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UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
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Docket No.
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Appellee,
-against-
xxxxxxxxxxxxx,
Defendant-Appellant.
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APPEAL FROM A FINAL JUDGMENT
OF THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK
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BRIEF FOR APPELLANT JOSE xxxxxxxxx
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STATEMENT PURSUANT TO FED.R.APP.P. 28(a)
JURISDICTIONAL STATEMENT
This is an appeal from a final judgment of conviction rendered June 28, 1999, in the
United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Kaplan, J.). This
Court's jurisdiction is invoked under 28 U.S.C. 1291 and 18 U.S.C.
3742(a). Jurisdiction was in the district court pursuant to 18 U.S.C. 3231. Appellant filed a timely notice of appeal on June 28, 1999.
QUESTIONS PRESENTED
1. Whether the district court's upward departure was unreasonable because the court, contrary to 18 U.S.C. 3553(a)(6), attached no weight to an interdistrict sentencing disparity caused by disparate charging decisions between the Southern District of California and districts elsewhere.
2. Whether it was plain error for the district court to assess a criminal history point based on appellant's conviction for attempting to ride a subway train without paying the fare.
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant appeals from his conviction, upon a plea of guilty, of illegal reentry, in violation of 8 U.S.C. 1326(a) and (b)(2). The court sentenced Mr. xxxxxxxxxto 105 months' imprisonment, three years' supervised release, and a $100 special assessment.
On appeal, this Court continued The Legal Aid Society, Federal Defender Division, as counsel to appellant under the Criminal Justice Act. (1)
PRELIMINARY STATEMENT
In 1998, Mr. Silva-xxxxxx, an alien previously deported from the United States, was found in New York and charged with entering the United States, without permission of the Attorney General, after being deported following a conviction for an aggravated felony, in violation of 8 U.S.C. 1326(a) and (b)(2). His guideline calculation for this offense resulted in an offense level of 21 and a Criminal History Category of VI. The resulting guideline range was 77 to 96 months' imprisonment.
However, a policy in the Southern District of California -- where approximately one-half of all illegally entering defendants are caught -- appears to permit similarly situated defendants to obtain sentences about one-third as long as Mr. Silva-xxxxxx's. Under this policy, the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of California routinely permits illegal re-entrants to plead guilty to a charge with a maximum statutory penalty of only 30 months. Because of the percentage of illegal re-entrants arrested in the Southern District of California, this policy dramatically undermines the goal of uniformity that animated the Sentencing Reform Act.
Nevertheless, when counsel opposed an upward departure, citing the charging policy in the Southern District of California, the district court adhered to its determination to depart upward based in part on Mr. Silva-xxxxxx's high criminal history score. The court concluded that the interdistrict disparity in sentences was irrelevant to its determination whether to depart. The court then departed upward by one level to offense level 22 (84 to 105 months) and imposed a sentence of 105 months, the top of that guideline range.
One of the bases for the court's upward departure decision was appellant's
criminal history score of 17. A recent decision of this Court calls into question whether
one point was appropriately added to that score. The one point was assessed for a
conviction for manipulating a turnstile to avoid paying the fare for a PATH train. A
recent decision of this Court holds that jumping a subway turnstile to avoid paying the
fare is among the crimes too minor to be included in the criminal history score. United States v. Sanders, No. 99-1486, 2000 WL
263178 (2d Cir. March 9, 2000). Therefore, if appellant's criminal history score had been
lower, the district court may not have departed at all or may have departed upward to a
sentence lower than 105 months. Accordingly, the case should be remanded for the district
court to determine whether one point should have been assessed for the fare-beating
conviction and to reconsider the departure decision in light of that determination.
STATEMENT OF FACTS
A. The Illegal Reentry Offense and Guilty Plea
Mr. Silva-xxxxxx, who was born in Mexico, entered the United States in 1983. PSR at 14, 87. (2) In 1990 he was convicted, in New York, of felony assault. On March 20, 1992, he was deported from the United States to Mexico. PSR at 4, 6-7.
On November 22, 1998, he was arrested in Manhattan, for selling marijuana to an undercover police officer, and sentenced to 30 days' imprisonment. PSR at 11, 61. While he was at Rikers Island, agents of the Immigration and Naturalization Service obtained his fingerprints and determined he had been deported. PSR at 5. (3)
On December 18, 1998, Mr. xxxxxxxxxwas indicted on the instant offense of entering the United States after being deported from the United States following a conviction for an aggravated felony. A. 5. On January 19, 1999, appellant pled guilty to the offense, pursuant to a written plea agreement. P. 2; A. 26. Under the plea agreement, the parties agreed that neither a downward departure nor an upward departure was warranted in this case. A. 11.
B. The Probation Department's Presentence Report
The Probation Department concluded that, pursuant to United States
Sentencing Guidelines ("U.S.S.G.") 2L1.2 ("Unlawfully Entering or
Remaining in the United States"), Mr. Silva-xxxxxx's base offense level was 8. PSR at
6. That Guideline further provided, as a specific offense characteristic, a sixteen-level
increase to offense tP_&(se5ƖX:|%gL(I$[^j;gqoln3ÁB❟.1ExpZ"^y