United States v. Jesse Sawyer

No. 15-2276-cr

Second Circuit Court of Appeals

Decided October 26, 2018

 

Issue: Whether the resentencing of a defendant by a district judge who refuses to agree with the appellate court’s reasoning for the resentencing, and who reduces the sentence based on a factor not addressed by the appellate court, should be reversed.

 

Holding: The Second Circuit held that, pursuant to the mandate rule, on remand, the district court is only required to comply with the appellate court’s order; it is not required to agree with the appellate court’s reasoning for the order or to consider the appellate court’s reasoning upon making a decision.

 

Facts: Defendant Jesse Sawyer pled guilty to two counts of sexual exploitation of children in violation of USC §§ 2251(a) and one count of receipt of child pornography in violation of 18 USC §§ 2252A(a)(2)(A) and 2256(8)(A). Sawyer was sentenced to 30 years in prison. Prior to this appeal, the Second Circuit remanded to the district court for resentencing, given “Sawyer’s harrowing upbringing and comparatively low danger to the community.” Sawyer was resentenced by the district court to 25 years in prison, and Sawyer challenged his new sentence on both reasonableness and “law-of-the-case-grounds.”

 

Each of Sawyer’s sexual exploitation charges carried a fifteen-year mandatory minimum and 30-year maximum sentence. The receipt of child pornography count carried a mandatory minimum of five years in prison and a maximum of 20 years. The combined maximum sentence, therefore, was 80 years in prison.

 

The presentence report and defendant’s sentencing memorandum described Sawyer’s horrific upbringing, which consisted of continuous sexual and physical abuse. Although the sentencing judge acknowledged Sawyer’s “nightmarish” childhood—or, rather, the “childhood that never was”—she found that it could not excuse his actions.

 

On the first appeal, the Second Circuit concluded that Sawyer’s original 30-year sentence had been substantially unreasonable. The Court considered the nature and extent of Sawyer’s crimes, which did not rise to the level of “extreme and heinous criminal behavior” like sexual assault, for which a 30-year sentence would have been more appropriate. In addition, the Second Circuit found that the district court “failed to give appropriate weight to a factor listed in Section 3553(a)”: the history and characteristics of the defendant.

 

At Sawyer’s resentencing in 2017, the district judge clearly expressed her disagreement with the Second Circuit’s conclusion and, in her view, the original sentence remained substantively reasonable. Based on Sawyer’s post-sentencing rehabilitative efforts alone, the judge reduced Sawyer’s sentence by five years.

 

Court’s Analysis: When an issue is resolved on appeal, on remand, the district court is prohibited from ignoring or rejecting the appellate court’s determination. See Burrell v. United States, 467 F.3d 160, 165 (2d Cir. 2006). This rule, known as the “mandate rule” requires district courts to comply with the Second Circuit’s holdings on the case.

 

Although the Second Circuit acknowledged the district court’s disagreement with the Court’s reasoning, it concluded that, nevertheless, the district court judge’s reduction of five years was substantial. The Court determined that its mandate did not prevent the district court from disagreeing with the Second Circuit’s reasoning, nor did it require the district court to consider the sentencing factors in the way that the Second Circuit would have done. Instead, the district court was only required to sentence the defendant “within the (elastic) bounds of reasonableness.”

 

Whether the district court agrees with the appellate court’s ruling is, thus, essentially irrelevant, as long as the court has complied with the mandate. Indeed, “the mandate rule only ‘compels compliance.’” See United States v. Ben Zvi, 242 F.3d 89, 95 (2d Cir. 2001).

 

Although the Second Circuit determined that it could not bring itself “to call [the sentence] shocking under governing law,” it still recognized the sentence as “barbaric” yet declined to remand for resentencing.

 

Chief District Judge Geoffrey Crawford dissented. He concluded that on remand, instead of relying on the Second Circuit’s ruling, the district court simply “changed the subject” by reducing the sentence by relying on a reason unaddressed by the Second Circuit. Judge Crawford noted that the new sentence “still fails to take into proper consideration the two § 3553(a) factors” the Court had addressed as the basis for reversal. Noting that the panel here identified the district court’s refusal to properly weigh these factors as significant substantive errors, Judge Crawford concluded that the “errors continue to form the primary basis for the new sentence.”