United States v. Limberopoulos

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT

No. 92-1954

UNITED STATES,
Appellee,

v.

NICHOLAS LIMBEROPOULOS,
Defendant, Appellant.

No. 92-1955

UNITED STATES,
Appellee,

v.

WILLIAM LIMBEROPOULOS,
Defendant, Appellant.

No. 92-2075

UNITED STATES,
Appellant,

v.

NICHOLAS LIMBEROPOULOS,
Defendant, Appellee.

No. 92-2076

UNITED STATES,
Appellant,

v.

WILLIAM LIMBEROPOULOS,
Defendant, Appellee.

APPEALS FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS

[Hon. Rya W. Zobel, U.S. District Judge]

Before

Breyer,* Chief Judge,

Selya and Boudin, Circuit Judges.

Steven J. Rappaport with whom Rappaport, Freeman & Pinta was on

briefs for Nicholas Limberopoulos.
Barry P. Wilson with whom Craig A. Cellitti was on briefs for

William Limberopoulos.
Michael Kendall, Assistant United States Attorney, and Frank A.

Libby, Jr., Assistant United States Attorney, with whom A. John

Pappalardo, United States Attorney, was on briefs for United States of

America.

June 14, 1994

*Chief Judge Stephen Breyer heard oral argument in this matter and
participated in the drafting of the opinion, but did not participate
in issuance of the panel's opinion. The remaining two panelists
therefore issue this opinion pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 46(d).

2

SELYA, Circuit Judge. A jury convicted Nicholas and

William Limberopoulos, both pharmacists, of conspiring to

dispense, without proper prescriptions, approximately 18,000

pills, about 12,000 of which were Percodan or Percocet and about

4,000 of which were Valium. See 21 U.S.C. 841(a)(1)

(distributing or dispensing addictive drugs); 21 U.S.C.

843(a)(2) (false DEA numbers); 21 U.S.C. 843(a)(4)(A) (false

prescriptions); 21 U.S.C. 846 (conspiracy). At sentencing, the

district court departed from the specified guideline sentencing

ranges (GSRs) 235-293 months for Nicholas and 188-235 months

for his son, William and instead sentenced Nicholas to 36

months in prison and William to 30 months in prison. The court

departed because, in its view, the defendants' conduct fell

outside the "heartland" of the unlawful-drug-trafficking statute,

21 U.S.C. 841, but within the "heartland" of an unlawful-drug-

prescribing statute, 21 U.S.C. 843. Since this latter statute,

which is regulatory in nature, limits prison terms to a 48-month

maximum, far less than the maximum under section 841, the court

felt justified in departing downward.

Both sides appeal. We agree with the government that

the district court's "heartland" determinations rest upon an

erroneous conception of the unlawful-drug-prescribing statute.

We do not accept the defendants' arguments on this, or on any

other issue. Consequently, we affirm the defendants' convictions

and remand the case for resentencing. We specify that, even

though we find the court's given ground for departure legally

3

inadequate, the court remains free to consider departure if

other, legally adequate reasons exist.

I

Background

A.

The Trial

As is well known, the unlawful-drug-trafficking

statute, 21 U.S.C. 841, forbids, among other things, the

distribution, dispensing, or possession with intent to distribute

of highly addictive "Schedule II" drugs. Other less well-known

statutes apply to pharmacists, requiring that they maintain

inventory records, dispense drugs only in pursuance of proper

prescriptions, and keep copies of all such prescriptions, duly

canceled to prevent unauthorized reuse. See 21 U.S.C. 827-

830. What we have called the unlawful-drug-prescribing statute,

21 U.S.C. 843, makes it a crime, among other things, to violate

certain of these record-keeping requirements.

In this case, the government charged the defendants

both with violating the unlawful-drug-prescribing statute, 21

U.S.C. 843, and with conspiring to violate the unlawful-drug-

trafficking statute, 21 U.S.C. 841. It introduced evidence

that, in essence, showed the following:

1. In 1988 and again in 1989, Drug Enforcement
Administration (DEA) agents found that Limby's Pharmacy
in Lowell, Massachusetts had not kept inventory records
of its addictive drugs. The agents seized a group of
Limby's canceled prescriptions (written between 1986
and 1988) and concluded that they were fraudulent.

