U.S. v. Corley

Citation500 F.3d 210
Decision Date31 August 2007
Docket NumberNo. 04-4716.,04-4716.
PartiesUNITED STATES of America v. Johnnie CORLEY, Appellant.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit

Maureen Kearney Rowley, Chief Federal Defender, David L. McColgin, Assistant Federal Defender, Supervising Appellate Attorney, Elizabeth T. Hey, (Argued), Assistant Federal Defender, Federal Community Defender Office, Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, for Appellant.

Patrick L. Meehan, United States Attorney, Robert A. Zauzmer, Assistant United States Attorney, Chief of Appeals, Kenya S. Mann (Argued), Assistant United States Attorney, Philadelphia, PA, for Appellee.

Before: SLOVITER and AMBRO, Circuit Judges, and THOMPSON,* District Judge.

OPINION OF THE COURT

AMBRO, Circuit Judge.

Johnnie Corley appeals his conviction and sentence for armed robbery and conspiracy to commit that crime. He presses three arguments: (1) his conviction must be vacated because his confessions should have been suppressed as evidence because they were made outside the six-hour period in 18 U.S.C. § 3501(c) and after the arresting officials violated Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 5(a) by unnecessarily delaying in bringing him before a federal magistrate judge; (2) remand is required because (a) he was sentenced prior to the United States Supreme Court's decision in United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 125 S.Ct. 738, 160 L.Ed.2d 621 (2005) (making the United States Sentencing Guidelines advisory rather than mandatory), triggering this Court's decision in United States v. Davis, 407 F.3d 162 (3d Cir.2005) (en banc), that calls for a remand to resentence in most such cases, and (b) the District Court failed to resolve a disputed Guidelines adjustment; and (3) the District Court unlawfully delegated its statutory obligation under the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act of 1996 (MVRA) to set the schedule of restitution payments.

Because we believe that the first contention is governed by our decision in Government of the Virgin Islands v. Gereau, 502 F.2d 914 (3d Cir.1974), and we discern no error in the District Court's determination that Corley's confessions were voluntary, the delay in presenting him to a federal magistrate judge beyond that provided by 18 U.S.C. § 3501(c) will not result in suppressing his confessions. On the second issue Corley raises, he is not entitled to a remand because the District Court did not treat the Guidelines as mandatory, nor did it fail to resolve the disputed Guidelines adjustment. We hold, however, that the Court delegated, contrary to the MVRA, its duty to set a schedule of restitution payments, and we therefore remand to allow the District Court to set that schedule.

I. Facts

On June 16, 2003, three men robbed the Norsco Federal Credit Union in Norristown, Pennsylvania. Federal officials identified Johnnie Corley as a suspect in the robbery and were later informed of an outstanding bench warrant from a state court for him on a matter unrelated to the robbery. On September 17, 2003, at approximately 8:00 a.m., a joint operation of federal and state law enforcement agents attempted to execute the arrest warrant. Corley resisted arrest and, following a physical altercation with an FBI agent during Corley's attempt to flee, was placed under federal arrest for assault on a law enforcement officer.

At approximately 11:45 a.m., the officers transported Corley to Thomas Jefferson Hospital in Philadelphia to receive medical treatment for injuries sustained during the altercation. By 3:30 p.m., after receiving several stitches, Corley was taken to the FBI office in Philadelphia for interrogation concerning the Norristown credit union robbery. He was informed that he was under arrest for assaulting a federal officer and also was under investigation for a robbery. At 5:07 p.m., Corley signed a waiver of his rights, inter alia, to remain silent and to counsel under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966). Shortly thereafter he confessed orally to the robbery. When asked to reduce his confession to writing, Corley stated that he was tired and requested to continue the following day. This was done, and the interrogation resumed at 10:30 a.m. on September 18, and Corley signed a written confession shortly thereafter. Not until 1:30 p.m. did he appear before a federal magistrate judge to be informed of his rights.

On November 20, 2003, a federal grand jury sitting in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania issued a three-count indictment against Corley, charging conspiracy to commit armed bank robbery in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371 (Count One), armed bank robbery in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2113(d) (Count Two), and the use and carrying of a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (Count Three). Corley filed, and the District Court denied, a motion to suppress his oral and written confessions pursuant to Rule 5(a) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. After a jury trial held on September 27-28, 2004, he was convicted of Counts One and Two and acquitted of Count Three.

