U.S. v. Reed, 81-1525
| Decision Date | 01 April 1982 |
| Docket Number | No. 81-1525,81-1525 |
| Citation | 674 F.2d 128 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Kent N. REED, Defendant, Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit |
Richard L. Rosenfield, Los Angeles, Cal., with whom Flax & Rosenfield, Los Angeles, Cal., was on brief, for appellant.
Jose R. Aguayo, Asst. U. S. Atty., San Juan, P. R., with whom Raymond L. Acosta, U. S. Atty., San Juan, P. R., was on brief, for appellee.
Before CAMPBELL, BOWNES and BREYER, Circuit Judges.
Defendant Kent Nixon Reed pleaded guilty under 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) and 18 U.S.C. § 2 to piloting an airplane which illegally carried some 1,735 pounds of marijuana and 85,000 methaqualone tablets into Puerto Rico. He now appeals from the seven-year sentence imposed upon him by the district court. Defendant seeks to be resentenced, claiming that the district court based its punishment decision upon impermissible factors and erroneous assumptions. We disagree and affirm the district court's judgment.
In his appeal, defendant relies principally upon this court's decision in United States v. Wardlaw, 576 F.2d 932 (1st Cir. 1978). In Wardlaw, we reversed a sentence in a drug smuggling case where the district court's remarks 1 caused us to believe that it had failed to consider any of the criteria traditionally weighed in sentencing and instead had relied exclusively upon the questionable theory that, by imposing unusually harsh sentences on drug smuggling "mules" (those who smuggle drugs over a border), the court would eventually force the larger dealers into the open. In reaching our conclusion to require resentencing in Wardlaw, this court stated that "(d)efendants (are) entitled to have their sentences set primarily in terms of the seriousness of their own crimes and associated individual factors." Id., at 939.
In the present case, unlike Wardlaw, the district court engaged in an extensive discussion of various individual factors in passing sentence. The court viewed a videotape of some four character witnesses from California who spoke on defendant's behalf. It explicitly considered defendant's presentence report, his cooperation with the authorities, and the fact that this was his first offense. The court, however, also took account of and weighed quite heavily the fact that defendant "was very much involved" in "a very serious offense" for which he had been offered a considerable amount of money. The court further, and quite legitimately, considered the sentences given to defendant's co-conspirators and the importance of the deterrence factor where drug smuggling is involved. Taking all of these factors together, 2 the court handed down a seven-year sentence (the statutory maximum for the crime at issue is 15 years) with the special proviso that defendant be made eligible for parole after 25 months pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 4205(b)(1). 3
The sentence here was thus well within the statutory limits, and the judge indicated that he had given attention to various individual factors including the seriousness of the crime and defendant's role in it. We recognize that the district court made a misstatement in one part of its remarks, to the...
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U.S. v. Sachs, 81-1615
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