United States Ninth Circuit

In this case, defendant pleaded guilty to 15 counts of wire fraud without reaching a plea agreement with the government and the district court sentenced him to 120 months in prison, below the appropriate U.S. Sentencing Guidelines range. Defendant now appeals on grounds that his sentence would have been even lower if the district court had considered his ineffective assistance of counsel claim as a mitigating factor under 18 U.S.C. section 3553(a). The judgment is affirmed, where: 1) ineffective assistance of counsel is not within the enumerated section 3553(a) sentencing factors; 2) the district court's failure to consider ineffective of counsel as a sentencing factor was therefore not procedural error; and 3) the below-Guidelines sentence is substantively reasonable.

Appellate Information

• Decided 01/13/2015
• Published 01/13/2015

Judges

• Gilman

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel