Sentencing – Enhancement

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7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: United States of America v. Anthony Brown

Case No.: 15-2243

Officials: EASTERBROOK and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges, and PEPPER, District Judge

Focus: Sentencing – Enhancement

Appellant Anthony Brown pled guilty to conspiring to distribute drugs. He appeals his sentence, challenging the application of a two‐level Sentencing Guideline enhancement for obstruction of justice. The unusual process that led to this enhancement persuades us that we should remand. The judge who sentenced Brown imposed the enhancement based on Brown’s responses to three questions in testimony in a hearing on a motion to suppress in an‐ other case against another defendant and before another judge. The other defendant ultimately pled guilty and with‐ drew his motion to suppress. As a result, the judge who actually heard Brown’s testimony never made findings about the honesty of his testimony or the merits of the other defendant’s motion to suppress. The judge who sentenced Brown imposed the enhancement for obstruction of justice based on the other judge’s interim impressions about earlier testimony from police officers. That was not a sufficient factual foundation to support the obstruction of justice enhancement. We vacate Brown’s sentence and remand for resentencing.

Vacated and remanded for resentencing

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