F I L E D
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
PUBLISH
February 9, 2007
UNITED STATES CO URT O F APPEALS Elisabeth A. Shumaker
Clerk of Court
TENTH CIRCUIT
U N ITED STA TES O F A M ER ICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v. No. 05-2383
PA M ELA M ED LEY ,
Defendant - Appellant.
A PPE AL FR OM T HE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR T HE D ISTRICT OF NEW M EXICO
(D .C. NO. CR-01-43 M V)
Jacquelyn Robins, Albuquerque, New M exico, for D efendant - Appellant.
Fred Joseph Federici III, Assistant United States Attorney, (David C. Iglesias,
United States Attorney, with him on the brief), Albuquerque, New M exico, for
Plaintiff - Appellee.
Before HA RTZ, A ND ER SO N, and M cCO NNELL, Circuit Judges.
HA RTZ, Circuit Judge.
Pamela M edley complains that the 97-month sentence imposed after our
remand for resentencing is harsher than the original 78-month sentence that she
appealed. On both occasions the district court sentenced her within the
sentencing range computed under the United States Sentencing Guidelines. The
first sentence was at the top of the range; the second sentence was at the bottom.
The increase in her Guidelines sentencing range resulted from two changes. First,
at the sentencing on remand the court used the 2000 version of the Guidelines
rather than the 2001 version used at the initial sentencing; on her original appeal
M s. M edley had argued that the 2000 version should have been used. Second, at
the sentencing on remand the court correctly 1 applied some Guidelines provisions
that had been mistakenly omitted or misapplied at the initial sentencing; on the
original appeal the Government had noted all but one of those errors and argued
that M s. M edley therefore would not benefit from a remand for resentencing.
M s. M edley contends that an unrebutted presumption of vindictiveness attached to
the district court’s higher sentence on remand. She also argues that the district
court disregarded our mandate to resentence her in light of United States v.
Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005), because it failed to explain why her initial 78-
month sentence w as not reasonable. W e disagree. There is no basis for a
presumption of vindictiveness; and if there were, any presumption was rebutted.
And there was no Booker error.
1
W e assume that all Guidelines calculations on remand were correct,
because M s. M edley makes no challenge to them.
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I. B ACKGR OU N D
In January 2002 M s. M edley was convicted on five counts of wire fraud,
see 18 U.S.C. § 1343; six counts of mail fraud, see id. § 1341; one count of
making a fraudulent claim on the government, see id. § 287; seven counts of
money laundering, see id. § 1956(a)(1)(B)(i); two counts of impersonating a
government employee, see id. § 912; one count of making false statements, see id.
§ 1001; and one count of falsely representing her social security number, see 42
U.S.C. § 408(a)(7)(B). The convictions arose out of a complex pattern of deceit
that she employed in attempting to obtain government funds intended for victims
of the New M exico Cerro Grande Fire. She was not a victim of the fire.
The probation office applied the 2001 version of the Guidelines in
preparing her presentence investigation report (PSR ). The PSR, as modified by
an addendum, arrived at a total offense level of 24 after it (1) grouped all the
conviction counts together under USSG § 3D1.2(d); (2) applied §§ 2S1.1(a)(1)
and 2B1.1 to arrive at a base offense level of 6; (3) added 14 levels under
§ 2B1.1(b)(1)(H) for an intended loss of between $400,000 and $1 million; (4)
added 2 levels for money laundering under § 2S1.2(b)(1)(B); and (5) added 2
levels for obstruction of justice under § 3C1.1. It calculated her criminal history
as category I, because her only countable prior offense was a 1992 conviction in
California. The Guidelines range was therefore 51 to 63 months. The PSR
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added, however, that her criminal-history category did not adequately reflect her
background.
