United States Eighth Circuit

A successful and prominent Wal-Mart executive's no-imprisonment sentence for aiding and abetting wire fraud and filing false tax returns is reversed and remanded where: 1) the district court clearly erred in finding defendant suffers an extraordinary physical impairment and abused its discretion by departing downward eight levels pursuant to U.S.S.G. section 5H1.4; and 2) in imposing an alternative non-Guidelines sentence, the lower court did not state the reasons for the sentence with sufficient specificity and relied on ordinarily irrelevant, and discouraged, grounds in reaching the sentence.

Appellate Information

• Decided 08/28/2007
• Published 08/28/2007

Judges

• RILEY, Circuit Judge., Before LOKEN, Chief Judge, BYE and RILEY, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Eighth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Robert C. Balfe, AUSA, argued, Christopher D. Plumlee, AUSA, on the brief, Fort Smith, AR, for appellant.


• For Appellees:
  
• Blair G. Brown, argued, Washington, DC, William W. Taylor, III and Caroline Judge Mehta, Washington, DC, and W.H. Taylor, Fayetteville, AR, on the brief, for appellee.