United States v. Woodburn

Not for Publication in West's Federal Reporter
Citation Limited Pursuant to 1st Cir. Loc. R. 32.3
United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 04-2348
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Appellee,
v.
RAYMOND E. WOODBURN, SR.,
Defendant, Appellant.
No. 04-2360
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Appellant,
v.
RAYMOND E. WOODBURN, SR.,
Defendant, Appellee.
_____________________
APPEALS FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MAINE
[Hon. George Z. Singal, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Boudin, Chief Judge,
Selya, Circuit Judge,
and Schwarzer,* Senior District Judge.
Charles F. Willson and Nevins & Nevins LLP on brief for
defendant.
Paula D. Silsby, United States Attorney, and Margaret D.
McGaughey, Appellate Chief, on brief for the United States.
September 6, 2005
__________
*Of the Northern District of California, sitting by designation.
Per Curiam. These sentencing appeals — one by the
defendant and one by the government — arise out of a sentence
imposed during the uncertain period between the Supreme Court's
decision in Blakely v. Washington, 124 S. Ct. 2531 (2004), and its
subsequent decision in United States v. Booker, 125 S. Ct. 738(2005). Although Blakely foreshadowed the demise of the mandatory
system of federal sentencing guidelines then in effect, it did not
adumbrate the form (if any) in which the guidelines would survive.
Booker answered that question, see 125 S. Ct. at 756-57, but not in
a way that had been widely anticipated.
The district court in this case, like every district
court that confronted sentencing issues in the interval between
Blakely and Booker, was forced to improvise. The court here
settled upon a methodology that it had developed in a similarly
situated case. See United States v. Zompa, 326 F. Supp. 2d 176,
178 (D. Me. 2004). As matters turned out, Zompa did not correctly
anticipate the contours of the Supreme Court's later decision in
Booker.
Both sides objected at the time and both have now
appealed from the sentence. They argue that, in hindsight, the
district court did not use an acceptable sentencing methodology.
That is patently so.
We need go no further. Under the peculiar circumstances
of this case, it is our view that the district court ought to have
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the first opportunity to reappraise the facts in light of Booker.
We therefore summarily vacate the defendant's sentence and remand
for resentencing. We express no opinion on what the sentence
should be or on any of the district court's earlier sentencing
determinations.
Vacated and remanded.
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