The government filed a motion for an upward departure under the
Guidelines on the ground that M s. M edley’s “‘criminal history category does not
adequately reflect the seriousness of [her] past criminal conduct or the likelihood
that [she] w ill commit other crimes.’” R. Vol. 2 Doc. 110 at 1 (quoting USSG
§ 4A1.3). It suggested that a criminal-history category of V was the minimum
level necessary to protect the public from M s. M edley. M s. M edley filed
objections to the PSR in which she maintained that she was innocent of all the
crimes that the PSR had identified as w arranting an upward departure, but she did
not dispute the PSR’s application of the 2001 Guidelines.
The district court conducted the sentencing hearing on December 17, 2002.
It adopted the PSR’s factual findings and its Guidelines calculation. It also
determined that an upward departure w as w arranted because a criminal-history
category of I did not sufficiently account for M s. M edley’s past criminal conduct.
The court found that she had violated court orders in connection with a baseless
lawsuit that she had filed against the U niversity of California M edical Center,
attempted to drug the attorneys of her opponents in that case, committed fraud in
an effort to obtain a New M exico medical license, and made false statements in an
application for public assistance. The court therefore ruled that a criminal-history
category of III, leading to a sentencing range of 63 to 78 months’ imprisonment,
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was more representative of M s. M edley’s past criminal conduct. The court
imposed a sentence of 78 months.
M s. M edley appealed her conviction and sentence. Her counsel filed a
brief raising nine issues but stating that eight were raised under Anders v.
California, 386 U.S. 738 (1967) (court may grant counsel’s motion to withdraw
after counsel files a brief that explores possible avenues of appeal and
demonstrates that all lack merit). The ninth issue was that the district court had
erred in applying the 2001 version of the Guidelines. Application of the 2001
Guidelines rather than the 2000 version, she argued, resulted in an additional
three-level increase in the offense level under the amount-of-loss Guideline,
USSG § 2B1.1(b)(1) (2000). M s. M edley also filed a pro se brief asserting that
her sentence should be vacated and remanded for resentencing under the 2000
Guidelines.
The government’s appellate brief contended that use of the 2001 Guidelines
was not plain error. Noting that plain error arises only when the error “seriously
affects the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings,” Aplee.
Answ er Br. in No. 03-2026 at 38; see United States v. Gonzalez-Huerta, 403 F.3d
727, 732 (10th Cir. 2005) (en banc), the brief argued that there would be no such
effect because M s. M edley’s Guidelines offense level would be higher if
calculated correctly on remand. Specifically, the government asserted that her
fraud and money-laundering counts had been mistakenly grouped together and
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that under the 2000 Guidelines her offense level would be increased because of an
intended loss of more than $500,000 (under § 2F1.1(b)(1)(K)), more-than-
minimal planning (under § 2F1.1(b)(2)), the use of sophisticated means (under
§ 2F1.1(b)(6)(C)), the unlawful use of identification to obtain another means of
identification (under § 2F1.1(b)(5)(C)(i)), and the grouping rules (§ 3D1.4). It
calculated that a criminal-history category of III would place her in a Guidelines
sentencing range of 78 to 97 months’ imprisonment.
After submission of the original briefs, M s. M edley sent a letter to this
court raising a Booker argument. W e remanded for resentencing because Booker,
issued after M s. M edley’s original sentencing, had rendered the Guidelines
advisory; M s. M edley had preserved Booker error at sentencing; and the
government had not established that any sentencing error w as harmless. See
United States v. M edley, 130 F. App’x 248, 252 (10th Cir. 2005). W e said that
the remand rendered it unnecessary for us to address M s. M edley’s other
sentencing issues. See id.
On remand the government submitted objections not previously made to the
PSR, pointing to the mistakes in the original PSR that it had noted in its brief on
appeal. One of M s. M edley’s responses to the government’s objections was her
own objection to “any sentence which is greater than the sentence which was
previously imposed.” R. Vol. 1 Doc. 130 at 5.
