[00:00:00] Speaker 03: 245088. [00:00:02] Speaker 03: Council, you may proceed. [00:00:09] Speaker 02: Good morning, Your Honours. [00:00:11] Speaker 02: Thank you. [00:00:13] Speaker 02: Can Your Honours hear me okay? [00:00:15] Speaker 03: Yes. [00:00:16] Speaker 02: Thanks. [00:00:16] Speaker 02: I'm Leah Yaffe with the Federal Public Defender's Office for Mr. Joel Smith. [00:00:22] Speaker 02: And the issue in this case is that the district court aired at sentencing when it determined that there was no sufficiently analogous guideline for Mr. Smith's conviction for Oklahoma child abuse by injury. [00:00:34] Speaker 02: Instead pursuant to guideline 2X5.1, the district court should have analogized that conviction to the federal assault guidelines. [00:00:45] Speaker 02: So the law here is that when there's a crime, whether it's a state-assimilated crime or an unassigned federal crime that doesn't have a specific offense guideline in Appendix A, courts need to first identify the universe of plausibly analogous guidelines for the crime of conviction. [00:01:04] Speaker 02: And then if there's more than one, choose the best one. [00:01:08] Speaker 02: And so this case, we're at step one, and it's a really low bar to clear. [00:01:13] Speaker 02: And that's, we know that from the commentary of the guideline 2X5.1, which says most of the time, the guidelines are going to cover the type of conduct that's in an unassigned crime. [00:01:24] Speaker 02: We know that from this court, which has repeatedly expressed how low the bar is, including in rakes, when it said what we're looking for is something that's within the ballpark. [00:01:35] Speaker 02: of the crime of conviction, we're just looking for a general umbrella that the state crime here can fit under. [00:01:40] Speaker 02: And the reason it's a low bar makes a lot of sense because the goal is to just get as many cases as possible into the framework of the federal guidelines. [00:01:51] Speaker 01: So can you direct us to whether we're looking at 2A2.2 or 2A2.3? [00:01:57] Speaker 01: You had a footnote in your opening brief that sort of suggested, you know, it's [00:02:03] Speaker 01: either both, I mean, it seems like your argument is directed at 2A 2.2 on appeal and that's it, right? [00:02:14] Speaker 02: I think this case ends up in 2A 2.2, the aggravated assault guideline. [00:02:19] Speaker 02: The reason 2A 2.3 is mentioned is just that because the district court found that there was no sufficiently analogous guideline at all, it stopped at step one. [00:02:28] Speaker 02: And so going through the process in order in any case like this [00:02:32] Speaker 02: both assault and aggravated assault are going to be within the universe of possibilities. [00:02:37] Speaker 02: I think it's pretty clear in this case that once everything goes back and is completed, the full analysis were an aggravated assault. [00:02:44] Speaker 02: And we're not intending to suggest that this case is the appropriate one for the regular assault guideline. [00:02:49] Speaker 02: It's just informative at the step one process. [00:02:53] Speaker 03: The district court cited United States against Clark [00:03:00] Speaker 03: If an argument failed under Clark for child neglect, why shouldn't it similarly fail for child abuse? [00:03:11] Speaker 02: I actually think Clark is a great case for us here because the specific thing that this court thought was not analogous enough between child neglect and the federal assault guidelines was that [00:03:23] Speaker 02: Child neglect at heart is a crime of omission. [00:03:26] Speaker 02: You don't need an affirmative assaultive act. [00:03:28] Speaker 02: Here, that is what the difference is with child abuse by injury and child neglect in Oklahoma. [00:03:34] Speaker 02: There's two different crimes. [00:03:36] Speaker 02: This one is the one where you need an affirmative assaultive act. [00:03:39] Speaker 02: That was something that was significant for this court and Clark, I think, understandably for the child neglect conviction. [00:03:47] Speaker 02: But here, we have exactly what Clark said that you would need from [00:03:51] Speaker 02: Oklahoma state crime in order to be analogous to the federal assault guidelines. [00:03:54] Speaker 02: So really it's that both child abuse by injury and the various federal assault crimes require an affirmative assaultive act that risks and typically results in some degree of bodily injury. [00:04:06] Speaker 02: And I point out that I don't understand the government to really challenge that the basic acts or conduct covered by child abuse by injury is analogous to [00:04:18] Speaker 02: federal assault, or even that most of the time we're talking about something that results in bodily injury, and that's really what we need to clear this low bar. [00:04:27] Speaker 02: What I understand the two main differences the government has raised to be, which I don't see as differences, but I'll go through them both, are mental state and whether sometimes you can have mental injury instead of just physical injury. [00:04:44] Speaker 02: Starting with the first one, mental state. [00:04:47] Speaker 02: Child abuse by injury has what's effectively a knowingly general intent mental state. [00:04:53] Speaker 02: There are some federal assault crimes that have a lower culpability mental state, recklessness or even lower. [00:04:59] Speaker 