United States v. Bradley Jay Montgomery

38 F.3d 1219, 1994 U.S. App. LEXIS 36912
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedOctober 19, 1994
Docket94-10262
StatusPublished

This text of 38 F.3d 1219 (United States v. Bradley Jay Montgomery) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Bradley Jay Montgomery, 38 F.3d 1219, 1994 U.S. App. LEXIS 36912 (9th Cir. 1994).

Opinion

38 F.3d 1219
NOTICE: Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3 provides that dispositions other than opinions or orders designated for publication are not precedential and should not be cited except when relevant under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, or collateral estoppel.

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
Bradley Jay MONTGOMERY, Defendant-Appellant.

Nos. 94-10262 to 94-10264, and 94-10327.

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted Oct. 3, 1994.
Decided Oct. 19, 1994.

Before: PREGERSON and WIGGINS, Circuit Judges, and LEW,* District Judge.

MEMORANDUM**

OVERVIEW

Appellant Bradley Jay Montgomery appeals his concurrent sentences imposed under U.S.S.G. Sec. 5G1.3(b) and the Arizona U.S. District Court's denial of his Fed.R.Crim.P. Rule 35(c) motion to correct sentence. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1291 and Rule 4(a) of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure. We reverse and remand for resentencing.

BACKGROUND

Between November 30, 1991, and March 7, 1992, Appellant Bradley Jay Montgomery stole mail from rural mail boxes in Lexington, Kentucky. The stolen mail included personal checks, credit cards, blank pre-printed checks and other banking information. Montgomery took the stolen mail with him when he traveled to Arizona in March 1992.

From March 19, 1992 to April 8, 1992, Montgomery stole mail in Arizona and, with the mail previously stolen in Kentucky, Montgomery defrauded financial institutions in Arizona. To perpetuate fraud, Montgomery would fill out pre-printed blank checks, deposit them in various Arizona bank accounts and then withdraw some or all of the funds he had deposited earlier, converting them for his personal use.

In April 1992, while Montgomery was traveling through Texas on his way back to Kentucky, he was pulled over by local authorities. Upon checking, the authorities discovered that Montgomery had an outstanding Texas state warrant for violation of probation. The authorities also discovered in Montgomery's car numerous personal checks deposited into checking accounts belonging to other individuals, and mail with Kentucky addresses.

Montgomery was prosecuted in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas for possession of stolen mail. He received a 24-month federal sentence which he began serving in a federal prison in Texas on September 18, 1992. The 24-month sentence was at the high end of the sentencing range under the Sentencing Guidelines.

Following his conviction in Texas, Montgomery initiated contact with United States postal inspectors in Kentucky and Arizona to inform them of his other stolen mail activities in their jurisdictions.

Based on these communications, Montgomery was indicted on July 7, 1993 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona on eleven counts of bank larceny in violation of 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2113(b) and ten counts of bank fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1344(1). These offenses stemmed from his deposits and withdrawals using the pre-printed blank checks and other banking information which Montgomery had stolen from the mail in Kentucky and Arizona.

On August 31, 1993, Montgomery filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus ad prosequendum in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona. The petition was granted by the Arizona U.S. District Court and Montgomery was transferred from the federal prison in Texas to stand trial in the Arizona U.S. District Court on the bank fraud and bank larceny charges.

On September 22, 1993, Montgomery was arraigned in U.S. District Court in Arizona where he entered a plea of not guilty.

At about the same time, federal prosecutors in Kentucky were preparing to charge Montgomery with theft of stolen mail in violation of 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1708, and credit card fraud for using credit cards stolen from the mail in violation of 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1029(a)(2). On January 13, 1994, Montgomery filed a Rule 20 Consent to Transfer Case for Plea and Sentence from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky to the U.S. District Court in Arizona. Montgomery agreed to plead guilty in Arizona to the Kentucky federal charges, waive his right to trial in Kentucky, and have the disposition of the Kentucky federal charges take place in the Arizona U.S. District Court.

On February 28, 1994, Montgomery entered into separate plea agreements with federal prosecutors in Kentucky and Arizona on the federal charges pending in those states. As part of his plea agreement with the U.S. Attorney in Arizona, Montgomery agreed to change his plea to guilty to reduced charges. In his separate plea agreement with the U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Kentucky, and pursuant to Rule 20, Montgomery pled guilty to both counts of an information filed in the Eastern District of Kentucky. As part of both plea agreements, Montgomery waived his right to appeal his sentences under 18 U.S.C. Sec. 3742.

Montgomery was sentenced in Arizona U.S. District Court on May 9, 1994. At the time of Montgomery's sentencing, the Sentencing Guidelines range for the sum total of federal charges against Montgomery in Texas, Arizona, and Kentucky was 24 to 30 months.1 The Arizona U.S. District Court sentenced Montgomery under U.S.S.G. Sec. 5G1.3(b) to 24 months to run concurrently on all charges in the Arizona and Kentucky plea agreements. The District Court stated in the judgment order that the Arizona/Kentucky concurrent federal sentences were to run concurrently with the previously imposed 24-month federal sentence Montgomery had received in Texas.

At the time of Montgomery's sentencing in Arizona, he had already served 16 of the 24 months on the Texas sentence. The Bureau of Prisons, however, would not credit Montgomery's 16-months time served in the federal prison in Texas against the 24-month Arizona/Kentucky concurrent sentences because the Bureau of Prisons applies a concurrent sentence only prospectively.2 Thus, Montgomery's 24-month Arizona/Kentucky sentences could be served concurrently with only the 8 remaining months on the Texas sentence. Consequently, Montgomery's two sentences in fact required 40 months imprisonment--16 months already served in Texas, plus the 24-month Arizona/Kentucky concurrent sentences to run concurrently with the remaining 8 months of the Texas sentence. When Montgomery learned that the Bureau of Prisons would not credit the 16 months he had already served to the 24-month Arizona/Kentucky sentences, he filed a motion to correct sentence under Rule 35(c) Fed.R.Crim.P. in the U.S. District Court in Arizona.

At the Rule 35 hearing on May 16, 1994, the Arizona U.S. District Court stated it would consider the Sentencing Guidelines provisions which Montgomery proffered to demonstrate how the District Court should correct Montgomery's sentences. However, the District Court indicated that its inclination was to deny the motion to correct his 24-month Arizona/Kentucky concurrent sentences.3

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38 F.3d 1219, 1994 U.S. App. LEXIS 36912, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-bradley-jay-montgomery-ca9-1994.