United States v. Alter

825 F. Supp. 550, 1993 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7195, 1993 WL 189019
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. New York
DecidedMay 26, 1993
DocketNo. 90 CR. 397 (KC)
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 825 F. Supp. 550 (United States v. Alter) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Alter, 825 F. Supp. 550, 1993 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7195, 1993 WL 189019 (S.D.N.Y. 1993).

Opinion

OPINION & ORDER

CONBOY, District Judge:

This ease is before the Court for resen-tence, on remand from the Court of Appeals. We explicitly incorporate by reference in its entirety our previous opinion and order, reported at 788 F.Supp. 756 (S.D.N.Y.1992).

There, we concluded, that because there were several victims of the defendant’s misconduct, in all instances' derived from his abuse of the warder-inmate relationship, the only applicable grouping guideline is § 3D1.2(d), which states that grouping should occur when the offense level is determined largely upon a discrete measure of aggregate harm or the offense is ongoing and the offense guideline is written to cover the misconduct. Since the bribery guideline was not written to cover abuse of the warder-inmate relationship, we determined that no grouping analysis was necessary. Indeed, statutory rape of an inmate, conduct analogous to abuse of the warder-inmate relation ship found here, is explicitly excluded as groupable behavior under § 3D1.2(d). In light of this, and recent refinements of guidelines application doctrine previously announced in United States v. Kim, 896 F.2d 678, 683-85 (2d Cir.1990), we dispensed with any multicount analysis in this highly idiosyncratic case as unnecessary.

In United States v. Alter, 985 F.2d 105 (2d Cir.1993) [hereinafter, “Opinion”], the Court of Appeals held that, having drawn analogies between- Alter’s criminal acts and several federal offenses, this Court was obliged initially to engage in the multi-count analysis of the Sentencing Guidelines, using the analogous offenses that were found by this Court to most accurately capture'Alter’s criminal conduct towards Donald V., Gary 0., and Jose L. Opinion at 108. As calculated by the Court of Appeals, a multi-count analysis would result in an offense level increase (above the base offense level of 10) of, at most, four levels for these acts. Opinion at 108. The Court of Appeals stated that this four-level increase, when augmented by the three-level increase for the disruption of Manhattan House and the federal corrections system, would yield an offense level of 17. The resulting sentencing range would be 24-30 months. Opinion at 108.

The Court of Appeal's made clear, however, that this should not be construed as a holding that the appropriate sentence for Alter must lie within the 24-30 month range.. The district court was explicitly told that, upon remand, it retained broad discretion to depart upwards beyond the seven levels dictated by application of the grouping rules to the analogous offenses identified.

“Such further departures,” the Court of Appeals stated, “are specifically contemplated in [United States v.] Kim." Quoting Kim, the Court noted:

If the offense of conviction or the other acts of misconduct warranting a departure are accompanied by aggravating factors not adequately considered by the Commission in setting the guideline ranges for the offense of conviction or various acts of misconduct considered under ■ the multi-count analysis, a departure beyond the aggregate guideline range would still be available despite the use of multi-count analysis. ■

Opinion at 108 (quoting United States v. Kim, supra at 685).

[552]*552The Court of Appeals further stated that “And, of course, the district judge remains free to reevaluate all aspects of the sentencing that were not ruled on in this appeal.” Opinion at 108.

The multi-count analysis is included in the Sentencing Guidelines to guide district courts in sentencing defendants who have been convicted of multiple offenses. See United States ■ Sentencing Guidelines (“U.S.S.G.”) §§ 3D1.1-1.5, Introductory Commentary. In the context of upward departures, the purpose of engaging in the multi-count analysis is to protect a defendant from'receiving a harsher sentence than the defendant would have received if he had actually been convicted of the conduct that formed the basis for the upward departure. Opinion at 108. In this case, the Court has held that the conduct upon which its upward departures were based' — -i.e., the conduct apart from the bribery of Donald V. to which Alter pleaded gtiilty — was Alter’s provision of drugs to that resident and his misconduct with respect to Gary O. and Jose L. Once the most analogous federal offenses to these acts of misconduct- are thus identified, the Court may then undertake the first step, of its measurement of any upward departure. That step is the application of the Sentencing Guidelines grouping rules and its multi-count analysis to the conduct upon which an upward departure may be based, so as to deter.mine what sentence would be mandated by the grouping rules had the misconduct found by the Court actually resulted in convictions. See U.S.S.G. §§ 3D1.1-3D1.5

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Related

United States v. Bertoli
854 F. Supp. 975 (D. New Jersey, 1994)
United States v. Alter
17 F.3d 391 (Second Circuit, 1993)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
825 F. Supp. 550, 1993 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7195, 1993 WL 189019, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-alter-nysd-1993.