Pleas & Sentencing – Acceptance of Responsibility

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Criminal

7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Officials: POSNER, SYKES, and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges

Pleas & Sentencing – Acceptance of Responsibility

15-1193 United States of America v. Frank Pons

Where acceptance of responsibility not enough to warrant reduced sentence.

“Pons insists that his actions are analogous to the defend- ant in United States v. Lallemand, 989 F.2d 936 (7th Cir. 1993), abrogated on other grounds by United States v. Vizcarra, 668 F.3d 516 (7th Cir. 2012). There the defendant had instructed an accomplice to destroy evidence, id. at 937, but confessed immediately after his arrest and retracted his instruction to the accomplice (though it was too late to save the evidence), id. at 937–38. We held that a guidelines enhancement for obstruction and a reduction for acceptance of responsibility were not incompatible because the obstruction took place “at time t, and the acceptance of responsibility at time t + 1.” Id. at 938. In Pons’s view his situation is similar. He contends that he “voluntarily abandon[ed]” his obstruction at time t + 1 by self-surrendering in Brazil and promptly pleading guilty.”

Affirmed.

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