UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. CARLOS ROSARIO
Docket Nos. 18-2739, 20-2268
United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
Decided: July 29, 2021
United States Court of Appeals
for the Second Circuit
(Argued: November 5, 2019
Final Submission: August 24, 2020
Decided: July 29, 2021)
Docket Nos. 18-2739, 20-2268
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Appellee,
v.
CARLOS ROSARIO,
Defendant-Appellant.
Before:
SACK and PARK,* Circuit Judges, and RAKOFF, District Judge.†
Carlos Rosario appeals the imposition by the district court (Pauley, J.) of a $5,000 special assessment, pursuant to
not err by (1) considering Rosario’s future earning potential in determining indigency under section 3014(a), or (2) finding him to be non-indigent within the meaning of the statute. We therefore AFFIRM the imposition of the special assessment.
Judge Rakoff concurs in a separate opinion.
PHILIP L. WEINSTEIN (Matthew B. Larsen, on the
JUSTIN V. RODRIGUEZ (Anna M. Skotko, Alexandra Rothman, on the brief), for Audrey Strauss, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, New York, NY, for Appellee.
PARK, Circuit Judge:
Carlos Rosario pled guilty in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York to three offenses stemming from his sexual exploitation of a minor. As part of Rosario’s sentence, the district court (William H. Pauley III, J.) ordered Rosario to pay a $5,000 special assessment under the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act of 2015 (“JVTA”), which requires courts to impose the assessment on all “non-indigent” persons convicted of specified offenses.
On appeal, Rosario argues that the district court erred by considering his future earning capacity in finding him to be “non-indigent.” We disagree. The
ordinary meaning of “indigent” encompasses not only a lack of present resources, but also includes a forward-looking assessment of the defendant’s “means” or ability to pay. This understanding is reinforced by the statutory scheme, which provides defendants 20 years after their release to make payment. It is also consistent with our precedent and the view of all six of our sister circuits that have addressed the issue.
The district court properly considered Rosario’s future earning potential in concluding that he is “non-indigent” under the JVTA and did not otherwise clearly err in reaching that conclusion. We therefore affirm.
I. BACKGROUND
A. JVTA Assessment
The JVTA provides that courts “shall assess an amount of $5,000 on any non-indigent person or entity convicted of” certain specified offenses, including “offense[s] under . . . chapter 110 (relating to sexual exploitation and other abuse of children).”
Funds collected under section 3014(a) are deposited in the “Domestic Trafficking Victims’ Fund.”
B. Procedural History
In 2017, Rosario pled guilty to sexual exploitation of a minor and possession and distribution of child pornography. The district court sentenced him to 240 months’ imprisonment, followed by a lifetime term of supervised release. The court did not impose a fine, but it ordered Rosario to pay $12,000 in restitution, a $300 mandatory assessment, and the $5,000 special assessment under the JVTA.
Rosario appealed to this Court, challenging only the imposition of the JVTA assessment. His sole argument on appeal was that the district court plainly erred in
In accordance with the procedure outlined in United States v. Jacobson, 15 F.3d 19 (2d Cir. 1994), we remanded this matter to the district court for further
proceedings because we found the record “unclear as to why and how the district court determined that Rosario was not indigent.” United States v. Rosario, 785 F. App’x 22, 23 (2d Cir. 2019). We noted that “[w]hile the district court explicitly adopted the Presentence Investigation Report (PSR)” prepared by the Probation Department, “which had recommended the JVTA assessment, the PSR contained no specific finding with respect to Rosario’s indigency.” Id. We further observed that “the non-imposition of fines may not be determinative in establishing indigency under Section 3014(a),” and we advised the district court, if it saw fit, to “further develop the record with regard to Rosario’s present financial condition and his predicted earnings capacity.” Id.
