UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. ABRAHAM A. AUGUSTIN, Defendant-Appellant.
No. 20-5454
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
October 20, 2021
21a0246p.06
RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION Pursuant to Sixth Circuit I.O.P. 32.1(b)
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee of Chattanooga.
No. 1:09-cr-00187-1—Travis Randall McDonough, District Judge.
Decided and Filed: October 20, 2021
Before: ROGERS, GRIFFIN, and THAPAR, Circuit Judges.
COUNSEL
ON BRIEF: J. Nicholas Bostic, Lansing, Michigan, for Appellant. Samuel R. Fitzpatrick, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY‘S OFFICE, Knoxville, Tennessee, for Appellee.
THAPAR, Circuit Judge. In a drug deal gone wrong, Abraham Augustin kidnapped the middleman at gunpoint and—after he was rescued—tried to hire a hitman to murder him and two other witnesses. A jury convicted Augustin of eight charges. More than a decade later, Augustin sought postconviction relief, arguing that one of his convictions was unlawful under a recent Supreme Court decision. The district court agreed.
I.
In 2009, Abraham Augustin was looking to buy cocaine. He asked a man named Robert Jordan, whom he‘d met at a local nightclub a week or two before. Jordan didn‘t deal cocaine, but he agreed to “find somebody” who did. R. 122, Pg. ID 854. So he contacted another man, “Hoss,” who offered to sell Augustin six ounces of cocaine for $5,100. The trio met at a local gas station and sealed the deal.
But later that night, Hoss called Jordan. There was a problem: Augustin had shorted him $900. To set things straight, Jordan reached out to Augustin, who agreed to meet “first thing in the morning” to “pay up.” Id. at 858. When Jordan arrived at the meeting place, Augustin was already there with his friend, Lorrance Dais. Dais sat in the driver‘s seat of Augustin‘s car. Augustin told Jordan to get into the passenger‘s seat while he got in the back. Once they were all inside, Augustin and Dais both “pulled out guns.” Id. at 860. They told Jordan that “the dope was fake” and that he was being kidnapped. Id. at 862.
From there, Augustin and Dais blindfolded Jordan and bound him with zip ties. Augustin then drove to a field in the “middle of nowhere.” Id. at 866. After Augustin parked the car, he and Dais ordered Jordan to get out and removed his blindfold. Augustin then gave Jordan his phone and said, “I‘m going to give you a chance.” Id. at 934. He demanded that Jordan get them the $4,200, the real cocaine, or access to Hoss.
Not knowing where else to turn, Jordan called his mother. He told her that he‘d been kidnapped. But he didn‘t tell her the full story—he didn‘t want her to know he‘d been part of a drug deal. Without that context, though, she didn‘t believe him. So Augustin put a gun to Jordan‘s head and forced him to tell her everything. In the end, she agreed “to try to get the money [the] best way she could” and to bring it to a nearby gas station. Id. at 869.
Jordan and his kidnappers waited for her to call with an update on the money. During that time, Jordan tried to explain that he didn‘t know anything about the fake cocaine. Augustin didn‘t believe him. “I know you‘re lying to me,” he said, and slid one bullet into the cylinder of his revolver. Id. at 872. And like a game of Russian roulette, Augustin then spun the cylinder, pointed the revolver at Jordan‘s head, and fired—click. It didn‘t go off. But to prove that the gun worked—and to show Jordan that nobody could hear them—Augustin fired a couple of shots at a passing bird.
Sometime later, Jordan‘s mother called to say she was on her way to the gas station. Augustin decided to meet her alone. Before leaving, though, he handed a firearm to Dais and told him to “use that one.” Id. at 874. Dais and Jordan waited for hours. Dais tried calling Augustin, but he didn‘t answer. Night fell. Not knowing what else to do, Dais decided they should “walk back into town.” Id. at 877. He removed the zip ties from Jordan‘s legs, and they started down the road.
But they didn‘t get far. Unbeknownst to them, Jordan‘s mother had called the police and told them that her son had been kidnapped and was being held for ransom. The police had arrested Augustin. And when they came across Dais and Jordan walking along the road, they arrested Dais too.
But that didn‘t stop Augustin. A fellow inmate warned that Augustin was sending a letter to a friend looking “for somebody to help do away with the witnesses.” Id. at 675. Officers retrieved the letter. In it, Augustin asked his friend to arrange three hits, offering to “pay double” for the “heads” of Jordan, Jordan‘s mother, and another witness. Id. at 695.