On December 21, 2004—after the Supreme Court decided Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. 296, 124 S.Ct. 2531, 159 L.Ed.2d 403 (2004), but before it decided United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 125 S.Ct. 738, 160 L.Ed.2d 621 (2005)—the District Court sentenced Corley. In calculating the sentence, the District Judge explained that he viewed Blakely (discussed infra § III.A) as rendering the United States Sentencing Guidelines advisory:

[U]ntil I'm told otherwise by the Third Circuit o[r] the Supreme Court, [I] take the position that the guidelines are merely advisory and that for sentencing purposes I have the upper limit[,] which is the statutory max to zero[,] and that when I have to figure and fix a sentence, what's on the table is all the conduct, prior history of this particular defendant, or any defendant that's in front of me, and I take all that into account when I fashion my sentence.

J.A. 462. However, the District Judge rejected Corley's argument that, after Blakely, any Guidelines enhancements must be specifically found by a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. After hearing the arguments of both parties, the Judge calculated Corley's advisory Guidelines range to be 140 to 175 months, and sentenced him to 170 months in prison. Regarding restitution, the Judge stated:

The defendant shall make restitution to [Cumis Insurance, in] the amount of $47,532.36. The defendant shall make restitution and fine payments from any wages he may earn in prison in accordance with the Bureau of Prisons Inmate Financial Responsibility Program. The restitution and fines shall be due immediately. Any balance remaining upon release from custody shall be paid at a rate of no less than $100 per month.

In addition to the imprisonment and restitution, Corley received five years supervised release, a fine of $5,000, and a special assessment of $200. He timely appeals.1

II. The Admissibility of Corley's Confessions

The first issue in Corley's appeal involves the permissible length of post-arrest investigation and delay before arresting officers must present the arrested person to a federal magistrate judge. It requires us to interpret 18 U.S.C. § 3501, which governs the admissibility in federal criminal prosecutions of confessions given by persons arrested and in federal custody. The statute was enacted as part of Title II of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, Pub.L. No. 90-351, 82 Stat. 197, 210-11, and the interaction of that statute with the preexisting law governing such confessions raises difficult legal questions.

A. The Presentment Right and the Exclusionary Remedy

As a general matter, federal officials must take persons they arrest before a magistrate judge or other judicial officer without unnecessary delay. Before 1946, that obligation, known as "presentment," appeared in several statutes. See McNabb v. United States, 318 U.S. 332, 342 & n. 7, 63 S.Ct. 608, 87 L.Ed. 819 (1943) (citing statutes). The Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure first took effect in 1946, and Rule 5(a) provided in relevant part that

[a]n officer making an arrest under a warrant issued upon a complaint or any person making an arrest without a warrant shall take the arrested person without unnecessary delay before the nearest available commissioner or before any other nearby officer empowered to commit persons charged with offenses against the laws of the United States.

That rule now provides in relevant part that "[a] person making an arrest in the United States must take the defendant without unnecessary delay before a magistrate judge . . . unless a statute provides otherwise." Fed.R.Crim.P. 5(a)(1)(A).2 The Supreme Court characterized Rule 5(a) as "a compendious restatement, without substantive change, of several prior specific federal statutory provisions," Mallory v. United States, 354 U.S. 449, 452, 77 S.Ct. 1356, 1 L.Ed.2d 1479 (1957), and explained the policy behind the presentment right as follows:

Legislation such as this . . . constitutes an important safeguard—not only in assuring protection for the innocent but also in securing conviction of the guilty by methods that commend themselves to a progressive and self-confident society. For this procedural requirement checks resort to those reprehensible practices known as the `third degree' which, though universally rejected as indefensible, still find their way into use. It aims to avoid all the evil implications of secret interrogation of persons accused of crime.

Id. at 452-53 (quoting McNabb, 318 U.S. at 343-44, 63 S.Ct. 608).

In McNabb and Mallory, the Supreme Court held that when federal officers violated an arrested person's presentment right by delaying unnecessarily in taking him before a magistrate, the remedy is that confessions elicited from the arrested person before presentment could not be admitted...

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