U.S. v. Dickerson, No. 02-16559.

Citation370 F.3d 1330
Decision Date28 May 2004
Docket NumberNo. 02-16559.
PartiesUNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. James T. DICKERSON, Defendant-Appellant.
CourtUnited States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (11th Circuit)

Allison Veronica Dawson and Stephanie Kearns (Fed. Pub. Defenders), Fed. Def. Program, Inc., Atlanta, GA, for Defendant-Appellant.

Teresa Hoyt, Amy Levin Weil, U.S. Atty., Atlanta, GA, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

Before TJOFLAT, BIRCH and GOODWIN*, Circuit Judges.

TJOFLAT, Circuit Judge:

I.

Appellant James T. Dickerson pled guilty to thirty-six counts of wire fraud and one count of Social Security fraud. The district court ordered him to pay restitution in the full amount of his victim's loss. Dickerson appeals, claiming that the restitution order unlawfully accounts for conduct occurring outside of the statute of limitations. We affirm.

II.

In August 1996, Dickerson, then unemployed, applied for Social Security disability benefits for depression, panic attacks, and HIV. The Social Security Administration (the "SSA" or the "Administration") approved his application and began disbursing benefits to him in November 1996. Dickerson received the benefits electronically; the United States Treasury Department in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, transferred the funds directly into his credit union account.

Shortly after applying for disability benefits, in September 1996, Dickerson took a paying job. He did not notify the Administration of this fact, as he should have.1 Instead, in his SSA questionnaires, he stated that he was not working and was unable to work due to his disabling condition. The Administration continually disbursed benefits to Dickerson in reliance on his omissions and misrepresentations.

In June 1998, the SSA discovered that Dickerson had received disability benefits while employed. Administration officials tried to contact him for an explanation, but he did not respond. Thus, in 2000, the SSA ceased disbursing funds to him. After Dickerson failed to answer further inquiries, the Administration in June 2001 notified him that it would investigate his eligibility. The investigation ended in early 2002, when the SSA concluded that Dickerson had indeed failed to report his employment while he was receiving benefits.2

On June 25, 2002, a Northern District of Georgia grand jury returned an indictment against Dickerson. The indictment had three parts. The first part, labeled "Counts 1-36," alleged that Dickerson (1) applied for disability benefits in August 1996, (2) received benefits by electronic transfer between October 1996 and June 2000, and (3) was throughout this period under an "affirmative obligation" to report any change in work status to the SSA. The second part of the indictment bore the title "The Scheme and Artifice to Defraud." It specified in detail how Dickerson had perpetuated a continuous fraudulent scheme between September 1996, when he began work without notifying the Administration, and June 2000, when the SSA last sent him benefits. This part enumerated the thirty-six counts of wire fraud.3 Each count corresponded to an electronic transfer of disability benefits into Dickerson's credit union account between July 1997 and June 2000. As the parties agree, even though he received benefits as early as the fall of 1996, the five-year statute of limitations4 prevented the Government from charging Dickerson for wire fraud occurring before July 1997. Finally, the third part of the indictment, labeled "Count 37," charged Dickerson with Social Security fraud5 for his continued failure to notify the SSA of his employment, starting in September 1996.

Dickerson entered a nonnegotiated guilty plea to all thirty-seven counts. The district court held a hearing on the plea on September 12, 2002. At the hearing, the court questioned Dickerson about his offenses and found that there was a factual basis for his guilty plea. It then asked the prosecutor to state the possible penalties. Among other things, the prosecutor said that the court could order Dickerson to pay "full restitution" to the SSA for the charged offenses "and any relevant conduct." Dickerson's counsel disagreed, contending that restitution was limited to the losses that resulted directly from the counts of conviction. Although the court accepted Dickerson's plea, it reserved ruling on his sentence and instructed the parties to brief the question of restitution.