On remand, the district court received new sentencing submissions from the parties and held a resentencing hearing. Rosario again did not argue that consideration of his future earning potential was improper under section 3014(a). The court ultimately reimposed its original sentence, including the $5,000 JVTA assessment. Tr. at 15–17.1
As to the JVTA assessment, the district court, citing decisions of our sister circuits, stated that a sentencing court “may consider both a defendant’s financial
situation and future earnings potential when making [the] indigency determination.” Id. at 6. The court then found Rosario to be “non-indigent” under section 3014(a). It considered Rosario’s health, outstanding debts and current assets, employment while incarcerated, “extensive prior work history,” and “transferable skills” in “basic plumbing, painting, flooring and tile work.” Id. at 7–12. The court also noted it was “mindful that [Rosario’s] felony convictions and sex-offender status will likely have an adverse effect on his employability,” but stated that Rosario could not “use that fact as a shield against paying the special assessment.” Id. at 12.
II. DISCUSSION
On appeal, Rosario again challenges the district court’s imposition of the JVTA assessment. This time, he argues that the district court (1) improperly considered his future earning capacity in finding him to be “non-indigent,” and (2) erred in imposing the assessment even if consideration of future earning capacity were proper. We reject both arguments.
A. The district court appropriately considered Rosario’s future earning potential
First, Rosario argues that a district court may consider only the defendant’s resources at the time of sentencing, and not his future earning potential, when
determining whether he is “non-indigent” under section 3014(a). We review the district court’s interpretation of section 3014(a) for plain error because Rosario failed to raise this statutory challenge below. Puckett v. United States, 556 U.S. 129, 138 (2009); United States v. Harris, 838 F.3d 98, 103–04 (2d Cir. 2016).
The government contends that Rosario waived this argument by choosing
1. Statutory Text and Precedent
We start, as always, with the statutory text. Section 3014(a) does not define “indigent,” so we look to its “ordinary meaning.” Asgrow Seed Co. v. Winterboer, 513 U.S. 179, 187 (1995). In determining ordinary meaning, “[t]ext may not be divorced from context,” Univ. of Tex. Sw. Med. Ctr. v. Nassar, 570 U.S. 338, 356 (2013), and “the same words, placed in different contexts, sometimes mean different things,” Yates v. United States, 574 U.S. 528, 537 (2015) (plurality op.).
The word “indigent” encompasses not only a person’s present lack of resources, but also indicates that a person “lacks the means of subsistence.” Indigency, Black’s Law Dictionary (11th ed. 2019); see also Indigence, Oxford English Dictionary (3d ed. 2020) (defining the term as the “[w]ant of the means of subsistence”). As several other circuits have concluded, this “forward-looking” sense of the word “refers to a person’s capabilities—whether a person has or lacks the capacity to earn subsistence.” United States v. Graves, 908 F.3d 137, 141 (5th Cir. 2018) (emphasis in original); see also United States v. Shepherd, 922 F.3d 753, 758 (6th Cir. 2019) (noting that “an indigent person not only lives in poverty but also lacks the means—e.g., skills or education—to exit poverty”). Thus, “the district court must resolve two basic questions in assessing the defendant’s indigency: (1) Is the defendant impoverished now; and (2) if so, does the defendant have the means to provide for himself so that he will not always be impoverished?” Shepherd, 922 F.3d at 758 (emphases in original).
The Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Circuits—all of our sister circuits to have considered the issue—have held that courts may consider a defendant‘s future earning potential when determining indigency for purposes of imposing the JVTA assessment. See United States v. McMiller, 954 F.3d 670, 675 (4th
Cir. 2020); Shepherd, 922 F.3d at 758–59; Graves, 908 F.3d at 141; United States v. Kelley, 861 F.3d 790, 802 (8th Cir. 2017); see also United States v. Janatsch, 722 F. App’x 806, 810–11 (10th Cir. 2018); United States v. Strange, 692 F. App’x 346, 348–49 (9th Cir. 2017). We agree with our sister circuits, concluding that when determining whether a defendant is indigent pursuant to section 3014(a), a court may consider both the resources available to the defendant at the time of sentencing and the defendant’s future earning potential. See United States v. Clarke, 979 F.3d 82, 101 (2d Cir. 2020) (“When making an indigency determination, a district court ‘may consider both [the] defendant’s present financial resources and those that may become available in the future.’” (quoting United States v. Salameh, 261 F.3d 271, 276 (2d Cir. 2001))). We decline Rosario’s invitation to hold otherwise.
