United States v. McIntosh , 573 F. App'x 760 ( 2014 )

FILED
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS July 30, 2014
TENTH CIRCUIT Elisabeth A. Shumaker
Clerk of Court
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
No. 13-3065
v. (D.C. No. 2:11-CR-20085-KHV-1)
(D. of Kan.)
RODNEY McINTOSH,
Defendant-Appellant.
ORDER AND JUDGMENT *
Before LUCERO, TYMKOVICH, and PHILLIPS, Circuit Judges. **
Rodney McIntosh was convicted by a jury of eight counts of forcibly
assaulting prison employees during his incarceration at the United States
Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas. For these offenses, the district court
sentenced McIntosh to 144 months of incarceration. On appeal, McIntosh
challenges the district court’s decision to deny his pretrial motion to dismiss the
*
This order and judgment is not binding precedent except under the
doctrines of law of the case, res judicata and collateral estoppel. It may be cited,
however, for its persuasive value consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th
Cir. R. 32.1.
**
After examining the briefs and the appellate record, this three-judge
panel has determined unanimously that oral argument would not be of material
assistance in the determination of this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a); 10th
Cir. R. 34.1(G). The cause is therefore ordered submitted without oral argument.
indictment and alleges that his sentence was procedurally and substantively
unreasonable. We affirm.
I. Background
While in custody at Leavenworth, McIntosh made a habit of projecting
liquids—allegedly including urine, feces, and saliva—onto corrections officers
and other prison personnel. Each of the incidents underlying the eight counts of
assault involved some version of McIntosh forcibly inflicting fluids onto
employees of the Bureau of Prisons (BOP). Beyond that general level, the
specifics of each incident are largely irrelevant to our disposition of this appeal,
and we introduce facts below as needed.
After the government charged McIntosh with nine counts of assaulting
government officials under 18 U.S.C. § 111(a)(1), McIntosh filed a motion to
dismiss the indictment on the grounds that the government violated his due
process rights by destroying allegedly exculpatory evidence when the BOP
employees failed to preserve soiled clothing following each assault. The district
court conducted a hearing and denied this motion, finding the evidence was not
exculpatory and there was no evidence of the government’s bad faith in disposing
of the clothing.
Following a jury trial, McIntosh was convicted of eight of the nine assaults
charged in the indictment. The parties presented sentencing briefing, and, after a
hearing in which McIntosh acted pro se, the district court sentenced McIntosh to
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144 months in prison. This sentence included a two-level enhancement for
obstruction of justice based on McIntosh’s perjurious testimony at trial. In
addition, the district court opted for an upward variance from the United States
Sentencing Guidelines range of seventy to eighty-nine months due to a variety of
factors, including (1) McIntosh’s threatening statements toward officers and their
families during the assaults, and (2) McIntosh’s post-conviction disruptive
conduct.
II. Analysis
We first address McIntosh’s challenge under the Due Process Clause before
turning to his contentions regarding the alleged procedural and substantive
unreasonableness of his sentence.
A. Due Process Violation
We review for clear error “the district court’s conclusion that the
government did not destroy potentially exculpatory evidence.” United States v.
Bohl, 25 F.3d 904, 909 (10th Cir. 1994). “The inquiry into allegations of
prosecutorial bad faith presents a mixed question of fact and law in which the
quintessential factual question of intent predominates.” Id.
A due process violation occurs when the government fails to preserve
constitutionally material evidence. California v. Trombetta, 467 U.S. 479, 488
(1984). Under Trombetta, evidence is only constitutionally material when (1) its
exculpatory value was “apparent before the evidence was destroyed” and (2) it is
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“of such a nature that the defendant would be unable to obtain comparable
evidence by other reasonably available means.” Id. at 489. If the evidence is
only “potentially useful,” rather than exculpatory, the government only commits a
due process violation when it destroys the evidence in bad faith. Arizona v.
Youngblood, 488 U.S. 51, 58 (1988).
The parties dispute the probative value of the soiled clothing. On the one
hand, the government contends that the identity of the substance was irrelevant to
the crimes charged for assault of a government employee. See 18 U.S.C.
