United States v. Cacace

289 F. App'x 440
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Second Circuit
DecidedAugust 6, 2008
DocketNo. 04-6688-cr
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 289 F. App'x 440 (United States v. Cacace) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Second 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. Cacace, 289 F. App'x 440 (2d Cir. 2008).

Opinion

SUMMARY ORDER

Defendant-appellant Joel Cacace, Sr. (“Cacace”) appeals from a judgment convicting him, upon his guilty plea, of racketeering in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1962 and sentencing him to a term of imprisonment of 240 months, five years of supervised release, restitution in the amount of $21,292, and a special assessment of $100. On appeal, Cacace challenges his sentence on all but the term of imprisonment. We assume the parties’ familiarity with the facts and procedural history of the case.

A. Special Assessment

As an initial matter, Cacace claims — and the government does not dispute — that the district court erred in ordering a special assessment of $100. Under the law governing Cacace’s conviction, i.e., the law as it existed on November 1, 1988, the maximum special assessment was $50. See 18 U.S.C. § 3018(a)(2)(A) (1988). Although the law was amended to raise the special assessment to $100 in 1996, the Constitution’s ex post facto clause prohibits retroactive application of this amendment. See United States v. Labeille-Soto, 163 F.3d 93, 102 (2d Cir.1998). The judgment must therefore be corrected to reduce the special assessment to $50.

B. Restitution

Cacace also claims that the portion of his sentence providing for the payment of $21,292 in restitution to the family of one of the victims of his crime should be vacated because Cacace was not advised of the potential for restitution by the district court during the plea colloquy under Fed. R.Crim.P. 11 or in his plea agreement. Contrary to Cacace’s assertion on appeal, our review of the record reveals that neither Cacace nor his trial counsel objected to the Probation Department’s recommendation of this restitution and did not object to it at the time of sentencing. We thus review his restitution challenge for plain error, and find none here. See United States v. Flaharty, 295 F.3d 182, 195 (2d Cir.2002) (explaining that plain-error standard requires a defendant to demonstrate, inter alia, “that (1) there was error, (2) the error was ‘plain,’ [and] (3) the error prejudicially affected his ‘substantial rights.’ ” (quoting United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 732, 113 S.Ct. 1770, 123 L.Ed.2d 508 (1993))).

At the threshold, there is no dispute that the district court was statutorily empowered to order the restitution at issue. In order to demonstrate that a Rule 11 error affected a defendant’s “substantial rights” for purposes of plain-error review, he must show “a reasonable probability that, but for the error, he would not have entered the plea.” United States v. Dominguez Benitez, 542 U.S. 74, 83, 124 S.Ct. 2333, 159 L.Ed.2d 157 (2004); accord United States v. Vaval, 404 F.3d 144, 151 (2d Cir.2005). Cacace has not met this bur[442]*442den. To begin with, he was put on notice in the Probation Department’s presentence report that the at-issue restitution would be sought, but did not indicate any desire to withdraw from his plea on this basis. See Vaval, 404 F.3d at 152 (<rWhere a defendant, before sentencing, learns of information erroneously omitted in violation of Rule 11 but fails to attempt to withdraw his plea based on that violation, there can be no reasonable probability that, but for the [Rule 11 violation], he would not have entered the plea, and the plain error standard is not met.” (internal quotation marks omitted)). Moreover, because Cacace was on notice both in the plea agreement and from the plea colloquy that he faced a potential fine of up to $250,000, he is hard pressed to claim that the potential of $21,292 in restitution would have been a deal breaker had he known about it at the time of his plea. See id. (explaining that a defendant who is put on notice that he may be fined in an amount in excess of the challenged restitution generally will be unable to demonstrate that he would not have pled guilty had he known about the possibility of restitution).

Cacace’s alternative challenge to the restitution order, i.e., that it was not contemplated in his plea agreement, is unavailing. Although Cacace’s plea agreement did not indicate that restitution might be part of his sentence, he has not indicated any desire to withdraw from the plea, and he is not entitled to specific performance of the plea agreement. See United States v. Renaud, 999 F.2d 622, 625 (2d Cir.1993). Specific performance may be available where the prosecutor, as the contracting party, breaches a plea agreement. See Mabry v. Johnson, 467 U.S. 504, 509, 104 S.Ct. 2543, 81 L.Ed.2d 437 (1984). But here there is no such allegation, and there is no evidence in the record to support a claim of prosecutorial breach. Cf. United States v. Amico, 416 F.3d 163, 166-68 (2d Cir.2005) (holding that prosecutors did not breach plea agreement where Probation Department’s presentence report made recommendation at odds with terms of the agreement and prosecutor did not advocate in favor of adopting the report’s recommendation). Thus, the error — if any— of imposing restitution rests with the district court.1 However, as we explained in Renaud, specific performance of a plea agreement is not an available remedy when — in the absence of prosecutorial breach — the district court imposes a sentence beyond the scope specified in a plea agreement. Renaud, 999 F.2d at 625. Cacace’s reliance on United States v. Gottesman, 122 F.3d 150 (2d Cir.1997) to argue otherwise is entirely misplaced. Unlike in Gottesman, where the terms of the plea agreement were binding on the court because the governing statute made it so, see 18 U.S.C. § 3663(a)(3), the restitution statute at issue in the case before us does not make court-ordered restitution contingent on the parties’ agreement, see 18 U.S.C. § 3663(a)(1).

C. Supervised Release

Finally, Cacace claims that the portion of his sentence providing for five years of supervised release should be vacated because he had been advised by the district court during the Rule 11 plea colloquy and his plea agreement that the maximum statutory term of supervised release [443]*443was three years. These challenges fail for many of the reasons just discussed.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
289 F. App'x 440, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-cacace-ca2-2008.