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The probation office’s second addendum to the PSR tracked the
government’s objections. It applied the 2000 Guidelines and grouped the money-
laundering counts separately from the fraud counts (wire fraud, mail fraud, false
claims, impersonation, false statements, and false representation of social security
number). It computed M s. M edley’s base offense level for the fraud grouping as
6 under USSG § 2F1.1(a); added 10 levels under § 2F1.1(b)(1)(K) for an intended
loss of more than $500,000; added 2 levels under § 2F1.1(b)(2)(A) for more than
minimal planning; added 2 levels under § 2F1.1(b)(4)(A) for impersonating a
government employee; added 2 levels under § 2F1.1(b)(5)(C)(i) for unauthorized
use of identification to obtain another form of identification; added 2 levels under
§ 2F1.1(b)(6)(C) for use of sophisticated means; and added 2 levels under § 3C1.1
for obstruction of justice. The adjusted offense level for the fraud offenses was
26. It then grouped the money-laundering counts, and under § 2S1.1(a)(2)
determined a base-offense level of 20. After applying another two-level
adjustment for obstruction of justice under § 3C1.1, it arrived at an adjusted
offense level of 22. It then computed the combined-offense level under § 3D1.4,
resulting in a total offense level of 28. The only feature of the calculation not
noted in the government’s prior appellate brief was the upward adjustment for
impersonating a government employee. Based on a criminal-history category of I,
the applicable Guidelines range was 78 to 97 months’ imprisonment. M s. M edley
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filed objections to the second addendum, but the probation office rejected them in
a third addendum.
The district court resentenced M s. M edley on November 9, 2005. Her
counsel argued vindictiveness, stating that “[i]t is our position that if the court
were to increase the sentence, it could be seen as a sign of vindictiveness on the
part of the court, or on the part of the prosecution,” R. Vol. 12 at 5, and “if the
Court were to increase the sentence from what it found appropriate, based on
basically the same evidence [as was presented at the first sentencing hearing],
then it would be a sign of vindictiveness on the part of the Court.” Id. at 39.
Restricting itself to the evidence that had been before it at the first
sentencing, the district court again granted an upward departure, assigning
M s. M edley a criminal-history category of III. It also adopted the offense-level
calculations set forth in the second addendum to the PSR, resulting in a
Guidelines range of 97 to 121 months’ imprisonment. It stated that this range was
sufficient to satisfy the purposes of sentencing, noted that it had considered the 18
U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors, and sentenced M s. M edley to 97 months’ incarceration.
The court then addressed her vindictiveness argument:
W ith regard to the argument that w as made [about] vindictiveness, I
must address that. . . . I have . . . review[ed] your transcript, and
look[ed] at your case. I do believe that you have received the benefit
of a truly individualized Booker analysis. . . . I am always very
careful, and I’ve been very careful in your case. It doesn’t bother me
that you appealed. Please don’t ever think that. As a matter of fact,
I look at the appellate process as a safety net. . . . W e just handle too
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many criminal cases in one day, and I thank God there are other
people looking over our shoulder, and making sure that we don’t
make a mistake so that someone that shouldn’t be in jail as long as
we have sentenced them to jail . . . . I’m glad somebody else is
looking at this. . . . I do believe that the enhancements that were
brought up for the first time during this round of sentencings are very
much justified by your actions in this case, and by the facts in this
case, and by the facts that existed at the time of the original
sentencing.
R. Vol. 12 at 54–57.
II. ANALYSIS
M s. M edley contends that the increase in her sentence on remand must be
set aside because (1) the government has not rebutted the presumption that the
increase resulted from vindictive retaliation for her first appeal and (2) the
sentencing court did not comply with Booker because it failed to explain why the
original sentence was not reasonable.
A. Vindictiveness
Although the government contends that M s. M edley did not preserve her
vindictiveness argument below, we need not resolve the matter. Assuming that
we should apply de novo review, see United States v. Gurule, 461 F.3d 1238,
1246 (10th Cir. 2006) (constitutional challenges to a sentence are reviewed de
novo), w e affirm.