After the plea hearing, the probation officer wrote a presentence investigation report (the "PSI"). The PSI described Dickerson's work history and itemized each of the benefit transfers that the SSA made to him. Consistent with the allegations in the indictment, the PSI stated that Dickerson (1) applied for SSA benefits in August 1996, (2) took a paying job in September 1996, (3) began receiving benefits in November 1996,6 and (4) failed continually to respond to queries from the Administration about why he had received benefits while employed. According to the PSI, the SSA suffered a loss of $44,178.40 as a result of Dickerson's fraudulent scheme. Dickerson received most of this amount ($35,902.00) between July 1997 and June 2000, roughly the sum alleged in counts one through thirty-six of the indictment.7 But he received a smaller portion ($6,992.00) before that time, between November 1996 and June 1997.8 The probation officer recommended that the court order Dickerson to make restitution for the entire $44,178.40 sum.

After considering the PSI, on November 18, 2002, the court held the sentencing hearing. It began the hearing by informing the parties that it would adopt the facts in the PSI as its own findings. Both parties assented. The court then noted Dickerson's objection at the plea hearing about the amount of restitution and heard arguments on this issue from both sides. Dickerson maintained that the court could not order him to pay restitution for the benefits he received before July 1997. In his view, even if he had received those benefits criminally, such conduct was beyond the statute of limitations and therefore not subject to restitution. He contended that the correct amount of restitution was $35,946.00, the total sum of the benefits he received within the statute of limitations.9 After considering the arguments, the court, without explaining its reasoning, adhered to the $44,178.40 figure. It also sentenced Dickerson to five years probation, 180 days of home confinement, and a special assessment of $3,700.00.

Dickerson now appeals, seeking the same reduction in the restitution order as he did before the district court.

III.

A.

"This court reviews the legality of a criminal sentence, including an order of restitution, de novo." United States v. Cobbs, 967 F.2d 1555, 1556 (11th Cir.1992).

A federal district court has "no inherent authority to order restitution, and may do so only as explicitly empowered by statute." United States v. Hensley, 91 F.3d 274, 276 (1st Cir.1996). We therefore begin our analysis with the language of the statute supporting the district court's restitution order. The court was required to order restitution in this case10 under the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act of 1996 ("MVRA"), Pub.L. No. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1227, codified at 18 U.S.C. § 3663A.11 The MVRA obligates district courts to order restitution in certain cases, including wire fraud.12 Section 3664 sets forth the procedures for ordering restitution. It demands that courts "order restitution to each victim in the full amount of each victim's losses ... and without consideration of the economic circumstances of the defendant." 18 U.S.C. § 3664(f)(1)(A).

As the parties agree, the outcome of this case depends upon the language of § 3663A(a)(1) and (2), which states:

(a) (1) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, when sentencing a defendant convicted of an offense described in subsection (c), the court shall order, in addition to, or in the case of a misdemeanor, in addition to or in lieu of, any other penalty authorized by law, that the defendant make restitution to the victim of the offense or, if the victim is deceased, to the victim's estate.

(2) For the purposes of this section, the term "victim" means a person directly and proximately harmed as a result of the commission of an offense for which restitution may be ordered including, in the case of an offense that involves as an element a scheme, conspiracy, or pattern of criminal activity, any person directly harmed by the defendant's criminal conduct in the course of the scheme, conspiracy, or pattern ....

(emphasis added). The Government contends that by defining "victim" so broadly, Congress clearly intended to reach cases like Dickerson's. The argument proceeds as follows: Dickerson committed the offense of wire fraud, which "involves as an element a scheme" to defraud. The SSA is a "victim" not merely of the counts for which Dickerson was convicted, but more broadly, of all "criminal conduct in the course of the scheme, conspiracy, or pattern." Although the statute of limitations prevents prosecution for wire fraud committed before July 1997, Dickerson engaged in a single, ongoing scheme to defraud beginning in the fall of 1996. Thus, according to the Government, he may be ordered to pay restitution to the SSA for all of the disability benefits he received since the latter date.

Dickerson, on the other hand, contends that the Supreme Court's decision in Hughey v. United States, 495 U.S. 411, 110 S.Ct. 1979, 109 L.Ed.2d 408 (1990), forbids restitution for conduct occurring outside of the statute of limitations. Hughey involved the application of the MVRA's discretionary counterpart, the Victim and Witness Protection Act of 1982 (the "VWPA"), Pub.L. No. 97-291, 96 Stat. 1248, codified at 18 U.S.C. §§ 3663 and 3664.13 The defendant was indicted on three counts of theft by a United States Postal Service employee and three counts of unauthorized...

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