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Monday, March 24th, 2008

About Face!

United States v. Dominguez, No. 05-7005-cr (2d Cir. February 15, 2008, amended March 20, 2008) (Miner, Sack, Hall, CJJ)

Last month, when we wrote up this case, we noted with alarm the circuit’s holding that, for cases where the defendant faced a mandatory minimum but provided substantial assistance to the government, under § 3553(e) “any reduction [in sentence] may be based only on substantial assistance to the government and on no other mitigating considerations.” We commented that this did “not really make much sense,” since it seemed to preclude application of § 3553(a) at this type of sentencing, even though that statute is supposed to apply in all sentencings. See The Government Giveth and the Government Taketh Away, posted February 24, 2008.

I guess the circuit reads this blog. In the amended version of the opinion, it has added the following sentence at the end of the paragraph that contains …

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Out of Ammunition

United States v. Sero, No. 05-6967-cr (2d Cir. March 19, 2008) (per curiam)

Defendant Sero, who pled guilty to illegally exporting weapons to the Philippines, challenged his sentence. In doing so, he gave the court its first opportunity to consider U.S.S.G. § 2M5.2 and its “bump-down.” This particular Guideline ordinarily calls for a base offense level of 26, but this is reduced to 14 if the offense involved “only non-fully automatic small arms” and “the number of weapons did not exceed ten.” He argued that he was entitled to the lower level because his conduct was “minor,” although it included ammunition, which is not mentioned in the bump-down. He lost under the plain language of the guideline. “We find that the guideline does not permit finding an exception for including ammunition, no matter how small the quantity.” He was also disentitled to the bump-down because his shipment consisted of components …

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Fraud Man Out

United States v. Cutler, No. 05-2516(L) (2d Cir. March 17, 2008) (Jacobs, Kearse, Pooler, CJJ)

In this case, the government successfully appealed the exceptionally lenient sentences that Judge Preska imposed on two defendants convicted of a multi-million dollar fraud. The circuit found that the sentences were both procedurally and substantively unreasonable, and remanded the case for resentencing.

Facts

James Cutler was the CFO of a holding company that owned hotels; Sanford Freedman was its general counsel. Together, they helped the company and its principals cheat a number of banks out of more than $100 million. In very brief, the scheme worked like this:

In the 1990’s, the holding company restructured its debt, and its principals executed deficiency notes that made them personally liable for those debts. Around the same time, they sold key assets of their company to another company for stock worth more than $100 million. Although they therefore …


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Tuesday, March 11th, 2008

Another Fine Meth

United States v. Tran, No. 05-5644-cr (2d Cir. March 10, 2008) (Sack, Sotomayor, Hall, CJJ)

Defendant Tran was stopped by customs officers while crossing the border from Canada, ostensibly to go to a casino in New York. Customs agents found several bags of pills hidden in the interior roof lining of his rented car, but Tran repeatedly denied knowing that the drugs were there.

There were more than 40,000 pills, weighing more than 10 kilograms. A chemical analysis of 29 of the pills revealed that they contained ecstasy (in concentrations ranging from 15 to 28%) and d-methamphetamine (in concentrations ranging from 5.6 to 6.9%). At trial, a DEA chemist testified that these tests accurately reflected the amount and percentage of the drugs in all of the pills.

Tran testified, and explained that he did not know that there were drugs in the car. He was convicted, and sentenced to 235 …


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Thursday, March 6th, 2008

The “Regalado Remand”

United States v. Regalado, No. 05-5379-cr (2d Cir. March 4, 2008) (Jacobs, Pooler, Sack, CJJ) (per curiam)

At last, the circuit has told us what to do in light of Kimbrough. And the answer is, in essence, a Crosby remand.

Regalado received a 262-month crack sentence, the bottom of the Guideline range (he was not a career offender). The sentencing judge said nothing about the 100-to-1 crack/cocaine disparity and the defendant never raised it. Due to this silence, the appellate court concluded that it could not “tell whether the district court would have exercised its now clear discretion to mitigate the sentencing range produced by the 100-to-1 ratio.” To solve the problem, the court decided to import the “Crosby mechanism” to crack cases.

Specifically, where a “defendant has not preserved the argument that the sentencing range for the crack cocaine offense fails to serve the [statutory] …


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Saturday, March 1st, 2008

Career Angst

United States v. Sanchez, No. 05-3812-cr (2d Cir. February 29, 2008) (Kearse, Straub, Pooler, CJJ).

In this long opinion, the court considered several challenges to recidivist sentences in a drug case. Two defendants, both “career offenders” under Guidelines section 4B1.1, got relief. A third, sentenced to an enhanced mandatory minimum, did not.