2. Statutory Structure and Context
The statutory structure of section 3014(a) supports this interpretation. First, the defendant’s obligation to pay the JVTA assessment continues for 20 years after entry of judgment or release from prison, whichever is later.
sense for the district court to consider only the defendant’s financial condition at the time of sentencing” because “[t]hat snapshot in time may not accurately represent the defendant’s condition five, ten, or twenty years after sentencing.” Shepherd, 922 F.3d at 758 (emphasis in original). Even Rosario acknowledged this commonsense reading, explaining in his sentencing submission that the relevant “question” for the district court on remand was “whether between 2034 and 2054, [he] will rise above his current station to become non-indigent such that he must pay this assessment.” Def.’s Sentencing Ltr. at 2, United States v. Rosario, No. 17-cr-306 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 6, 2020), ECF No. 42.
The long-lasting JVTA obligation is unlike other contexts in which courts consider only a defendant’s financial resources at the time of sentencing. For example, “[i]n granting court-appointed counsel, the court assesses a defendant’s immediate ability to pay because ‘any person haled into court, who is too poor to hire a lawyer, cannot be assured a fair trial unless counsel is provided for him.’” Kelley, 861 F.3d at 800 (quoting Martinez v. Ryan, 566 U.S. 1, 12 (2012)). Appointment of counsel is not dispositive of indigency for purposes of imposing monetary penalties. Clarke, 979 F.3d at 101; see also United States v. Valdez, 522 F. App’x 25, 33 (2d Cir. 2013) (holding that “the fact that [the defendant] had been
appointed counsel as an indigent defendant” was not “determinative of his ability to pay a fine”). There is no reason to consider a defendant’s future earning potential in assessing his ability to pay for a lawyer now. By contrast, courts should consider a defendant’s future earning potential when determining whether he is “indigent” for purposes of paying an obligation over 20 years into the future.
Second, section 3014 provides that the JVTA assessment “shall . . . be collected in the manner that fines are collected in criminal cases.”
Rosario argues that the statutory scheme cuts the other way because section 3014(a), unlike other statutes, does not explicitly refer to future earning ability. Rosario points to
courts to consider the defendant’s “financial resources,” “financial needs,” and “earning ability” in ordering restitution. In Rosario’s view, those provisions show that “Congress knows how to make potential earnings relevant,” and the absence of an express reference to potential earnings in section 3014(a) suggests that Congress intended to exclude consideration of that factor. Rosario Suppl. Br. at 1.
We are not persuaded. The provisions Rosario identifies have little in common with section 3014(a). Sections 3572(a) and 3663(a)(1)(B)(i) describe factors that courts should consider in deciding whether to impose
Rosario further contends that the 20-year timeframe to pay the $5,000 special assessment is a reflection of the assessment’s subordination to other fines and restitution amounts, not an indication that the assessment should be imposed on a defendant who may be able to pay it in the future. Rosario Suppl. Br. at 4. We disagree. This 20-year time period is consistent with the statute’s purpose because it “increase[s] the possibility [that] the assessments would be collected and used to help victims.” Graves, 908 F.3d at 141.
Rosario also argues that Congress could not have permitted consideration of earning ability in determining indigency under section 3014(a) because “it would mean declaring almost everyone ‘non-indigent.’” Rosario Suppl. Reply Br. at 4. This concern is overstated. Many defendants have no work history, are physically disabled, or are serving sentences so long that they are unlikely ever to obtain post-release employment. And it is not necessarily the case that every defendant with post-release earning potential is “non-indigent.”
the time of sentencing, but he provides no basis for this selective parsing of sections 3572(a) and 3663(a)(1)(B)(i).
