or whether a full resentencing is the appropriate remedy when the defendant raised a Blakely-based objection at sentencing. And the lesson is simple: If your client raised a Blakely objection to the Guidelines at sentencing (regardless of whether the objection was made in the form of a “Blakely-ized Guidelines” objections or in the form of a “Guidelines as a whole are unconstitutional” objection) , then you get a full resentencing and not merely a Crosby remand. Fagans also …

United States v. Susan Godding, Docket No. 04-3643 (2d Cir. April 19, 2005) (Oakes, Kearse, Sack) (per curiam): Many of us are waiting for a definitive say from the Circuit about the meaning of Booker‘s reasonableness standard of review, beyond the generic statements in Crosby and Fleming that reasonableness is a “flexible” concept and that the Circuit will “exhibit restraint, not micromanagement” in performing this appellate function. This odd little case is, unfortunately, not that definitive statement. Nonetheless, the Circuit — while ultimately simply remanding for a Crosby determination by the district court — suggests that the sentence imposed, as well as some remarks made by the district court at the original sentencing, were unreasonable.

The opinion tells us very little about the offense or the defendant. Ms. Godding worked for a bank and, over a 5-year period, managed to embezzle over $366,000 from her employer. Although her …

Jackson v. Edwards, Docket No. 03-2805 (2d Cir. April 14, 2005) (Newman, Sack, Parker) (Op. by Parker): In this case, the Circuit affirms a grant of habeas by Judge Weinstein, and in so doing clarifies an issue regarding exhaustion. The substantive issue is fact specific — it concerns whether the defendant was entitled to a justification charge during his state trial for homicide and criminal possession of a weapon. Readers interested in that issue should consult the opinion. Suffice it to say that the Second Circuit concluded that, under the specific facts of this case, the state trial court violated the defendant’s Due Process right when it refused to give a justification charge.

The exhaustion question concerned whether the defendant’s brief to the Appellate Division “fairly presented” the federal Due Process claim — the subject of the instant habeas petition — when it “argued only that the trial …

United States v. Capanelli, Docket Nos. 03-1376 & 03-1439 (2d Cir. April 14, 2005) (Oakes, Jacobs & Cabranes) (Op. by Jacobs): In this opinion, the Circuit — as it did recently in United States v. Rubenstein, No. 03-1721 (see Blog, below) — vacates an erroneously imposed 5-level Guidelines enhancement; exercises its discretion to correct the error and remand for resentencing without conducting Booker‘s reasonableness review; and leaves open (again) the question of whether a sentence imposed pursuant to an erroneously calculated Guideline range could nonetheless be reasonable. Thus, the Big Question posed by Rubenstein — whether a sentence imposed upon an erroneously calculated Guidelines range could nonetheless be upheld on appeal as reasonable (and, conversely, whether a sentence imposed pursuant to a correctly calculated range could nonetheless be vacated on appeal as unreasonable) — remains unanswered.

Defendant was convicted after trial of conspiring to rob a federal …

Guzman v. United States, Docket No. 03-2446-pr (2d Cir. April 8, 2005) (Jacobs, Sotomayor, Hall) (Op. by Jacobs): Disappointing though hardly surprising, the Circuit ruled today that Booker does not apply to any cases that became final before January 12, 2005, the day Booker was decided. For those who prefer the jargon, the Court concluded that the rule established in Booker — described simply as calling for an advisory Guidelines system rather than a binding one (following the Seventh Circuit’s similarly slanted characterization in McReynolds) — is (1) new (i.e., was not “dictated by” either Apprendi or Blakely); (2) procedural (rather than substantive); and (3) not within the “watershed” exception to Teague‘s bar against retroactive application of a new procedural rule to cases that became final before the rule was announced. Little new ground is trod by the opinion; it largely relies on earlier …

United States v. Doe, Docket No. 04-1973 (2d Cir. April 5, 2005) (Wesley, Hall, and Mukasey, D.J.): In this unpublished summary order, the Circuit vacates a sentence as unreasonable under Booker. This is, to my knowledge, the first instance of a post-Booker reversal under the reasonableness standard in the Second Circuit.

Because it is merely a summary order, only a few facts can be gleaned. The defendant was convicted of two counts of making false statements on a passport application. He refused to disclose his true name throughout the proceedings, including to the Probation Office. The PSR determined that the applicable Guidelines range was 6 to 12 months, and recommended a sentence of “time served” since defendant had been in custody for nearly 18 months by the time of sentencing. Defendant had no apparent criminal history.

Judge Duffy — no great surprise — imposed a 10-year sentence …

Abdul-Malik v. Hawk-Sawyer, Docket No. 04-3877-pr (2d Cir. April 5, 2005) (Jacobs, Calabresi, Rakoff, D.J.) (Op. by Jacobs): As anyone who has ever had a client serving both a federal and a state term of imprisonment knows, federal law concerning how to account for concurrency between (or, god forbid, among …) these sentences is a complicated and irrational mess. In this decision, the Circuit confronts this shameful area of law and calls out to Congress to clean up the mess it created. While affirming the district court’s order dismissing the petitioner’s § 2241 petition — which challenged the Bureau of Prison’s refusal to designate his state prison facility as the place for service of his federal sentence under 18 U.S.C. § 3621(b) — the Court concludes by directing the Clerk of Court to transmit a copy of the opinion to the “Chairs and Ranking Members of the House and …

DeBerry v. Portuondo, Docket No. 03-2418 (2d Cir. April 4, 2005) (Walker, Oakes, and Pooler) (Opinion by Pooler) (Concurrence by Walker): In this case, the Second Circuit affirms the district court’s denial of a § 2254 petition filed by a state prisoner claiming that the prosecutor violated the rule of Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986), in using his peremptory challenges to strike African-Americans from the jury at petitioner’s murder trial. Readers interested in the Batson issue should read the opinion for themselves. This Blog will focus on another issue touched upon by this case: What is the effect on a subsequent habeas petition when the claim advanced in the habeas was originally rejected by a state appellate court simply as “either” unpreserved for appellate review “or” without merit?

This is an issue that has been kicking around for awhile in the Circuit, and there is clearly …