4

2. Seven physicians testified that they had not signed
their names to particular prescriptions, as the
pharmacy's records indicated. Some of these witnesses
pointed out that the prescriptions bore signatures or
customer names that seemed not only false, but
obviously so, as, for example, the customer name "Tin
Can" on a prescription form falsely bearing the name of
a Vietnamese physician. An eighth doctor had died
before the time of the purported issuance of
prescriptions bearing his name. Five of the
"recipients" listed on the prescriptions, according to
their own testimony or that of their relatives, had not
requested, or received, the drugs purportedly
prescribed.

3. A drug addict testified that he had often bought
addictive drugs at Limby's, without prescription,
between 1986 and 1987. He added that Limby's clerk,
from whom he bought the drugs, told him not to worry
about the fact that Nicholas Limberopoulos knew that
the clerk was selling him addictive drugs.

On the basis of this, and related, evidence, the jury convicted

Nicholas Limberopoulos, who owned Limby's Pharmacy and worked

there occasionally, of writing 13 false prescriptions.1 See 21

U.S.C. 843(a)(4)(A). It convicted his son, William, who worked

at Limby's regularly, of writing 39 other false prescriptions.

See id. It convicted William, but acquitted Nicholas, of using

false DEA numbers. See 21 U.S.C. 843(a)(2). And it convicted

both defendants of conspiring to distribute addictive drugs to

others. See 21 U.S.C. 841, 846.

B

Sentencing

At sentencing, the district court first calculated the

GSRs, properly using the June 15, 1988 version of the guidelines

1One of the counts of conviction has since been dismissed on
motion of the government.

5

(to which we shall refer throughout). The court referred to the

guideline applicable to a conspiracy to dispense Schedule II

drugs unlawfully, see U.S.S.G. 2D1.4 & App. A-19, as that

guideline instructs, found the weight of the various pills

involved, and converted these weights into an equivalent weight

in heroin. The court did so by aggregating the weight of all the

pills listed on the false prescriptions underlying the

substantive counts on which either Nicholas or William had been

convicted (as well as a few other pills listed on a small group

of related prescriptions). See U.S.S.G. 1B1.3(a)(2) & comment.

(2). For example, the jury found Nicholas responsible for 13

false prescriptions, which, taken together, accounted for the

dispensing of 275 grams of Percocet and 392.7 grams of Valium.

The jury found William responsible for 92 violations concerning

false prescriptions and DEA numbers, which, taken together,

involved 2145 grams of Percocet, 1720 grams of Percodan, and 50.5

grams of Valium. The guidelines specified that these amounts

(plus the weight of the few additional related pills) should be

treated as the equivalent of between 3 and 9.9 kilograms of

heroin, yielding a base offense level of 34. The court added two

more levels for each defendant's "abuse of a position of trust,"

U.S.S.G. 3B1.3, and it added two further levels for Nicholas's

"obstruction of justice." Id. 3C1.1. The result level 38

for Nicholas and level 36 for William produced GSRs for these

two first-time offenders of 235-293 months for Nicholas and 188-

235 months for William.

6

The lower court then departed downward from the GSRs

because it believed that the defendants' conduct amounted, not to

unlawful drug trafficking, but, rather, to the kind of

"regulatory" offense forbidden by the unlawful-drug-prescribing

statute, with its maximum penalty of 48 months in prison. The

court wrote:

[I]t is the case here that the object of the
conspiracy charged, the charged part of the
conspiracy, is dispensing drugs pursuant to
prescriptions not issued for [a] legitimate
medical purpose. That is also the essence of
the substantive offenses charged.

Under these circumstances, the mechanical
application of [the] guidelines with respect
to count 1 [drug trafficking] significantly,
significantly, overstates the seriousness of
the predicate and substantive offenses. This
case is not a typical drug conspiracy case.
Indeed, all of the substantive offenses are
violations of a regulatory statute [21 U.S.C.
843], and Congress's intent with respect
thereto was, in this case, overridden by the
use of sections 846 [the conspiracy statute]
and 841 [the drug trafficking statute] . . .
. Accordingly, I shall depart for the reasons
I have just mentioned.