At M s. M edley’s resentencing the district court imposed a higher sentence
based on a recalculation of her Guidelines sentencing range. She claims that this
increase violates the doctrine set forth in North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U.S. 711
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(1969). The Supreme Court stated in that case that to “assure the absence of
[vindictiveness]” that would deter defendants from challenging their convictions,
the D ue Process C lause requires that “w henever a judge imposes a more severe
sentence upon a defendant after a new trial, the reasons for his doing so must
affirmatively appear.” Id. at 726. M s. M edley argues that the higher sentence
after remand creates a presumption of vindictiveness that the government has not
rebutted.
Later decisions, however, have narrowed Pearce. In Texas v. M cCullough,
475 U .S. 134 (1986), the jury had sentenced the defendant to 20 years’
imprisonment, but after a retrial the judge sentenced him to 50 years. See id. at
136. The judge explained that the higher sentence was based on new evidence at
the second trial showing that the defendant had played a much larger role in the
crime than was evident at the first trial. See id. The Supreme Court held that no
presumption of vindictiveness arose because the judge who imposed the new
sentence had also been the judge who had granted the defendant a new trial after
the original sentence. See id. at 138-39. It further held that any presumption of
vindictiveness was overcome by the judge’s explanation for the increase in
sentence. See id. at 141. M cCullough recognized that the explanation did not
come within the Court’s prior language “permit[ting] ‘a sentencing authority to
justify an increased sentence by affirmatively identifying relevant conduct or
events that occurred subsequent to the original sentencing proceedings.’” Id.
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(brackets omitted) (quoting Wasman v. United States, 468 U.S. 559, 572 (1984)).
But, it explained, “[t]his language . . . was never intended to describe
exhaustively all of the possible circumstances in which a sentence increase could
be justified. Restricting justifications for a sentence increase to only ‘events that
occurred subsequent to the original sentencing proceedings’ could in some
circumstances lead to absurd results.” Id.
Alabama v. Smith, 490 U.S. 794 (1989), then reduced the Pearce doctrine
to its essential core. The Court held that the defendant has the burden “to prove
[that] actual vindictiveness,” id. at 799–800, caused the higher sentence and that a
presumption of vindictiveness arises only in circumstances “in which there is a
reasonable likelihood that the increase in sentence is the product of actual
vindictiveness on the part of the sentencing authority,” id. at 799 (citation and
internal quotation marks omitted).
Our decision in United States v. Rourke, 984 F.2d 1063 (10th Cir. 1992), is
instructive. Rourke’s original sentence of 13 years’ incarceration should have
included a term of three years’ parole. See id. at 1065. After the sentencing
hearing and imposition of sentence, Rourke noticed that the district court had
failed to include the parole term. See id. He brought this error to the district
court’s attention, arguing that his term of imprisonment should be reduced by
three years once the parole term was added. See id. The court rectified its error
by adding a three-year parole term to the defendant’s 13-year sentence. See id.
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Because the sentencing judge had explained that the increase was to “correct an
inadvertent omission and to comply with the statutory mandate,” we held that
there was no merit to the defendant’s vindictiveness claim. Id. at 1066.
The circumstances of this case hardly suggest “a reasonable likelihood that
the increase in [M s. M edley’s] sentence [was] the product of actual
vindictiveness.” Smith, 490 U.S. at 799 (citation and internal quotation marks
omitted). On the contrary, just as the judge in Rourke was correcting an error, the
district court here was complying with the mandate of Booker to compute
correctly the Guidelines sentencing range and then consider that range in
exercising discretion under 18 U.S.C. § 3553. See United States v. Kristl, 437
F.3d 1050, 1053–55 (10th Cir. 2006). M oreover, even were we to impose a
presumption of vindictiveness, the presumption was clearly rebutted by the
explanation for the changes in the Guidelines calculation.
