United States v. Townsend

762 F.3d 641, 2014 WL 3906504
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedSeptember 23, 2014
DocketNo. 13-2677
StatusPublished
Cited by18 cases

This text of 762 F.3d 641 (United States v. Townsend) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Seventh 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. Townsend, 762 F.3d 641, 2014 WL 3906504 (7th Cir. 2014).

Opinion

SYKES, Circuit Judge.

Louis Townsend pleaded guilty to possessing a firearm as a felon and was sentenced to 71 months in prison. He challenges his sentence on several grounds, but the government questions whether the appeal is timely. Townsend’s deadline for filing a notice of appeal was July 22, 2013. On July 17 he filed a motion titled “Defendant Louis Townsend’s Motion to Reconsider His Sentence.” By statute a motion for sentence modification must be brought under Rule 35 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, and motions under that rule don’t extend the time for filing an appeal. So the due date for Townsend’s appeal remained unchanged notwithstanding the motion.

The district court denied reconsideration on July 19. Townsend filed his notice of appeal on July 30. That was eight days too late, so we dismiss the appeal as untimely.

I. Background

Late one evening in November 2011, Chicago police officers spotted Townsend walking in an alley with a visible handgun tucked in his waistband. When Townsend saw the officers, he tossed the gun on the ground next to a fence. At the time Townsend was on parole, having been released early from a lengthy sentence for a murder he committed in 1996. He also had several other convictions for weapons offenses and crimes of violence. Police re[643]*643trieved the discarded gun — a loaded Smith & Wesson .38 Special — and found additional ammunition in Townsend’s pants pocket. The case was referred to federal authorities.

Townsend was indicted for possessing a firearm as a felon in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). He pleaded guilty. At the initial sentencing hearing, the government called two of the arresting officers to establish a factual basis for application of a four-level guidelines enhancement for possessing a firearm “in connection with another felony offense.” U.S.S.G. § 2K2.1(b)(6)(B). Officers Hanrahan and Staunton testified that after administering Miranda warnings, they questioned Townsend about the gun, and he told them that he planned to rob someone on the street. Based on this testimony, the government asked the judge to apply the four-level enhancement under § 2K2.1(b)(6)(B). Townsend objected. The judge deferred a ruling on the issue and continued the hearing.

In the meantime, the government informed the court in writing that it did not intend to call Officer Murphy, a third officer who had participated in Townsend’s arrest. The government reiterated this point at the next hearing. Discussion ensued about the need for the third officer’s testimony, but the matter was not resolved. The judge again continued the proceedings to give Townsend an opportunity to subpoena Officer Murphy if he wished.

Anticipating that Townsend might call Officer Murphy when sentencing resumed, the government filed a sealed “Ex Parte Submission Regarding Anticipated Evidence at Sentencing.” This filing informed the court that Officer Murphy would not offer any testimony favorable to the defense and explained that Townsend might be calling him for the sole purpose of impeaching him with a district-court opinion issued in another case. In that opinion, a different judge in the Northern District of Illinois determined that Murphy had “acted with reckless disregard for the truth” when securing a search warrant from a state judge. United States v. Simmons, 771 F.Supp.2d 908, 920-21 (N.D.Ill.2011). Because Townsend — not the government — planned to call Officer Murphy, and because Murphy had no exculpatory testimony to offer, the government asked the court to issue a sealed, ex parte order declaring that the government had no duty to disclose the Simmons case to the defense. Although the Simmons decision was in the public domain and readily available, the court agreed to issue the order.

When sentencing resumed, the government again disavowed any intent to call Officer Murphy to testify and advised the court that if Townsend did so, the government would not rely on the officer’s testimony even if it was favorable to the prosecution. By this time the government had repeatedly informed Townsend that Murphy had nothing favorable to say for the defense. Townsend called him anyway, to no avail: Officer Murphy’s testimony was entirely consistent with that of his fellow officers. The judge applied the four-level enhancement under § 2K2.1(b)(6)(B) after concluding that the testimony of the government’s witnesses alone — Officers Han-rahan and Staunton — was sufficient to support it.

With the enhancement, Townsend’s offense level was 21. When combined with a criminal history category III, the guidelines range was 46 to 57 months. The judge concluded that the range understated the risk that Townsend posed to the public. Among other things, the judge was troubled by Townsend’s juvenile record, which included a delinquency adjudication for shooting a person in the stom[644]*644ach. The judge eventually settled on an above-guidelines sentence of 71 months.

In doing so, the judge rejected Townsend’s argument that the conditions of his pretrial confinement were so harsh as to warrant a reduction in his total sentence. Townsend complained that it took jail officials more than four months to authorize surgery to repair his torn Achilles tendon. He maintained that the delay inhibited his ability to fully recover once the surgery was performed. The judge found this argument implausible as a basis for a lower sentence, holding that even if jail officials had dragged their feet in treating Townsend’s injury, their conduct did not justify a lower sentence.

Townsend was sentenced on July 1, 2012. Shortly thereafter, the government alerted the defense to the Simmons case. On July 17 Townsend filed a motion for reconsideration of his sentence, arguing that the government breached its Giglio obligations by failing to disclose the Simmons case, which might have been used to impeach Officer Murphy. See Giglio v. United States, 405 U.S. 150, 92 S.Ct. 763, 31 L.Ed.2d 104 (1972).

Two days later the judge denied the motion as untimely under Rule 35 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, which allows sentence modification only in very limited circumstances and then only within the 14-day period following oral pronouncement of the sentence. The 14-day window had closed by the time Townsend filed his motion. The judge also noted that even if the motion had been timely, it was plainly meritless: The Simmons case only affected the credibility of Officer Murphy, who was called by the defense, and anyway the court had relied solely on the unaffected testimony of the other two officers in applying the enhancement under § 2K2.1(b)(6)(B). As an aside, the judge remarked on the “noneonfidential nature of the negative credibility information” about Officer Murphy and suggested that the “better practice” would have been to alert the defense to the Simmons decision and then move in limine to preclude its use.

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Bluebook (online)
762 F.3d 641, 2014 WL 3906504, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-townsend-ca7-2014.