This said, the court imposed a 36-month prison term on Nicholas

and a 30-month prison term on William. The government and the

defendants now cross-appeal.

II

The Government's Appeal

The government appeals the court's decision to depart

downward. It acknowledges that the district court has broad

power to depart from a properly calculated sentencing range in an

unusual case a case that lies outside the "heartland" of the

7

base guideline that would otherwise apply. See United States v.

Rivera, 994 F.2d 942, 947 (1st Cir. 1993); United States v. Diaz-

Villafane, 874 F.2d 43, 49 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 862

(1989); see also U.S.S.G. Ch. I, Pt. A, intro. comment. 4(b).

But the sentencing court must give its reason(s) for departing,

see 18 U.S.C. 3553(c)(2); and the government asks this court to

review the legal adequacy of those reasons, as well as the

reasonableness of the result. See Rivera, 994 F.2d at 950-52;

Diaz-Villafane, 874 F.2d at 50; see also 18 U.S.C. 3742(e)(3).

In particular, the government urges us to find that the district

court's reason for departing reflects a misunderstanding of the

basic aim that animates the unlawful-drug-prescribing statute.

The district court's reason for departing here is its

professed belief that defendants' conduct fell outside the

"heartland" of the strict unlawful-drug-trafficking statute, 21

U.S.C. 841, but within the "heartland" of the more lenient

unlawful-drug-prescribing statute, 21 U.S.C. 843. That is to

say, the court thought that the offenders' conduct, while

technically falling within a specific statute and guideline, in

reality more closely resembled conduct forbidden by a different

statute and guideline (as, for example, a technical tax law

conviction might involve conduct more appropriately described as

"insider trading"). And, for that reason, it concluded that

departure was appropriate.

The district court misunderstood the relationship

between the two relevant statutes the unlawful-drug-trafficking

8

statute, section 841, and the unlawful-drug-prescribing statute,

section 843 and therefore, misapplied its theory of departure

here. The court seemed to think that the former statute

primarily targets non-pharmacists (those, say, who sell illegal

drugs on the street), while the latter primarily targets

pharmacists selling drugs unlawfully without prescriptions in

their shops. For that reason, it felt that the defendants'

conduct more appropriately fell within the "heartland" of section

843, not section 841. Our examination of the history and use of

the two statutes, however, indicates that they basically make a

different distinction a distinction between unlawful drug

distribution on one hand, and unlawful record-keeping on the

other hand. Here, moreover, the defendants' conduct seems to

involve the former considerably more than the latter.

We begin the process of adding flesh to this barebones

legal conclusion about the interrelationship of the two statutes

by remarking the obvious: the unlawful-drug-trafficking statute,

21 U.S.C. 841, does not exempt pharmacists who sell narcotic

drugs without prescriptions, nor does it suggest that their

conduct is somehow less seriously wrong than the conduct of non-

pharmacist drug dealers. On the contrary, the statute applies to

the two groups' conduct in the same way. The statute's language

simply makes it a crime "knowingly or intentionally" to

"distribute or dispense" narcotic drugs. And this language is

reinforced by well-established case law making clear that the

statute applies to a pharmacist's (or physician's) drug-

9

dispensing activities so long as they fall outside the usual

course of professional practice. See United States v. Moore, 423

U.S. 122, 142 (1975); United States v. DeBoer, 966 F.2d 1066,

1068-69 (6th Cir. 1992); United States v. Hughes, 895 F.2d 1135,

1143 (6th Cir. 1990); United States v. Vamos, 797 F.2d 1146, 1152

(2d Cir. 1986), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 1036 (1987); United States

v. Norris, 780 F.2d 1207, 1209 (5th Cir. 1986); United States v.

Lawson, 682 F.2d 480, 482 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 991

(1982); United States v. Hayes, 595 F.2d 258, 260 (5th Cir.),

cert. denied, 444 U.S. 866 (1979); United States v. Kirk, 584

F.2d 773, 784 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 1048 (1978); see

also 21 C.F.R. 1306.04(a) (explicitly subjecting a pharmacist

to the penalties of section 841 if he knowingly fills a

prescription "not issued in the usual course of professional

treatment"); cf. 21 U.S.C. 822(b) (exempting pharmacists from

section 841 but only "to the extent authorized by their

registration").