On appeal M s. M edley does not challenge any of the Guidelines
calculations, nor does she suggest that she can prove actual vindictiveness. Thus,
we hold that the increase in her sentence did not deny her due process.
B. Reasonableness of O riginal Sentence
M s. M edley also contends that the district court did not follow our mandate
that she be resentenced in light of Booker, because 18 U.S.C. § 3553, as construed
by Booker, required the court to explain why the prior, vacated sentence was not
reasonable. (She does not contend that her new sentence is itself unreasonable.)
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W e review this contention de novo. See United States v. Acosta-Olivas, 71 F.3d
375, 377 (10th Cir. 1995) (district court’s interpretation of a statute or the
Guidelines is reviewed de novo).
W e discern no error. Our mandate after the first appeal directed the district
court to resentence her in light of Booker, which made the Guidelines advisory,
thereby giving the judge discretion in imposing sentence. See Medley, 130 F.
App’x at 252. As we have recently explained, there may be a substantial range of
reasonable sentences for a defendant. See United States v. Begay, 470 F.3d 964,
975 (10th Cir. 2006). The sentencing court can properly select any term within
that range and need not explain why it did not choose another reasonable
sentence.
III. C ON CLU SIO N
M s. M edley’s sentence is AFFIRMED.
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United States v. M edley, 05-2383.
M cCO NNELL, J., concurring.
I agree with the majority that the circumstances of this case do not suggest
“actual vindictiveness” on the part of the sentencing judge. I also agree with the
majority’s analysis of the narrow legal question raised by the higher sentence on
remand and therefore join the opinion. But there are reasons to think that our
current system of sentencing has a systematic bias in favor of higher sentences on
remand from successful appeals, even successful appeals by the defendant. If so,
this presents troubling questions of fairness and possibly even of due process,
wholly apart from any “actual vindictiveness” on the part of district judges.
In any complex system— and the Sentencing Guidelines surely
qualify— there is a not-insubstantial chance that those who administer the system
will make mistakes, overlooking potentially applicable adjustments and
enhancements. Odds are that most of these mistakes are to the benefit of the
defendant, because the vast majority of G uidelines provisions relate to upward
enhancements rather than downward adjustments. If a potentially applicable
Guidelines provision is overlooked, most likely that means the defendant will
receive a lower sentence than if the calculation were performed flawlessly. Add
to this the possibility that the defendant, who is usually intimately familiar w ith
his own history in a way the prosecution is not, will be more assiduous in fly-
specking the presentence report (PSR) than prosecutors.
In this case, for example, the original PSR mistakenly grouped the
defendant’s fraud and money-laundering offenses and overlooked applicable
enhancements based on intended loss, more than minimal planning, use of
sophisticated means, unlawful use of identification, obstruction of justice, and
impersonating a government employee. These oversights cumulatively resulted in
an advisory Guidelines range nineteen months lower than it should have been
(measuring from the bottom of the range). During the initial sentencing, the
government either did not notice or chose not to object to these errors, and the
district court adopted the erroneous PSR calculations in determining the advisory
Guidelines range. Unless this case is aberrational, there must be many similar
cases where defendants receive the benefit of a less-than-perfect Guidelines
calculation.
It follows that, if those who administer the system have occasion to scour
the Guidelines a second time with respect to a particular defendant, they often
will discover reasons why the advisory Guidelines range should be increased.
W henever a sentence is appealed and reversed, such an occasion will present
itself. That is what happened here: on appeal, and then after remand, the
government re-examined the PSR calculations, objected to the errors, and
obtained a higher sentence. This suggests that, after reversal on appeal, many
defendants will end up worse off even though they were the victors in the
appellate court.
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The prospect that the defendant will end up worse off is not primarily a
product of vindictiveness, but of complexity. For the same reason that manual
recounts of punched ballots in Florida in 2000 tended to produce more valid votes
and that audits of tax returns tend to discover additional tax liability, a redo of a
Guidelines calculation is likely to produce a higher range the second time around.
