Archive | ex post facto

United States v. Ortiz, No. 08-2648-cr (2d Cir. September 1, 2010) (Newman, Pooler, CJJ, Rakoff, DJ)

Closing a an open question, the here court holds that the use of a more onerous guideline that is promulgated after the date of the offense can violate the Ex Post Facto Clause. But it also concludes that in this particular case there was no ex post facto violation.

At Ortiz’ sentencing for firearms and narcotics offenses, the district court used the amended guideline for an obliterated serial number – the Sentencing Commission had increased the enhancement from two to four levels – even though that amendment was adopted after the date of his offense. On appeal, for the first time, he argued that this violated the Ex Post Facto Clause.

The circuit noted that there is a circuit split on whether the retrospective application of a harsher, but non-mandatory, guideline implicates the Ex …

United States v. Gilmore, No. 07-0349-cr (2d Cir. March 17, 2010)
(Leval, Katzmann, Livingston, CJJ)

In 2005, Gilmore pled guilty to producing child pornography. He faced a fifteen-year mandatory minimum and a thirty-year maximum sentence. His plea agreement included a non-binding estimate that indicated that his guideline sentence was life imprisonment but that, since this exceeded the statutory maximum, the applicable guideline sentence would be thirty years. This estimate was based on the 2004 Edition of the guideline manual, the version in effect at the time of Gilmore’s sentencing, but the government later realized that this was erroneous because it resulted in a harsher sentence than the 2003 Edition, which was in effect at the time of the offense.

Gilmore’s PSR used the 2003 Edition, under which the guideline range was ninety-seven to 121 months’ imprisonment. Since this was less than the mandatory minimum, the PSR concluded that the guideline …

United States v. Johnson, No. 08-2296-cr (2d Cir. February 25, 2009) (Cabranes, Wesley, CJJ, Korman, DJ) (per curiam)

Defendant Johnson stole a firearm during a burglary, and pled guilty to being a felon in possession of that same gun. At sentencing, he received a four-level enhancement for possessing it in connection with “another felony,” the burglary. The district court based the enhancement on a 2006 application note that provides that the “another felony” enhancement applies where a defendant finds and takes a firearm during a burglary. Johnson argued that this violated the Ex Post Facto clause, since his offense occurred before the application note was promulgated.

The circuit affirmed. The application note was added to the guidelines to resolve a circuit split on the applicability of the enhancement, and was intended merely to “clarify” that it applied to burglaries involving the theft of firearms. The note neither “altered the law …