B. The district court properly found Rosario to be “non-indigent”
Finally, Rosario contends that “[e]ven if the district court was right to consider ‘future earnings potential,’ it was still wrong to deem Rosario ‘non-indigent.’” Rosario Suppl. Br. at 6 (citation omitted). Again, we disagree.
A court’s determination that a defendant is “non-indigent” under section 3014(a) is a factual finding that we review for clear error. United States v. Jeffers, 329 F.3d 94, 97 (2d Cir. 2003). “We will find clear error only where we as the reviewing court on the entire evidence are left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed.” United States v. Dumitru, 991 F.3d 427, 436 (2d Cir. 2021) (cleaned up). Applying this deferential standard, we affirm the district court’s indigency determination.
The district court carefully weighed the record evidence in finding Rosario non-indigent. It noted Rosario’s health, limited financial resources, outstanding debts, and other court-imposed obligations. Against those factors, the district court considered Rosario’s education, “extensive prior work history,” basic vocational skills, language proficiency, and participation in training courses while incarcerated. Tr. at 11–12. The district court’s conclusion was “plausible in light
of the record viewed in its entirety” and thus not clearly erroneous. Anderson v. City of Bessemer City, 470 U.S. 564, 573–74 (1985).
Rosario
Rosario also points to his $6,000 debt and $12,300 in other court-imposed obligations as evidence of indigency. But given Rosario’s vocational skills and pre-incarceration record of employment, we see no clear error in the district court’s determination that Rosario could successfully pay the special assessment by 2054,
20 years after his expected release from prison. Indeed, courts have affirmed the imposition of the JVTA assessment even when the defendant had a negative net worth and faced additional financial obligations upon release. See, e.g., United States v. Wandahsega, 924 F.3d 868, 889 (6th Cir. 2019) (defendant had “no assets other than a checking account containing $200” and “$30,000 in outstanding medical bills”); Shepherd, 922 F.3d at 760 (defendant would owe $25,000 in restitution and as much as $30,000 in child support upon release); Kelley, 861 F.3d at 802 (PSR reflected defendant’s “slightly negative net worth at the time of sentencing”).
In sum, we hold that the district court did not clearly err in finding, after careful consideration of Rosario’s present financial position and likely future earnings, that Rosario is “non-indigent” under section 3014(a).
III. CONCLUSION
For the reasons set forth above, we affirm the district court’s imposition of the $5,000 special assessment pursuant to
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. CARLOS ROSARIO
No. 18-2739 (L)
United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
RAKOFF, District Judge, concurring:
I concur that we should affirm the district court’s imposition of the $5,000 special assessment on the Defendant under the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act (JVTA), but I would do so only by applying plain error review. I write separately to explain why I remain unpersuaded by the reasons articulated by the panel majority for interpreting “indigent” in
STATUTORY BACKGROUND
Under the JVTA, a sentencing court “shall assess an amount of $5,000 on any non-indigent person or entity” convicted of offenses in one of five categories.
Pursuant to the standard civil remedy provision, “the liability to pay a fine shall terminate the later of 20 years from the entry of judgment or 20 years after release from imprisonment of the person fined, or upon the death of the individual fined.”
DISCUSSION
Following our remand to the district court for further development of the record regarding “why and how [it] determined that Rosario was not indigent,” United States v. Rosario, 785 F. App’x 22, 23 (2d Cir. 2019), Rosario again challenges the district court’s imposition of the JVTA assessment. He argues that the district court improperly considered his future earning potential in finding him to be “non-indigent.”
For the reasons set forth below, I agree with Rosario that district courts should not speculate about a defendant’s future earnings potential in assessing
whether he is “indigent” and so excused from section 3014(a)’s special assessment. But Rosario did not raise this statutory construction challenge below, and thus his appeal is subject to plain error review. Since neither this Court nor the Supreme Court had yet construed the scope of a district court’s inquiry under section 3014(a)’s indigency exception, the district court did not plainly err. I therefore concur in affirming imposition of the $5,000 special assessment.