This standard might mean that a drug-dispensing

pharmacist does not violate section 841 if he believes that a

customer (even a customer who lacks a valid prescription) needs

the drugs for legitimate medical treatment. Cf. Moore, 423 U.S.

at 138-39 (implicitly approving a jury instruction explaining

that a physician could be convicted if he knowingly distributed

controlled drugs "other than in good faith . . . in the usual

course of a professional practice"); United States v. Seelig, 622

F.2d 207, 213 (6th Cir.) (stating that section 841(a)(1) requires

10

proof beyond a reasonable doubt "that the drugs were distributed

outside the usual course of professional practice"), cert.

denied, 449 U.S. 869 (1980). It is certainly arguable that, at

the very least, that kind of "good faith" case would skirt

section 841's heartland. But if the drug-dispensing pharmacist

knows that a customer not only lacks a valid prescription but

also will not use the drugs for legitimate medical purposes, then

section 841 applies in full flower and treats the dispenser like

a pusher. See Moore, 423 U.S. at 142-43. Indeed, it is

difficult to find a relevant difference between a pharmacist who,

without proper prescriptions, knowingly supplies a drug addict or

trafficker with narcotics, and any other drug dealer who does the

same.

Another line of reasoning leads to the same conclusion.

The unlawful-drug-prescribing statute, 21 U.S.C. 843, is aimed

for the most part at a pharmacist's knowing failure to use and

maintain proper prescription forms, registration numbers, and

kindred records. Such a failure might, or might not, come

accompanied with the pharmacist's knowing sale of narcotics to

addicts or traffickers. The pharmacist, for example, simply

might have failed to report his drug supply properly, see, e.g.,

United States v. Sterber, 846 F.2d 842 (2d Cir. 1988); or he

might have acquired the narcotics improperly, see, e.g., United

States v. Pastor, 557 F.2d 930 (2d Cir. 1977); or, he might have

used an expired DEA registration number in filling a prescription

for a customer whom he believed legitimately needed the drugs for

11

medicinal purposes, see, e.g., United States v. Carranza, 632 F.

Supp. 1030 (S.D.N.Y. 1986). The provision's legislative history

indicates that Congress intended it chiefly to address a threat

to the integrity of the regulatory system, i.e., the system for

administrative control of the legitimate drug industry. See 116

Cong. Rec. 996-98 (1970) (statements of Sen. Dodd and Sen.

Griffin); see also Moore, 423 U.S. at 135. The statute's

comparatively low maximum penalty provision suggests the same.

Compare 21 U.S.C. 843(c) (48-month maximum) with id. 841(b)

(life imprisonment maximum).

Our search of the case law confirms the regulatory

thrust of section 843. Close perscrutation reveals that the

government has used section 843, in separate prosecutions, where

regulatory, not drug-trafficking, problems are at issue. See,

e.g., Sterber, 846 F.2d at 842; United States v. Cantor, Crim.

No. 91-00021, 1991 WL 161017 (E.D. Pa. Aug. 14, 1991); Carranza,

632 F. Supp. at 1031. The fact that the government sometimes

charges violations of both sections 841 and 843 in drug-

trafficking cases, see, e.g., Vamos, 797 F.2d at 1148; United

States v. Devous, 764 F.2d 1349, 1351 (10th Cir. 1985); United

States v. Goldfine, 538 F.2d 815,817 (9th Cir. 1976), does not

show the contrary, for in such instances, if the same conduct is

involved, section 843 would be a lesser included offense.

In the case before us, the government claimed that the

defendants systematically and knowingly sold narcotic drugs,

without proper prescriptions, to drug addicts and drug dealers

12

whom they knew had no legitimate medical need for the drugs. The

court instructed the jury that it could acquit the defendants if

it found that they had acted in "good faith," but the jury

declined to do so; it thereby accepted the government's claims

that the defendants acted with knowledge and evil intent. For

this reason, one cannot easily characterize their conduct as

involving, simply or only, the kind of record-keeping violations

at which section 843 seems basically aimed, and which appear to

provide the rationale for its 48-month ceiling on imprisonment.