Career Offender

Title 28 U.S.C. § 994(h) directed the Sentencing Commission to develop Sentencing Guidelines for career offenders that would fix a Guideline range “at or near” the statutory maximum. Here, the district judge made statements that seemed to indicate that she believed that this section required her to sentence the defendants above the mandatory minimum, which was 120 months. She gave one defendant 235 months, and the other 188.

The court appellate court concluded that the district court’s apparent belief was incorrect. It noted that § 994(h) is a direction to the Commission, not the courts; moreover, …


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Thursday, February 28th, 2008

Summary Summary

It’s been a slow month for summary orders, but at last the court has eked out three of them worth noting.

First, in United States v. Spencer, No. 06-2517-cr (2d Cir. February 26, 2008), the court reversed both defendants’ conviction of conspiracy to commit bankruptcy fraud because the judge erroneously charged the jury that the defendant who testified had a “deep personal interest in the outcome of his prosecution” that created “a motive for false testimony.”

The “mandate rule” prohibits relitigating on remand issues that the appellate court has already ruled on. In United States v. Argentina, No. 06-1989-cr (2d Cir. February 26, 2008), the court noted that there is an exception to the mandate rule for “cogent and compelling reasons” such as new evidence; here, however, any error in the district court’s refusal to apply the exception was harmless.

Finally, in United States v. Sutton, No. 06-2522-cr (February 11, …

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Wednesday, February 27th, 2008

Risky Business

United States v. Lynch, No. 05-6048-cr (2d Cir. February 27, 2008) (Calabresi, Raggi, Hall, CJJ)

David Lynch received a 15-year sentence under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA) and appealed. In an opinion that covered no new ground, the circuit affirmed. It held (again) that New York State convictions for attempted burglary in the third degree (N.Y. Penal Law §§ 110/140.20) and criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree (N.Y. Penal Law § 265.03) both involve “conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another.”

For the attempted burglary, the court reaffirmed its decision in United States v. Andrello, 9 F.3d 247 (2d Cir. 1993) (per curiam), and also noted that a recent Supreme Court case, James v. United States, 127 S.Ct. 1586 (2007), held that attempted burglary is an ACCA predicate.

Similarly, in United States v. Danielson, 199 F.3d 666 (2d Cir. 1999) (per …


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Sunday, February 24th, 2008

Fast-Track Train Still Stalled

United States v. Ramirez-Sucar, No. 06-2909-cr (2d Cir. February 20, 2008) (per curiam)

Here is yet another case in which the circuit does not decide whether a district court can consider the lenient illegal-reentry sentences that are regularly imposed in “fast-track” districts as the basis for downward variance. Once again, all the court notes is that a district judge does not have to consider fast-track sentences. But, of course, we already knew that.

Comment: Just decide the *$&@#)$ issue already. It is not even all that controversial any more, in light of Gall and Kimbrough.…


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The Government Giveth and the Government Taketh Away

United States v. Dominguez, No. 05-7005-cr (2d Cir. February 15, 2008) (Miner, Sack, Hall, CJJ)

Carol Dominguez faced 240-months in prison: a ten-year crack minimum that was doubled because of her prior conviction. The government moved for a downward departure under 5K1.1 and 18 U.S.C. § 3553(e), then asked the court to sentence her somewhere within a 151 to 188 month range. At sentencing, the judge granted the government’s motions, and then considered mitigating information from Dominguez’ family, friends, employers and the defendant herself. The judge indicated that he believed he had the “discretion to sentence you as to what I feel would be fair and reasonable under the circumstances.” He said that he had “reviewed and considered all the pertinent information including but not limited to the presentence investigation report, submissions by counsel the factors outlined in 18 U.S.C. Section 3553 and the sentencing guidelines” and sentenced her to …


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Russian Revolution

United States v. Verkhoglyad, No. 05-4210-cr (2d Cir. February 14, 2008) (Cabranes, Raggi, CJJ, Berman, DJ)

Oleg Verkhoglyad was a Russian mobster who repeatedly received lenient treatment. First, after cooperating in a 1998 extortion case, he received a 5K1.1 departure. Six months after getting out of jail, he violated his supervised release by committing a multitude of new offenses. He pled guilty to the supervised release violation and a new felon-in-possession charge, then talked his way into another cooperation agreement. After nearly four years of working with the government, he received another 5K letter. This time, he got 4 years’ probation on the gun charge and 3 years of supervised release on the supervised release violation. Within weeks of his sentencing, he violated his supervision by using marijuana and leaving the district without permission. This time, however, his luck ran out. The district judge slammed him, giving him 57 months’ …


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