02: There are also federal assault crimes that require something even higher. [00:05:03] Speaker 02: than knowingly. [00:05:05] Speaker 02: So we have specific intent crimes that are covered by the aggravated assault guideline. [00:05:09] Speaker 02: So when we're asking is this guideline, does it capture within its umbrella the mental state, the severity of culpability from a mental state perspective that Oklahoma child abuse by injury does, the answer is yes, because knowingly falls within the range of mental states that are covered by this guideline. [00:05:27] Speaker 02: Um, and we know that this test at step one is to loosely compare the elements of child abuse by injury to the elements of all the federal solo offenses that are within a given guideline. [00:05:39] Speaker 01: And so is it your position that the, that there is no mens rea gap because the mental state doesn't need to, to match your, just, uh, if I understand your argument, your, your, the matches that there's intentionality of some kind. [00:05:54] Speaker 02: Yes, so I think that's correct. [00:05:56] Speaker 02: I'll restate it just to be clear. [00:05:59] Speaker 02: The argument is that the mental state that's required in Oklahoma is captured within the guideline. [00:06:09] Speaker 02: We don't need to point to one specific type of federal assault that has every single element that child abuse by injury does. [00:06:14] Speaker 02: If that were the case, child abuse by injury would have a guideline assigned to it. [00:06:18] Speaker 02: What we need to show is that there's a guideline that broadly encompasses the punishment rules for this degree of culpability. [00:06:27] Speaker 02: And I'm not sure that a minor difference in mental state, I don't think that would even render something not sufficiently analogous for purposes of step one, but here I don't even think it's a difference because we know this type of culpable mental state is in fact covered by the assault guidelines and specifically the aggravated assault guideline. [00:06:49] Speaker 02: For the second difference that the government raises, the government points out that in the Oklahoma jury instructions defining torture, which is one of the means of child abuse by injury, one means of committing torture is potentially extreme mental cruelty, so not requiring bodily injury. [00:07:10] Speaker 02: I think as a threshold point, this is a little bit of an unsettled question in Oklahoma. [00:07:15] Speaker 02: The case, the jury instructions say that and then reference also a case that has held that there is no mental injury in a child abuse. [00:07:24] Speaker 02: injury statute in Oklahoma, but assuming the government is correct and that some of the time you're looking at just mental injury, that's also true for the federal assault, for federal assault statutes, right? [00:07:36] Speaker 02: So there's simple assault, there's ways of committing an assault that isn't, that's an attempted battery and not a true battery. [00:07:42] Speaker 02: Again, this isn't a difference, and even if it were possible that [00:07:47] Speaker 02: There's a little bit of difference between the type of mental injury or whatever it is in Oklahoma and federal assaults. [00:07:54] Speaker 02: What we're talking about is, is this roughly the same? [00:07:57] Speaker 02: Is it roughly comparable enough that we can use the federal guidelines in this case as opposed to have no guideline at all and just ask a district court within the statutory range of zero to life to do their best and to start from scratch? [00:08:12] Speaker 02: And I don't think either of these differences that are in the answer brief are the types of things that would say, you know what, unfortunately, this is a case where we do not have the benefit of the federal guidelines. [00:08:25] Speaker 04: Let me ask you, let me turn this around a little bit and just ask you a question about it. [00:08:29] Speaker 04: If this were a charging decision we were talking about and the only injury we could prove was a mental injury, would we be able to proceed under the federal assault statute? [00:08:43] Speaker 02: I think that that would probably fall under at least simple assault. [00:08:47] Speaker 02: So you'd have an attempted battery or another version of that is putting somebody in reasonable apprehension of immediate bodily harm. [00:08:55] Speaker 04: Do you have a case on that? [00:09:00] Speaker 02: I need to double check, but I believe that the Harris case cited in the reply brief is an example of a simple assault case where somebody drew a dangerous weapon on [00:09:12] Speaker 02: someone else, but there wasn't actually physical injury. [00:09:18] Speaker 02: And if I have, if I'm giving you the wrong case name, I'll follow up, but I believe it's the Harris case in the reply brief. [00:09:27] Speaker 02: But I don't think there's a real question that some of the time an assault is an attempted battery instead of an actual battery. [00:09:35] Speaker 02: We know that from Clark itself, where it says normally we're talking about something that results in bodily injury, but obviously there's simple assault and what we need is an attempted battery, a battery or placing somebody in reasonable apprehension of immediate bodily harm. [00:09:48] Speaker 02: I really don't see that as distinguishable from [00:09:52] Speaker 02: child abuse