§ 111(a)(1). According to the government, the nature of the substance as a bodily
fluid is not a component of the offense. On the other hand, McIntosh argues that
the crude nature of the substance was repeatedly emphasized by the government
at trial to underscore the offensiveness of the physical contact.
To sustain a felony conviction under § 111(a)(1), the government was
required to prove that McIntosh intentionally forcibly assaulted an on-duty
government official through physical contact that would offend a reasonable
person. United States v. Hathaway, 318 F.3d 1001, 1007–08 (10th Cir. 2003).
Regardless of what the substance later turned out to be, the act of throwing an
unknown substance onto a BOP official clearly causes the offensive physical
conduct outlined in the statute. Moreover, the victims testified that the substance
smelled of bodily fluids, and they were subject to cross examination and their
credibility was challenged. Thus, while we cannot definitively say, as the
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government suggests, that the identity of the substance was entirely irrelevant as
an evidentiary matter, we are convinced that any evidentiary value of the officers’
soiled clothing could not rise to a level that would exonerate McIntosh. That is,
the evidence may have been “potentially useful,” but it was not exculpatory. See
Youngblood, 488 U.S. at 58.
Since the evidence was not exculpatory, McIntosh must prove that BOP
officials washed or otherwise “destroyed” the clothing in bad faith. See Bohl, 25
F.3d at 911 (identifying factors to consider in establishing whether evidence was
destroyed in bad faith). Based on our independent review of the record, we see
no evidence that prison personnel intentionally destroyed or tampered with the
evidence. The government’s innocent explanation that the clothing was not
preserved as part of standard BOP procedures for disposing of biohazardous
materials, not to mention the evidence’s merely cumulative relevance at trial,
demonstrates that there were no pernicious motives at play in the handling of this
evidence. See id. at 911–13. If stretched, the most we could say is that the
government was negligent in failing to preserve this evidence despite its potential
usefulness—but negligence is not sufficient to establish bad faith. United States
v. Pearl, 324 F.3d 1210, 1215 (10th Cir. 2003).
In light of the standard of review, moreover, we certainly do not regard the
district court’s finding as clearly erroneous. We conclude there was no due
process violation.
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B. Sentencing Challenges
McIntosh also challenges the procedure and substance of his sentencing.
We reject both of his challenges.
1. Procedural Reasonableness
Because McIntosh failed to contemporaneously challenge the district
court’s sentencing procedure below, we review his claim that the sentence is
procedurally unreasonable for plain error. United States v. Gantt, 679 F.3d 1240,
1256 (10th Cir. 2012). To establish plain error, McIntosh must demonstrate the
district court (1) committed error, (2) the error was plain, and (3) the plain error
affected his substantial rights. United States v. Cotton, 535 U.S. 625, 631 (2002).
If these factors are met, we may exercise discretion to correct the error only if it
seriously implicates the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial
proceedings. Id. at 631–32. McIntosh alleges four separate claims of procedural
unreasonableness, and we address each in turn.
First, McIntosh claims error in the district court’s decision to accept a two-
level obstruction-of-justice enhancement based on McIntosh’s alleged perjury at
trial. In particular, McIntosh contends that the district court failed to properly set
forth the factual basis for this enhancement. The Supreme Court, in United States
v. Dunnigan, found that perjury worthy of an obstruction-of-justice enhancement
occurs when “[a] witness testifying under oath or affirmation . . . gives false
testimony concerning a material matter with the willful intent to provide false
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testimony, rather than as a result of confusion, mistake, or faulty memory.” 507
U.S. 87, 94 (1993).
We have required that “a district court be explicit about which
representations by the defendant constitute perjury.” United States v. Hawthorne,
316 F.3d 1140, 1146 (10th Cir. 2003). This requirement enables us to review the
allegedly perjured testimony without speculating about the rationale for the
enhancement. United States v. Massey, 48 F.3d 1560, 1574 (10th Cir. 1995).
While the district court could have done more under Hawthorne and
Massey, under the third prong of plain error review, we cannot say that the lack of
specificity affected McIntosh’s substantial rights. See United States v. Flonnory,
630 F.3d 1280, 1288 (10th Cir. 2011). Based on our independent review of the
record, the evidence of McIntosh’s perjury at trial is abundant, and we fail to see
how the absence of a detailed inquiry into the perjury by the district court
prejudiced McIntosh. In short, “in light of the clear evidence of perjury, it would
be surprising if [McIntosh’s] sentence would be any different if we reversed and
remanded for resentencing.” Id.