Thus, the district court's view that the defendants' conduct fell

within the "heartland" of section 843, but not of section 841,

reflects a misunderstanding of the basic objectives of the two

statutes and their interplay.2 That being so, we must set aside

the defendants' sentences and return the case for resentencing.

2Our determination that the defendants' conduct, as charged and
proven, fell within the "heartland" of section 841 bears a strong
analytical resemblance to our recent decision in United States v.

LeBlanc, F.3d , (1st Cir. 1994) [No. 93-1998]. There, the

district court, confronted with bookmakers who had laundered
gambling proceeds and who stood convicted of violating, inter

alia, 18 U.S.C. 1956-1957 (proscribing "structuring" of

certain monetary transactions), departed downward to make the
sentences commensurate with the relatively modest GSR that
customarily characterized gambling offenses (rather than the
relatively steep GSR that customarily characterized money
laundering offenses). The court premised the departure on the
ground that the money laundering offenses "stem[med] from the
prior specified unlawful activity of operating an illegal
gambling business," and, therefore, fell "outside . . . the
'heartland' of the money laundering guidelines." Id. at

[slip op. at 11]. We reversed, holding that, since the
proscribed conduct "not only comes within the plain meaning of
[the anti-structuring statute], but also was within the full
contemplation of Congress when it enacted that statute," id. at

[slip op. at 15], the court's stated ground of departure
could not be upheld, id. at 16-17. So it is here.

13

See Rivera, 994 F.2d at 951 (explaining that an appellate court

will review a purely legal determination without deference to the

district court).

Counsel for the defendants have argued that there are

several other special features of this case that make departure

appropriate. We express no view about whether that is, or is

not, so. Departure decisions are for the sentencing court in the

first instance. On remand, the district court remains free to

consider departure for other reasons. See id. at 956.

III

Nicholas Limberopoulos's Appeal

In Nicholas Limberopoulos's appeal, he claims primarily

that the district court did not correctly calculate the GSR (from

which it then departed). We find no legal error in the

challenged calculations.

1. The Number of Pills. The guideline applicable to

drug trafficking conspiracies3 relates base offense levels to

the amount of "heroin-equivalent" drug involved in the

conspiracy. See U.S.S.G. 2D1.1 (Drug Quantity Table). The

amount of heroin-equivalent drug depends upon the total weight of

the Percodan, Percocet, and other pills, which is then converted

into heroin equivalents. See, id., comment. (n.10) (Drug

3Technically, there are two statutes involved in the count of
conviction here. 21 U.S.C. 846 outlaws conspiracies to violate
drug trafficking laws, while 21 U.S.C. 841 is the particular
drug trafficking law that these defendants allegedly conspired to
violate. For ease in reference, we shall refer to the conspiracy
as a "section 841 conspiracy."

14

Equivalency Table). Recognizing that, in this instance, the

total weight of the pills depends upon the total number of pills

for which each defendant is responsible, Nicholas Limberopoulos

argues that the district court wrongly attributed to him pills

for which William, not he, should have been held accountable. He

rests this conclusion on the premise that the jury might have

thought that he was involved in a conspiracy not with William,

but with others; and that, if the jury did think so, it would

also have thought that William's pills had nothing to do with the

conspiracy underbracing Nicholas's conviction.

The problem with this thesis is that the guidelines

normally leave to the sentencing judge, not the jury, the

determination of the "conduct" that is "relevant" to sentencing.

See U.S.S.G. 6A1.3. Nothing the jury decided prevented the

judge from finding a conspiracy between Nicholas and William.

Furthermore, the evidence to support a finding of such a

conspiracy, whether by judge or jury, is ample.

The evidence showed, for example, that Nicholas owned

Limby's Pharmacy. He worked there on weekends and some weekdays.

William, his son, worked there most weekdays and occasionally on

weekends. The only other employee involved in drug-dispensing

was a clerk. The unlawful sales involved a large number of pills

and took place at frequent intervals over a period of two years.

The clerk told a drug-addict customer (who had obvious physical

symptoms of drug withdrawal) that it did not matter if Nicholas

knew that the clerk was selling drugs to the addict without a

15

proper prescription. From this evidence the court (and the jury,

too) might reasonably have concluded that Nicholas and William

each knew the other was dispensing drugs unlawfully, and that

each agreed to help the other do so through the ownership and

operation of the pharmacy, the maintenance of false records, and

the like. Such an implicit agreement amounts to a conspiracy.