Section 3014(a)’s Exception for “Indigent” Defendants
Like the panel majority, I begin with the text of the JVTA’s “indigency exception,” United States v. Haverkamp, 958 F.3d 145, 150 n.3 (2d Cir. 2020). The statute speaks in the present tense, directing the district court to assess whether the person or entity being sentence is “non-indigent,” not whether a defendant might become non-indigent at some future date. However, the JVTA provides no definition for the term “indigent.” Therefore, like the panel majority, I look to the “ordinary meaning” of “indigent.” Asgrow Seed Co. v. Winterboer, 513 U.S. 179, 187 (1995). See ante at 7.1 Someone is “indigent” if he is a “poor person.” Black’s Law Dictionary (11th ed. 2019). Numerous dictionaries share a focus on whether a person is currently “[l]acking the necessaries of life; in needy circumstances;
characterized by poverty; poor, needy.” Indigent, Oxford English Dictionary (3d ed. 2021). See also, e.g., Indigent, American Heritage Dictionary (5th ed. 2020) (“Experiencing want or need; impoverished”); Indigent, Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary (2017) (“having no money or anything else of value”). Each of these definitions of the statutory term—indigent—directs the reader to consider what a person presently has, relative to what he needs. None of these dictionaries invites the reader to speculate as to whether a person may earn more in the future in determining whether he is “indigent.”
The panel majority imports a “forward-looking” meaning by departing from the conventions of careful textual analysis. It finds references to the “means of subsistence”
The panel opinion’s reliance on other circuits’ textual exegeses is similarly unpersuasive. In United States v. Graves, for instance, the Fifth Circuit relied on an
edition of Webster’s New International Dictionary from 1954, which defined “indigent” as including someone who is “‘[d]estitute of … means of comfortable subsistence.’” Graves, 908 F.3d at 141 (quoting Indigent, Webster’s New International Dictionary 1266 (2d ed. 1954)) (alteration and emphasis in original). But Webster’s now defines “indigent” as “being in a condition of indigence; being poor usually without being destitute,” following the contemporary trend by considering only present resources. Indigent, Miriam-Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, https://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/unabridged/indigent (last visited July 14, 2021). The Sixth Circuit case cited by the panel opinion similarly relies on decades-old definitions of “indigent” (along with contemporary definitions of “indigency”) to infer a that the “defendant [must be] impoverished now” and lack “the means to provide for himself so that he will … always be impoverished.” Shepherd, 922 F.3d at 758. However, this Court has insisted that an undefined statutory term “is properly construed according to its contemporary dictionary definition,” State v. Dep’t of Justice, 951 F.3d 84, 106 (2d Cir. 2020), because contemporary sources are more likely to reflect the term’s ordinary meaning at the time the statute took effect.
Since the JVTA was enacted in 2015, I would privilege contemporary dictionaries,
which define someone as “indigent” if he is experiencing poverty at the time of sentencing, without speculating whether he might one day earn enough to no longer be considered poor.
Nor am I persuaded by the inferences that the panel opinion draws from statutory structure. The panel opinion infers that future earnings capacity is relevant because “the defendant’s obligation to pay the JVTA assessment continues for 20 years after entry of judgment or release from prison.” Ante at 9; accord Graves, 908 F.3d at 141; Shepherd, 922 F.3d at 758. The twenty-year termination of a defendant’s liability for the special assessment arises through the existing provision for collection of criminal fines through civil remedies. See
potential as a means of narrowing the indigency exception, better explains why Congress made the obligation to pay the special assessment coextensive with the obligation to pay a criminal fine.