The government charged Augustin with nearly a dozen counts. After a trial, a jury convicted him of eight. The district court sentenced Augustin to 500 months in prison. He received concurrent terms for seven of the counts, the longest being 380 months. But on top of that, the district court sentenced him to a consecutive 120-month term under
Later, Augustin filed a second or successive
The district court considered Augustin‘s
II.
Augustin raises two issues on appeal. First, he argues that the district court should have resentenced him rather than correct his sentence. And second, he contends that the district court erred when it denied his motion for appointment of counsel. We review the district court‘s decisions for an abuse of discretion. See Ajan v. United States, 731 F.3d 629, 633 (6th Cir. 2013) (form of relief); Mira v. Marshall, 806 F.2d 636, 638 (6th Cir. 1986) (per curiam) (appointment of counsel). Finding none here, we affirm.
A.
We begin with the district court‘s decision to correct Augustin‘s sentence rather than resentence him. In
A sentence correction, by contrast, is a more limited remedy. It is “arithmetical, technical, or mechanical.” Flack, 941 F.3d at 241. A district court corrects a sentence when, for example, it simply vacates “unlawful convictions (and accompanying sentences)” without choosing to reevaluate “the appropriateness of the defendant‘s original sentence.” Id. (alteration adopted) (quoting United States v. Palmer, 854 F.3d 39, 42, 48 (D.C. Cir. 2017)). A hearing is often unnecessary. Id.
Although district courts have broad discretion to choose between these remedies, United States v. Mitchell, 905 F.3d 991, 994 (6th Cir. 2018), the facts may dictate that one is more appropriate. For example, resentencing may be necessary if the error “undermines the sentence as a whole” such that the district court must “revisit the entire sentence.” Thomason, 940 F.3d at 1172. In that case, a court would need to start from scratch—that is, to recalculate the Guidelines range, reconsider the
Here, the district court reasonably chose to correct Augustin‘s sentence rather than to resentence him. First, the error did not undermine Augustin‘s entire sentence. To be sure, there may be times when vacating one conviction in a multi-count judgment compels a court to reconsider an entire sentence. But not every multi-count judgment “presents a sentencing package in which vacating the sentence on one count unravels the remaining sentences.” Palmer, 854 F.3d at 49; see also Thomason, 940 F.3d at 1172; Troiano v. United States, 918 F.3d 1082, 1086–87 (9th Cir. 2019). And vacating Augustin‘s
That‘s especially true here for another reason. When Augustin was originally sentenced, circuit precedent required the district
Second, the district court did not need to resentence Augustin because it did not exercise any new or significant discretion. It never reevaluated “the appropriateness of the defendant‘s original sentence” or reconsidered the
In sum, the district court did not abuse its discretion by correcting Augustin‘s sentence rather than resentencing him. Even if the district court could have held a resentencing hearing, Augustin was not entitled to one.
B.
Augustin also argues that the district court erred by denying his request for counsel. It did not.1
As an initial matter, Augustin had no constitutional right to counsel when the district court was choosing whether to resentence him or correct his sentence. To be sure, criminal defendants have a constitutional right to counsel at “critical stages” of criminal proceedings. Benitez v. United States, 521 F.3d 625, 630 (6th Cir. 2008) (citation omitted). But the “choice between correcting a sentence and performing a full resentencing” under
Nor did he have a right to counsel when the district court actually entered the corrected sentence. Again, the right to counsel only attaches at “critical stages” of criminal proceedings. Benitez, 521 F.3d at 630 (citation omitted). And the imposition of a corrected sentence is not one. Cf. Thomason, 940 F.3d at 1171–72 (holding that, unlike a resentencing, a sentence correction is not a critical stage at which a defendant has the right to be present). Instead, it is a mechanical act that does not present “a reasonable probability that [the defendant‘s] case could suffer significant consequences from his total denial of counsel at the stage.” Van v. Jones, 475 F.3d 292, 313 (6th Cir. 2007).
That said, district courts can appoint counsel in
Applying this standard, the district court did not abuse its discretion when it denied Augustin‘s request for counsel. See Mira, 806 F.2d at 638. First, the legal and factual issues in this case were not complex. Indeed, the relevant facts were simple—just the basic circumstances of Augustin‘s convictions and sentence. No additional investigation was required. And the legal issues were simple too: whether Augustin‘s
Second, Augustin was capable of presenting his arguments. Indeed, he thoroughly briefed his
Taken together, we cannot conclude that the district court abused its discretion by denying his motion for appointment of counsel.
We affirm.
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