United States v. Floyd , 178 F. App'x 308 ( 2006 )

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 05-4284
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
versus
PERRY J. FLOYD, JR.,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle
District of North Carolina, at Durham. James A. Beaty, Jr.,
District Judge. (CR-04-394)
Argued: March 14, 2006 Decided: May 4, 2006
Before SHEDD and DUNCAN, Circuit Judges, and James P. JONES, Chief
United States District Judge for the Western District of Virginia,
sitting by designation.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
ARGUED: Thomas Norman Cochran, Assistant Federal Public Defender,
OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, Greensboro, North Carolina,
for Appellant. Robert Michael Hamilton, Assistant United States
Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Greensboro, North
Carolina, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Anna Mills Wagoner, United
States Attorney, Greensboro, North Carolina, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
See Local Rule 36(c).
PER CURIAM:
The sole issue in this appeal is whether the district court
erred in imposing a more onerous sentence on the defendant after
the court had discovered a clear error in its initial sentence and
acted promptly to correct the sentence under Rule 35(a).
Perry J. Floyd, Jr., pleaded guilty to mail fraud, 18 U.S.C.A.
§ 1341 (West Supp. 2005), and the false representation of a Social
Security number, 42 U.S.C.A. § 408(a)(7)(B) (West Supp. 2005), both
crimes occurring in connection with his fraudulent receipt of
$28,315.66 in government benefits.
Floyd’s sentencing was held on February 7, 2005. Before
pronouncing sentence, the district court announced that it intended
to sentence Floyd to a sentence within the advisory Sentencing
Guidelines range, the sentencing taking place following United
States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005). Under the Sentencing
Guidelines, as correctly calculated in the Presentence
Investigation Report, Floyd had a Total Offense Level of 8 and a
Criminal History Category of II, resulting in a custody range of 4
to 10 months imprisonment, with supervised release to follow of two
to three years. Alternatively, because Floyd’s guideline range was
in Zone B of the Sentencing Table, the Sentencing Guidelines
permitted probation with a condition of intermittent or community
confinement or home detention of at least four months. See U.S.
Sentencing Guidelines Manual §§ 5B1.1(a)(2), 5C1.1(c)(3) (2004).
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The district court sentenced Floyd to eight months probation
and ordered him to pay restitution and a special assessment of
$200. This sentence was contrary to the relevant statute, 18
U.S.C.A. § 3561(c)(1) (West 2000), which requires a minimum term of
probation of one year for conviction of a felony. In addition, no
probation condition of intermittent or community confinement or
home detention was imposed.
Recognizing its error, the district court reconvened the
parties on its own motion two days later, on February 9, 2005, and
conducted an additional hearing. At the close of this hearing, the
court resentenced Floyd to three years probation. In addition to
the restitution and special assessment previously ordered, the
court added as a condition of probation that Floyd serve eight
months of home detention.
Floyd appeals, contending that in correcting its error, the
district court should not have imposed more than the minimum term
of probation previously omitted. Accordingly, Floyd argues, he
must be relieved of the extra two years of probation, as well as
the eight months of home detention.
The Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure allow a district court
to correct within seven days, “a sentence that resulted from
arithmetical, technical, or other clear error.” Fed. R. Crim. P.
35(a). The parties agree that the district court had the power
under that rule to correct Floyd’s sentence. Floyd argues,
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however, that the district court’s power of correction was limited
to increasing the term of probation from eight months to one year.
We disagree and affirm the corrected sentence.
“[T]he correction of an illegal sentence does not necessarily
mean that the correction will always result in a reduction of a
sentence for a defendant.” United States v. Henry, 680 F.2d 403,
408 (5th Cir. 1982). Indeed, it is established that a court can
increase a defendant’s sentence in order to correct an inadvertent
sentencing error and thus make it lawful without running afoul of
the Constitution. See Bozza v. United States, 330 U.S. 160, 166-67
(1947). More importantly, there are no controlling principles here
that precluded the district court from changing other aspects of
Floyd’s illegal sentence.
For example, in United States v. Yost, 185 F.3d 1178 (11th
Cir. 1999), the defendant Yost pleaded guilty to mail fraud and to
conspiracy to commit mail fraud, wire fraud, and bankruptcy fraud,
but not to conspiracy to commit money laundering or conspiracy to
commit bank fraud. Id. at 1179. At his first sentencing hearing
on March 24, 1999, the district court, pursuant to the Sentencing
Guidelines, grouped Yost’s offenses, but erroneously included
conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to commit bank
fraud, to which Yost had not pleaded guilty. Id. Conspiracy to
commit money laundering yielded the highest offense level, and thus
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the court sentenced Yost to 14 months imprisonment under the
guideline applicable to that offense. Id. at 1179-80.
The district court realized its error in applying the money
laundering guideline to Yost when it was sentencing a codefendent
on March 26, and it thus set Yost’s initial sentence aside and held
another sentencing hearing on March 27. Id. at 1180. At the
resentencing the court corrected its error and thus applied the
fraud guideline rather than that applicable to money laundering.
Id. In addition, however, the court reversed its determination
made at the first sentencing hearing and concluded that Yost’s
conduct did constitute conspiracy to commit bank fraud and
therefore could be considered as relevant conduct. Id. This
resulted in an increase in Yost’s offense level and a sentence of
18 months imprisonment. Id.Yost appealed his sentence, and the Eleventh Circuit
considered whether the district court’s actions were proper under
Rule 35(c), the predecessor to the current Rule 35(a). The
Eleventh Circuit noted that the district court resentenced the
defendant because it made the obvious error of using the wrong
guideline; this was not a case where the district court simply
changed its mind. Id. at 1181.
In upholding Yost’s new sentence, including the portion
resulting from the district court’s revisiting of its prior ruling
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regarding consideration of bank fraud as relevant conduct, the
Eleventh Circuit explained that:
when we vacate a sentence and remand for resentencing,
the sentence becomes void in its entirety and the
district court is free to revisit any rulings it made at
the initial sentencing. We see no reason why the same
should not be true when the district court resentences
under Rule 35 (c).
Id. (citations omitted). Thus, in Yost, the Eleventh Circuit
concluded that “it takes only one clear error to give the district
court authority under [Rule 35(a)] to conduct an entire
resentencing at which the court may correct any other errors, clear
or not.” Yost at 1181; see also United States v. Bentley, 850
F.2d 327, 328-29 (7th Cir. 1988) (“[N]othing but pointless
formalism would support a distinction between a sentencing plan
disrupted by the vacatur of some counts on appeal and a plan
shattered by the district court’s own recognition that the plan was
infested with error. . . . [W]henever the district court must
revise one aspect of the sentencing scheme, it is permitted by Rule
35 to revise the rest.”).
Following this authority, it is apparent that after the
district court here discovered its clear error and decided to
resentence under Rule 35(a), it was free to impose a different,
albeit lawful and reasonable sentence on Floyd, even if it
increased the punishment. While it is true that the Due Process
Clause prohibits a vindictive increase in a sentence, this is not
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a concern in the present case, where there is no claim or evidence
of vindictiveness and where the district court corrected its own
clear error sua sponte. See Colton v. Kentucky, 407 U.S. 104, 116-
17 (1972) (holding that likelihood of vindictiveness does not exist
where the court imposing the increased sentence has not been
required to do so by another court).
For these reasons, the sentence imposed on the defendant is
hereby
AFFIRMED.
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