01-2618 U.S. v. Roach

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“The district court had before it statements from doctors who examined Roach, as well as evidence about Roach’s history relating to her compulsive shopping binges and the activities surrounding those binges. The district court found that Roach was ‘not able fully to control the things she did in order to allow her to continue to carry out [her shopping] compulsion,’ pointing to evidence that she had consistently engaged in activities to ‘facilitate and conceal’ her shopping, such as paying for groceries with checks written for amounts above the purchase amount, obtaining new credit cards, having bills sent to friends’ houses, and borrowing money from relatives to pay her credit card debt. While this evidence might perhaps indicate a lack of control with respect to those (lawful) activities, it does not shed light on her mental capacity at the time she engaged in the fraudulent conduct.”

“According to Roach, she kept the money after realizing that it was a way to pay off her debt and conceal it from her husband. Given these statements, the episodic nature of her impairment, and the fact that Roach had ‘self-medicated’ her depression and compulsively shopped for more than ten years without any criminal activity, the analytic leap from a shopping compulsion to a significantly impaired ability to control fraudulent conduct spanning three years is too great to make without supporting reasons or evidence.”

“[T]he court abused its discretion in granting a downward departure based on sec. 5K2.13. Its findings on Roach’s motive do not establish the critical issue of her mental capacity at the time of the offense, and on that issue, there is no evidence to support the court’s conclusion that Roach had a significantly impaired ability to control her behavior.”

Vacated and remanded.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Kennelly, J., Williams, J.