See, e.g., Direct Sales Co. v. United States, 319 U.S. 703, 714

(1943). The court, therefore, could reasonably attribute to

Nicholas the pills that William sold, having found them to be

"part of the same . . . common scheme or plan." U.S.S.G.

1B1.3(a)(2). By like token, the court could attribute to

Nicholas pills that William improperly dispensed prior to

February 10, 1987 (the earliest date of a prescription that

Nicholas canceled).

2. The Weight. Nicholas also argues that the court

erred in calculating drug weight by, in effect, weighing the

entire pill, and, thus, counting the weight of both narcotic and

nonnarcotic ingredients (increasing the weight, say, of a single

Percocet pill from roughly five one-thousandths to five-tenths of

a gram). In doing so, however, the court simply followed the

instructions of the Sentencing Commission, which tells judges

that the

scale amounts for all controlled substances
refer to the total weight of the controlled
substance. Consistent with the provisions of
the Anti-Drug Abuse Act, if any mixture of a
compound contains any detectable amount of a
controlled substance, the entire amount of
the mixture or compound shall be considered
in measuring the quantity.

16

U.S.S.G. 2D1.1 (Drug Quantity Table, n.*).

All seven circuits that have considered the matter have

held that this language (or the language of a substantially

similar amended version of the note, see id. (Nov. 1989)), means

what it says, namely, that the sentencing court must include the

weight of an entire pharmaceutical pill and not just the weight

of the active narcotic ingredients. See United States v.

Crowell, 9 F.3d 1452, 1454 (9th Cir. 1993); United States v.

Young, 992 F.2d 207, 209 (8th Cir. 1993); United States v.

Blythe, 944 F.2d 356, 362 (7th Cir. 1991); United States v.

Shabazz, 933 F.2d 1029, 1032-33 (D.C. Cir.), cert. denied, 112 S.

Ct. 431 (1991); United States v. Lazarchik, 924 F.2d 211, 214

(11th Cir.), cert. denied, 112 S. Ct. 96 (1991); United States v.

Meitinger, 901 F.2d 27, 29 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 985

(1990); United States v. Bayerle, 898 F.2d 28, 31 (4th Cir.

1989), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 819 (1990); United States v.

Gurgiolo, 894 F.2d 56, 61 (3d Cir. 1990). We agree with this

authority.

The defendants sing one esoteric tune which, they tell

us, the other courts did not fully consider. They point out that

the instruction we have quoted prefaces its statement with the

words "[c]onsistent with the provisions of the Anti-Drug Abuse

Act." They then assert that that Act specifies weighing the

"entire mixture or compound" for street drugs, such as heroin,

but says nothing about pharmaceutical drugs. The defendants add

that the rationale the Supreme Court has identified as underlying

17

the use of gross, as opposed to net, weights namely,

maintaining serious punishment for street pushers of diluted

mixtures, see Chapman v. United States, 111 S. Ct. 1919, 1927

(1991) does not make sense, and, hence, should not apply, when

pharmaceutical drugs are at issue.

The chief problem with this construct is that it does

not show an inconsistency between the Act and the Sentencing

Commission's instruction. The Act does not forbid use of gross

pharmaceutical drug weights as a way to measure just how many

pills, say of Percodan, warrant the same punishment as a given

amount of heroin. Nor have defendants convinced us that it is

irrational to tie these punishment equivalencies to gross pill

weight, rather than applying some mechanical operation to net

weight (say, multiplying active ingredient weight by 100) and

thereby reaching approximately the same punishment results.4

Nor, finally, is it clear to us what the use of gross weight for

purposes of conversion has to do with the existence, or

nonexistence, of street pushers of pharmaceutical drugs.

IV

William Limberopoulos's Appeal

William's appeal repeats various of Nicholas's

arguments, which we reject for reasons previously stated.

William also makes two fresh arguments. First, he points to

Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123 (1968), a case in which the

4Other circuits have found this approach to be rational and,
consequently, have rejected similar importunings. See, e.g.,

Crowell, 9 F.3d at 1454; Shabazz, 933 F.2d at 1036-37.