Second, McIntosh finds fault in the district court’s factual support
regarding McIntosh’s threats to victims and victims’ families, which in part
justified the upward variance. Unlike the allegations of obstruction of justice, the
district court explained in its Statement of Reasons that “the evidence that the
defendant made threatening statements toward at least one victim that referenced
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the victim’s family,” partially supported a departure from the Guidelines. R.,
Vol. III at 35. As we see it, substantial evidence in the record justifies this
factual conclusion, and, while providing more extensive factual justification is the
better practice, we cannot say that the district court erred. See United States v.
Johnson, 973 F.2d 857, 859 (10th Cir. 1992).
Third, McIntosh asserts that the district court erred by failing to make
specific factual findings regarding McIntosh’s post-conviction disruptive conduct.
Like the threats to victims and their families, the district court enumerated
McIntosh’s post-conviction conduct as a reason for the upward variance. See R.,
Vol. III at 35 (“[T]he court has considered the defendant’s post-conviction
conduct, specifically the defendant’s assaultive and/or disruptive conduct directed
toward correctional officers at the Corrections Corporation of America,
subsequent to the defendant’s trial in the instant case.”). And because the
evidence likewise supports this conclusion, the district court did not err in using
these facts as partial grounds for the upward variance.
Fourth, McIntosh contends that the district court failed to give a sufficient
explanation for how it weighed all of the sentencing factors under 18 U.S.C.
§ 3553 prior to issuing its decision. To be sure, the sentencing court must
“adequately explain the chosen sentence—including an explanation for any
deviation from the Guidelines range.” Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 51
(2007). But in this case, the district court provided sufficient explanation—both
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on the record at the sentencing hearing and in its Statement of Reasons—to
defend the above-Guidelines sentence. Thus, the district court’s “reasoning and
analysis . . . give us ‘reasonable indicia that the sentence . . . is proportional to
the crime committed’” in light of the criminal history. United States v. Proffit,
304 F.3d 1001, 1012 (10th Cir. 2002) (alteration omitted) (quoting United States
v. Kalady, 941 F.2d 1090, 1101 (10th Cir. 1991). We see no error, let alone plain
error, in the district court’s holistic application of § 3553.
In sum, under the circumstances, “[w]e will not make the useless gesture of
remanding for reconsideration” of the procedural reasonableness of McIntosh’s
sentence. United States v. Rines, 419 F.3d 1104, 1107 (10th Cir. 2005).
2. Substantive Reasonableness
We evaluate claims of substantive unreasonableness for an abuse of
discretion. United States v. Navarrete-Medina, 554 F.3d 1312, 1313 (10th Cir.
2009). “[A]n extreme divergence from the advisory Guidelines range will be
reasonable if the facts of the case are dramatic enough to justify such a
divergence.” United States v. Mateo, 471 F.3d 1162, 1169 (10th Cir. 2006)
(internal citation and quotation marks omitted). In evaluating the reasonableness
of a departure from the Guidelines, we look “at the divergence in terms of both
percentage and absolute time.” United States v. Valtierra-Rojas, 468 F.3d 1235,
1240 (10th Cir. 2006).
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As McIntosh points out, the district court’s sentence was at least seventy
months and 65% longer than the high-end of the Guidelines. While we
acknowledge that this degree of divergence is substantial, we find that the district
court provided compelling justifications for its departure. See id. at 1242. In the
process of balancing the factors under § 3553(a), the district court reasonably
departed from the Guidelines on account of, among other factors, the
circumstances underlying the offenses, the multiple counts of similar conduct, and
McIntosh’s extensive criminal history. All things considered, and appropriately
deferring to the district court’s advantages at the sentencing phase, see Gall, 552
U.S. at 52 n.7, we cannot conclude that the district court’s imposition of a 144-
month sentence was substantively unreasonable.
III. Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM the district court’s decision.
ENTERED FOR THE COURT
Timothy M. Tymkovich
Circuit Judge
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