by injury where you're looking at what is effectively the OCCA has told us a battery statute for children and may or may not have at least a component of a mental injury that results from a true assault as opposed to an assault on battery. [00:10:10] Speaker 02: If this court doesn't have questions on error at this point, I might quickly turn [00:10:16] Speaker 03: Well, could I just before we leave this, could I just ask you, given that you're not challenging the 180 month sentence for the child neglect conviction, why isn't any error on the abuse sentence harmless? [00:10:32] Speaker 02: a couple of reasons, Your Honor. [00:10:34] Speaker 02: So I'll just walk through the steps, if that's okay. [00:10:37] Speaker 02: The first is we know many times over from this court and the Supreme Court that guidelines ranges have an anchoring effect on a sentence. [00:10:46] Speaker 02: And that if you skew the starting point, you have reasonably possibly skewed the end result. [00:10:53] Speaker 02: And so there's at least, we know that the government can't meet its harmless error burden here for child abuse. [00:10:59] Speaker 02: So then you asked, [00:11:00] Speaker 02: extend over to the child neglect conviction or sentence. [00:11:05] Speaker 02: And it's reasonable to reasonable to believe that that downward anchoring effect on the child abuse sentence would also have at least some effect on the child neglect sentence in this specific case, because it's very intertwined conduct. [00:11:19] Speaker 02: It's the same time period, it's the same course of events, it's the same victim. [00:11:23] Speaker 02: The district court has indicated that it sees the two crimes as [00:11:27] Speaker 02: Comparable severity here because it awarded them the same sentence and there's not some other anchoring hold on the child neglect that might undermine those inferences in this case. [00:11:39] Speaker 02: So, for instance, there's not a mandatory minimum that applies to the child neglect where we know it's not moving. [00:11:45] Speaker 02: So really the only new information that the district court would have on remand is this offense that you think is comparable to child neglect has a significantly lower guidelines range than the 180 month sentence that was originally awarded. [00:12:01] Speaker 02: If these two crimes are comparable, it's at least a reasonable inference that there's going to be some downward movement on remand. [00:12:08] Speaker 02: And this is ultimately something that the government's not going to be able to prove otherwise. [00:12:13] Speaker 02: for harmlessness purposes. [00:12:16] Speaker 01: Do you have a case that you can point us to that you think [00:12:22] Speaker 01: meaningfully sets out the relevant data points that our circuit looks at for whether this sort of sentencing package doctrine argument proves availing. [00:12:34] Speaker 01: You're sort of walking us through what kind of things we should look to to determine why it's reasonable here to conclude the government wouldn't meet their burden. [00:12:44] Speaker 01: And I'm wondering if there's a specific case that you think our circuit has that articulates those data points. [00:12:51] Speaker 02: Sure, a couple of things come to mind. [00:12:53] Speaker 02: So just the first part of that steps that I just went through, we have Sabion Umana, we have Melina Martinez, cases explaining the downward anchoring effect of a guideline and how important it is. [00:13:06] Speaker 02: And then with the sentencing package doctrine idea, I think in the opening brief we cite to Cattrall, and there was actually an 11 C1C plea agreement to a specific sentence. [00:13:17] Speaker 02: And even in that case, when one sentence had to be sent back and vacated, [00:13:22] Speaker 02: This court recognized, like, while I understand that the parties agreed to the ultimate bottom line, we understand a district court to see the overall punishment as one punishment package. [00:13:35] Speaker 02: And if a piece of that is flawed, then we have them do it by scratch. [00:13:39] Speaker 02: A district court starts over. [00:13:40] Speaker 02: We don't assume that they start from the endpoint of the flawed sentence. [00:13:45] Speaker 02: We assume that they do a complete de novo resentencing. [00:13:48] Speaker 02: And when that happens, [00:13:50] Speaker 02: the downward anchoring effect that we know about the guidelines, the interrelationship between these counts, the fact that the district court here, in fact, gave an overall sentence before explaining how it would be split up. [00:14:02] Speaker 02: All of those things lead us to the conclusion that it's at least likely that the district court is going to go a little bit down from 180 months on remand. [00:14:11] Speaker 04: So do you see this playing out as we issue a decision that vacates both sentences? [00:14:18] Speaker 02: I think typically when t of one sentence, you go ba So yes, that is, that's approach for when there' is to remand for a comp in this case we would ask [00:14:40] Speaker 04: Is, do you, wait, so direct me to some authority where there's only been a sentencing error claimed and not an attack on an underlying conviction where one sentence was unchallenged and we vacated them both and sent it back to Start Fresh. [00:15:02] Speaker 02: I think Catrol is a good example of that, just to use one that's already