18

Court held that admission of incriminating statements made out-

of-court by a nontestifying codefendant (unavailable for cross-

examination) entitled the defendant to a new, and separate,

trial. He then claims that three such pieces of evidence were

admitted against him here, namely, (1) portions of Nicholas's

grand jury testimony, (2) a false exculpatory statement made by

Nicholas to his attorney, and (3) Nicholas's action in giving up

Limby's DEA license, which in William's view amounted to an

admission of guilt.

It is unclear whether William objected to this evidence

at the time of its admission (though he did move for a severance

with regard to the grand jury testimony before trial). We have

nonetheless reviewed the record before us to determine whether

this evidence is of the sort to which Bruton applies, that is,

evidence that has the "'powerfully incriminating' effect of one

accomplice pointing the finger directly at another, without

subjecting himself to cross-examination." United States v.

DiGregorio, 605 F.2d 1184, 1190 (1st Cir.) (quoting Bruton, 391

U.S. at 135), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 937 (1979); see also United

States v. Nason, 9 F.3d 155, 160 (1st Cir. 1993), cert. denied,

114 S. Ct. 1331 (1994); United States v. Barnett, 989 F.2d 546,

558 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, 114 S. Ct. 148 (1993). We conclude

that it is not.

The grand jury testimony that the government read at

trial does not implicate William. The remaining portions of that

testimony suggest that some of the false prescriptions may have

19

been in William's handwriting, but they add little to other

evidence on this point. Similarly, Nicholas's exculpatory

statements to his lawyer and his surrender of Limby's license do

not directly show William's guilt. Rather, their relevance in

this respect requires a considerable chain of subsidiary

inferences (i.e., that the exculpatory statement was an obvious

attempt at deceit and coverup, or the surrender of the license a

kind of confession, both showing Nicholas's consciousness of his

own guilt, which knowledge, through association, implies

William's guilt as well). Such out-of-court statements neither

name nor impugn William directly, and thus cannot be supposed to

have implanted in the jurors' minds the kinds of powerfully

incriminating impressions against which Bruton protects. See

Richardson v. Marsh, 481 U.S. 200, 208-11 (1986) (explaining that

Bruton applies to evidence incriminating on its face, not to

inferential incrimination, which can be cured by limiting

instructions); cf. DiGregorio, 605 F.2d at 1190 (ruling the

unadorned fact that a codefendant's out-of-court admission tended

to corroborate the government's case against the defendant to be

insufficient to trigger Bruton). Again, in context, this out-of-

court evidence is weak, adding little, if anything, to the weight

of the remaining evidence. Nor can we find anything else about

the admission of this evidence that deprived William of a fair

trial, "resulting in a miscarriage of justice." United States v.

McLaughlin, 957 F.2d 12, 18 (1st Cir. 1992) (citation omitted).

Consequently, the law does not require relief on this ground.

20

Second, William complains that the sentencing court

should have ordered a mental examination under 18 U.S.C.

3552(c). That provision, however, says that a district court

"may" order a psychological examination of the defendant if it

"desires more information than is otherwise available to it as a

basis for determining the mental condition of the defendant."

Id. (emphasis supplied). In this case, the court was keenly

aware of William's psychological difficulties. The records he

placed before the district judge showed a history of drug and

alcohol abuse as well as personality disorders, such as

narcissism. The judge could reasonably have concluded that the

first set of matters was not directly related to the sentencing

decision, see U.S.S.G. 5H1.4, p.s., while a mental examination

would add little or nothing of value to what it already knew

about the second. In our view, the court did not exceed its

discretionary authority to decide not to order the examination.5

V

Conclusion

We need go no further. Though the combination

comprises a bitter pill, defendants' convictions appear lawful,

but their reduced sentences appear to have been inappropriately

conceived. Consequently, for the reasons we have discussed, we

affirm the convictions but vacate the defendants' sentences. We

5We note, moreover, that William does not claim financial
inability to arrange for such an examination at his own expense.
Cf. 18 U.S.C. 3006A(e)(1) (instructing courts to appoint

"investigative, expert, or other services" where such services
are necessary and the defendant cannot otherwise afford them).

21

remand the matter to the district court for resentencing

consistent with this opinion.

So ordered.

22