United States v. Hampton, 20-2986

Background

Russell Hampton was convicted in 2011 of RICO conspiracy, drug-trafficking conspiracy, and a §924(c) firearm offense; he initially received an aggregate 30-year sentence.
This Court affirmed the convictions but vacated and remanded for resentencing in 2017; the district court resentenced Hampton to 25 years (20 years on conspiracies + 5 years consecutive on §924(c)).
After United States v. Davis vacated the §924(c) conviction, the case was remanded again for resentencing.
At the 2020 resentencing the Probation Office’s revised PSR treated three prior New York state sentences as prior sentences under U.S.S.G. §2E1.1 cmt.4, increasing Hampton’s criminal-history category to III and producing a Guidelines range of 360 months to life.
The district court adopted the revised Guidelines calculation but varied downward and imposed an aggregate 18-year sentence on the remaining conspiracy convictions. Hampton appealed, arguing (1) procedural error in the Guidelines calculation and (2) a due-process/vindictiveness violation.

Issues

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether the district court procedurally erred in calculating the Guidelines by treating prior state sentences as "prior sentences" under U.S.S.G. §2E1.1 cmt.4	Hampton: the court should not have reclassified prior convictions as prior sentences for criminal-history scoring; this produced an inflated Guidelines range and risked "triple counting."	Gov't/District Court: §2E1.1 cmt.4 expressly directs that prior sentences imposed before the last overt act of the RICO offense be treated as prior sentences for criminal-history purposes; earlier PSRs were mistaken.	Held: No procedural error. The district court correctly applied §2E1.1 cmt.4 and related Guideline rules; prior sentences were properly counted for criminal history but not for base offense level.
Whether resentencing violated due process/Pearce vindictiveness protections	Hampton: the increased Guidelines range (from the corrected PSR) gives rise to a presumption of vindictiveness or otherwise violates due process, because it relied on information present in earlier PSRs and raised the sentencing exposure.	Gov't/District Court: Pearce presumption applies only where a defendant receives a more severe sentence on retrial; the relevant comparison (remainder-aggregate) shows Hampton’s 2020 sentence was lower than his prior sentence absent the vacated §924(c) count; no reasonable likelihood of vindictiveness and no actual vindictiveness shown.	Held: No due-process violation. Pearce presumption does not apply; Hampton’s remand sentence was lower than the comparable prior sentence and the record shows no vindictiveness.

Key Cases Cited

United States v. Bonilla, 618 F.3d 102 (2d Cir. 2010) (standard of review for sentencing includes abuse-of-discretion with de novo legal review)
United States v. Mi Sun Cho, 713 F.3d 716 (2d Cir. 2013) (district court commits procedural error by miscalculating Guidelines)
United States v. Broxmeyer, 699 F.3d 265 (2d Cir. 2012) (definition and scope of "relevant conduct" under §1B1.3)
United States v. Minicone, 960 F.2d 1099 (2d Cir. 1992) (in RICO cases, commentary permits treating prior sentences as prior sentences only for criminal-history scoring)
United States v. Singletary, 458 F.3d 72 (2d Cir. 2006) (Pearce presumption requires preliminary inquiry into whether vindictiveness is reasonably likely)
United States v. Weingarten, 713 F.3d 704 (2d Cir. 2013) (remainder-aggregate approach for comparing sentences after vacatur of counts)
Molina-Martinez v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 1338 (2016) (effects of an erroneous Guidelines range on sentencing explanation and prejudice analysis)
North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U.S. 711 (1969) (due-process concerns about vindictiveness on resentencing)
United States v. Houtar, 980 F.3d 268 (2d Cir. 2020) (Guidelines commentary is authoritative unless unconstitutional, statutorily invalid, or plainly erroneous)
United States v. Davis, 139 S. Ct. 2319 (2019) (invalidating a predicate under §924(c) and prompting vacatur of Hampton’s §924(c) conviction)