Moreover, the fact that the JVTA makes use of the existing statutory structures for collection of criminal fines adds credence to the textual comparisons between section
at 11, the Sentencing Guidelines similarly oblige courts to consider future earning potential in assessing whether a defendant is too poor for a criminal fine to be justly imposed. See U.S.S.G. § 5E1.2(a). These express references to future earning potential in other provisions of Title 18 indicate that “Congress has shown that it knows how to adopt the omitted language or provision.” Rotkiske v. Klemm, 140 S.Ct. 355, 361 (2019). In this circumstance “[a]textual judicial supplementation is particularly inappropriate.” Id. Since the contemporary, ordinary meaning of “indigent” refers only to present poverty, and these variations in provisions of Title 18 should be treated as meaningful, this Court should not add consideration of future earnings capacity to the text of section 3014(a), thereby substantially narrowing the JVTA’s exception for indigent defendants.3
The panel opinion offers reasons not to infer that Congress’s omission here constitutes meaningful variation, but they are unpersuasive. Congress invited the
court ordering such restitution may consider future earnings capacity by “direct[ing] the defendant to make nominal periodic payments if the court finds from facts on the record that the economic circumstances of the defendant do not allow the payment of any amount of a restitution order, and do not allow for the payment of the full amount of a restitution order in the foreseeable future under any reasonable schedule of payments.”
comparisons to the criminal fines statutes that Rosario urges by specifying that the JVTA’s special assessment “shall … be collected in the manner that fines are collected in criminal cases,” subject only to the requirement that fines, restitution, and other victim-compensation obligations be paid first.
Finally, there is practical sense in construing “indigent” according to its ordinary meaning by restricting the assessment of whether a defendant is “indigent” to an analysis of financial resources and needs at the time of sentencing. Consideration of a defendant’s earning potential once he has been released after a
lengthy prison sentence and reentered the labor market as a convicted felon is, frankly, an invitation to speculate wildly, something a district court is poorly equipped to do. This is particularly true where, as here, a defendant’s prior employment history was amassed before he had a criminal record. See PSR ¶ 80. Rosario will reenter the labor market in 2034 with a high-school education, limited skills, federal felony convictions, and a sex-offender registration. See Dkt. 81 at 19 (resentencing transcript). It is therefore unknown, indeed unknowable, what Mr. Rosario’s financial condition will be between 2034, when he is expected to leave federal prison, and 2054, when his liabilities from this sentence will terminate. What is certain, however, is that (considering only his present financial condition) Mr. Rosario was in poverty at the time of sentencing. As the district court acknowledged, the pre-sentence investigation reported that Rosario had a negative net worth of approximately $6,000. Id. at 20. Against this backdrop, the court’s finding under section 3014(a) that Rosario was not indigent depended entirely upon “his future earnings.” Id. As Rosario argues, construing “indigent” to permit such speculation collapses section 3014(a)’s indigency exception and make it a virtual dead letter. Only those defendants so disabled as to be undeniably bereft of all future earning potential would qualify. Permitting consideration of
future earning potential therefore conflicts with the plain meaning of section 3014(a) and produces a result at odds with the manifest intent of Congress not to impose additional fines on people already living in poverty.
Plain Error Analysis
Notwithstanding my disagreement over the proper inquiry under section 3014(a)’s indigency exception, I still vote to affirm because the district court did not plainly err.
As the panel opinion accurately explains, we review the district court’s statutory interpretation for plain error because Rosario failed to raise his statutory challenge to section 3014(a) below. Ante at 6-7; see United States v. Harris, 838 F.3d 98, 103-104 (2d Cir. 2016). Among the requirements to reverse on plain error review is that the error “is clear or obvious, rather than subject to reasonable dispute.” Puckett v. United States, 556 U.S. 129, 135 (2009). This Court has repeated explained this requirement by stating that “‘for an error to be plain, it must, at a minimum, be clear under current law,’ which means that ‘we typically will not find such error where the operative legal question is unsettled, including where there is no binding precedent from the Supreme Court or this Court.’” United States
v. Napout, 963 F.3d 163, 183 (2d Cir. 2020) (quoting United States v. Whab, 355 F.3d 155, 158 (2d Cir. 2004)).
There is no question that the operative legal question in this case remained unsettled, since neither this Court nor the Supreme Court had yet construed the scope of the district court’s inquiry for section 3014(a)’s indigency exception. Therefore, while I would hold that the district court
CONCLUSION
Because the district court did not plainly err by considering future earning potential in finding the defendant “non-indigent” under