United States v. Carrington

57 F. Supp. 2d 345, 1999 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 10385, 1999 WL 494013
CourtDistrict Court, W.D. Virginia
DecidedJuly 8, 1999
DocketCRIM. A. 98-0037-C
StatusPublished

This text of 57 F. Supp. 2d 345 (United States v. Carrington) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, W.D. Virginia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Carrington, 57 F. Supp. 2d 345, 1999 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 10385, 1999 WL 494013 (W.D. Va. 1999).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION

MICHAEL, Senior District Judge.

On May 10, 1999, the court granted, in part, the May 5, 1999 Motion of the United States insofar as it requested a hearing on the issues previously decided by the court in its April 27, 1999 order. At the hearing on May 12,1999, the court heard argument from counsel for the government and counsel for defendant on the applicability of U.S. Sentencing Guidelines § 2D1.1(d)(1) to this defendant. In addition, the court established a schedule for the filing of supplemental briefs on the issue. The court received the supplemental briefs and considered them along with the original objection to the presentence report (“PSR”) filed by the United States on April 6, 1999, the April 12, 1999 motion by defendant to limit sentencing issues, the arguments of counsel and the relevant law. Having thoroughly considered the issue, the court reaffirms its April 27, 1999 order and declines to exercise its discretion to hear additional evidence at sentencing in support of the United States’ argument that application of section 2D1.1(d)(1) of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines is warranted in this case.

I.

Defendant Carrington was convicted on February 26,1999, on the only count of the indictment which charged him: Count I, conspiracy to distribute crack cocaine. The conviction was based on a jury verdict of guilty after a five-day trial involving defendant Carrington and four other defendants named in the indictment.

On April 27, 1999, the court entered its order overruling the United States’ objection to the PSR and granting the defendant’s motion to limit sentencing issues to the cocaine conspiracy charged in the indictment, excluding consideration as a sentencing factor of potential evidence that .Carrington murdered Eugene Siler. Although the Government’s Motion for Reconsideration mistakenly referred to the court’s order as being entered April 17, 1999, in response to the April 12, 1999 motion of defendant Carrington, the court actually waited until April 27, 1999, to rule on the April 12 motion of the defendant, allowing over two weeks for a response *347 from the United States. 1 The court considered the arguments made by the United States in its April 6 Objection to the PSR to be sufficient to state its opposition to the April 12 motion of the defendant. 2

The court’s April 27, 1999 order took into consideration all the legal authorities cited and arguments made by counsel in their respective motions. In addition, the court drew on its familiarity with the evidence in this case, gained by presiding at the five-day trial in February. Furthermore, the court was already familiar with similar arguments on the applicability of the murder evidence in this drug conspiracy case because it previously considered both oral and written argument on that issue at the scheduled pretrial conference, at an impromptu pretrial conference held the morning trial was set to begin, and again at a conference held midway through the trial upon motion of the United States for reconsideration of the court’s previous ruling excluding the murder evidence.

II.

The United States objects to the PSR for its failure to mention the cross reference found in the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines at § 2D1.1(d)(1): “If a victim was killed in circumstances that would constitute murder under 18 U.S.C. § 1111 had such killing taken place within the territorial or maritime jurisdiction of the United States, apply § 2A1.1 (First Degree Murder).” Section 2A1.1, in turn, provides the base offense level for first degree murder is 43, which leads to a mandatory life sentence. The elements of first degree murder, set forth at 18 U.S.C. § 1111, include “malice aforethought,” or premeditation:

(a) Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought. Every murder perpetrated by poison, lying in wait, or any other kind of willful, deliberate, malicious, and premeditated killing; or committed in the perpetration of, or attempt to perpetrate, any arson, escape, murder, kidnaping, treason, espionage, sabotage, aggravated sexual abuse or sexual abuse, burglary, or robbery; or perpetrated from a premeditated design unlawfully and maliciously to effect the death of any human being other than him who is killed, is murder in the first degree.
Any other murder is murder in the second degree.
(b) Within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States, Whoever is guilty of murder in the first degree shall by punished by death or by imprisonment for life;
Whoever is guilty of murder in the second degree shall be imprisoned for any term of years or for life.

18 U.S.C. § 1111.

In the particular factual situation of this case, the application of the Guidelines, as contended for by the government, produces an anomalous result. Where the indictment charges no felonious assault and little evidence, some of doubtful credibility, exists to support the allegation of murder, the Guidelines produce the result where the defendant is in effect convicted of murder in the first degree without the right of proceeding under a charging indictment, without jury protection, and without proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Obviously, while this result is one of effect, rather than one of direct consequence, the difference between the application under the Guidelines and a conviction of first degree murder is nonetheless nonexistent. In both instances, the mandatory result is *348 life imprisonment. While prosecution and conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 1111(b) provided for a death penalty or imprisonment for life, it is problematic whether a death penalty would be sought in such a prosecution. It is not problematic that the alternative punishment is imprisonment for life. Thus, whether by separate prosecution under the statute, or application of the Guidelines as sought by the government, the result is a mandatory life sentence, the only difference being the unlikely pursuit of the maximum penalty of death.

The factual differences in this case establish stark contrast to cases in which Section 2A1.1 has been applied, as is set out fully infra. In each of those cases there has been strong and direct proof of the actions of the defendant in bringing about the premeditated killing of another. This court has found no case which has a comparable fact pattern to this case. The court has no argument to the proposition that "relevant conduct" can and should be considered in determining an appropriate sentence for a particular defendant. Where someone has been convicted of a drug conspiracy count, and relevant conduct brought forward relates to individual sales of drugs, the court has no apprehension about applying the relevant conduct guidelines.

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Bluebook (online)
57 F. Supp. 2d 345, 1999 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 10385, 1999 WL 494013, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-carrington-vawd-1999.