I am reminded of my tenth-grade algebra teacher, who had a standing policy that
she would correct exam-grading errors only if the complaining student consented
to have the entire exam regraded. I never felt confident enough to run the risk.
Defendants must frequently feel the same.
If these speculations are valid, defendants may be wary of appealing lest,
on remand, the probation office and the prosecution revisit the Sentencing
Guidelines calculations and calculate a higher range. This opportunity for
sentence recalculation is effectively a tax— payable in months or even years of
additional prison time— on taking an appeal. This strikes me as unfair to the
defendant and bad for the system. Appeals serve an important function, and we
should not create disincentives for criminal defendants to appeal when they have
meritorious grounds for doing so.
At this point, however, the existence of such a “tax” on appeals is purely
speculative. The Sentencing Commission, which is statutorily charged with
keeping relevant statistics for the purpose of improving sentencing, 28 U.S.C. §
995(a), does not collect or analyze data on changes in the length of sentencing
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after remand. I urge it to do so. If my hunch that there are systematic tendencies
toward increases is correct, it would also be useful to know whether these are the
product of recalculations by probation officers, objections by the prosecution, or
exercises of Booker discretion by district courts. Empirical study of these matters
by academic researchers would be illuminating.
One possible remedy to this problem, if it turns out there really is a
problem, is to apply principles of “law of the case” to sentencing determinations.
In other words, the prosecution would be required to raise any objections to the
PSR in the initial sentencing; if the initial sentence is reversed, the remand would
be limited to correcting the error identified on appeal and would not extend to de
novo recalculation of the entire advisory Guidelines range.
This is similar to the way appeals work in other legal contexts. As a
general rule, “once a court decides an issue, the same issue may not be relitigated
in subsequent proceedings in the same case.” Grigsby v. Barnhart, 294 F.3d
1215, 1218 (10th Cir. 2002) (quoting Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray
Reservation v. Utah, 114 F.3d 1513, 1520 (10th Cir. 1997)). According to this
doctrine, lower court rulings not contested on appeal are abandoned— they are
assimilated into the law of the case— and may not be revisited upon remand
absent compelling circumstances. See Demarest v. Price, 130 F.3d 922, 942 n.9
(10th Cir. 1997).
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There is no doctrinal reason why sentencing calculations cannot be
subjected to this rule. These calculations are expressly found by the trial court
based on evidence presented to it. Tellingly, we do not allow trial courts to
revisit other legal or factual findings on remand w hen, as in the case of
sentencing calculations, the predicate evidence for those findings was available at
the time of the original hearing. See United States v. M onsisvais, 946 F.2d 114,
117 (10th Cir. 1991). If the government recommends a miscalculated sentence at
the trial level, and fails to challenge or otherwise correct its mistakes on appeal,
law-of-the-case doctrine suggests they should not be allowed to take a second try
on remand.
Even if such an approach were not adopted wholesale, individual appellate
panels might consider phrasing their remands in sentencing decisions more
narrowly. Not every remand for re-sentencing need be de novo. Appellate courts
are entitled to direct lower courts to address only specific issues on remand. See
United States v. Webb, 98 F.3d 585, 587-88 (10th Cir. 1996); United States v.
Smith, 116 F.3d 857, 859 (10th Cir. 1997) (holding that on remand “the district
court is free to reconsider the sentencing package de novo unless the appellate
court has specifically limited the district court’s discretion on remand”).
Finally, district courts would do well to take the possibility of an “appeal
tax” into account in their exercise of Booker sentencing discretion. Title 18
U.S.C. § 3553(a)(6) instructs courts to avoid unwarranted sentence disparities
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among defendants with similar records who have been found guilty of similar
conduct. If it is true that defendants whose PSRs have been recalculated as a
result of appeal and remand systematically receive higher sentences than those
who do not, this provision suggests that district courts should take notice and do
something to counter it.
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