in the briefing, where there wasn't a challenge to, I think, [00:15:10] Speaker 02: there was maybe two or three other counts, but there was to the aggravated identity theft sentence in that case. [00:15:16] Speaker 02: And because there was a flaw in that sentence, I think this court expressly directed the district court to just start again on remand. [00:15:26] Speaker 02: I see that I'm out of time. [00:15:27] Speaker 02: So unless the court has further questions, we'd ask for a remand for resentencing. [00:15:33] Speaker 03: All right. [00:15:34] Speaker 03: Thank you, counsel. [00:15:35] Speaker 03: Ms. [00:15:36] Speaker 03: Olam? [00:15:42] Speaker 03: You need to unmute. [00:15:47] Speaker 00: So sorry, Lena Alon for the United States. [00:15:50] Speaker 00: I would like to start by clarifying a couple of points that Ms. [00:15:56] Speaker 00: Yaffe characterized about our position, particularly about what kind of conduct is required to violate the Oklahoma child abuse statute. [00:16:08] Speaker 00: When we talk about [00:16:11] Speaker 00: child abuse by injury, both the mens rea and the conduct are different in kind from a typical federal assault. [00:16:25] Speaker 00: First, I think I heard Ms. [00:16:26] Speaker 00: Yaffe say that the mens rea for child abuse by injury was a standard criminal intent unknowingly or intentionally. [00:16:37] Speaker 00: Rather, 843.5 has a mens rea of willfully or maliciously [00:16:42] Speaker 00: Second, to the extent that our brief talks about the fact that the Oklahoma jury instructions make clear that torture can be achieved by extreme mental cruelty, that doesn't go to the extent of injury in a child abuse case. [00:17:00] Speaker 00: That goes to the type of conduct that can constitute torturing a child. [00:17:06] Speaker 00: And this case, like its companion, illustrates [00:17:11] Speaker 00: Gulf between the range of conduct and the harms covered by the Oklahoma child abuse statute and the federal assault regime, right? [00:17:20] Speaker 00: Here, and the facts of this case, although they're not material to the assessment of whether the guideline is sufficiently analogous, certainly illustrate why the breadth of conduct that is covered by the Oklahoma child abuse statute goes far beyond what's contemplated [00:17:38] Speaker 00: by the federal assault statutes. [00:17:40] Speaker 00: Just for example, the trial testimony describes in some detail the conduct that Joel Smith engaged in that would not constitute a federal assault, but that did constitute torturing envy. [00:18:00] Speaker 00: For instance, forcing her to wear a diaper when she was nine years old, all night long, all day, [00:18:08] Speaker 00: working outside, none of these things involved an attempted battery or physical contact. [00:18:17] Speaker 00: Was there other conduct that did qualify as an assault? [00:18:21] Speaker 00: Absolutely, when he beat her with a belt, that was an assault. [00:18:25] Speaker 00: But so much of this conduct goes beyond that and still constitutes child abuse under the Oklahoma statute that both under the guidelines and as we'll discuss in the next case, [00:18:37] Speaker 00: under Lewis, these are very different crimes. [00:18:40] Speaker 01: But counsel, could you help me understand why we should be engaging into this sort of factual inquiry when it's an, we've said it's an elements-based inquiry. [00:18:49] Speaker 01: And so I'm not quite sure how to situate what you just told us into what our law requires that we review. [00:18:57] Speaker 00: No, precisely. [00:18:58] Speaker 00: And then I think, as I just said, this is an elements-based inquiry. [00:19:02] Speaker 00: This is just an illustration of the breadth of the Oklahoma statute. [00:19:05] Speaker 00: But when we look at the elements, we look at the jury instructions promulgated by the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals. [00:19:12] Speaker 00: And those instructions define torture as including extreme mental cruelty. [00:19:18] Speaker 00: And the conduct in this case explains, illustrates really why, how that can provide a way to violate 843.5A [00:19:31] Speaker 00: without committing an assault. [00:19:33] Speaker 00: And that's why the district court did not err in concluding there was no sufficiently analogous guideline, that neither 2A2.3 nor 2A2.2 was sufficiently analogous. [00:19:45] Speaker 00: It's not clear to me that the court considered 2A2.3. [00:19:49] Speaker 00: I think the court was just accepting that Clark said there was no sufficiently analogous guideline for child neglect and extrapolating that to child abuse. [00:20:01] Speaker 00: And that brings us to another point. [00:20:03] Speaker 00: And I think Ms. [00:20:04] Speaker 00: Yaffe talked a lot about our burden of showing harmlessness. [00:20:10] Speaker 00: In her brief, she explains that the concurrent sentencing doctrine is a discretionary doctrine, and suggests that it's been regarded with disfavor. [00:20:23] Speaker 00: But the Williams case, [00:20:25] Speaker 00: that suggests that the concurrent sentencing doctrine has been regarded with disfavor cites a 1982 case from this court, Montoya. [00:20:34] Speaker 00: And Montoya, what Montoya recognizes is that the reason the concurrent sentencing doctrine is sometimes regarded with disfavor is because when a defendant challenges one of the convictions, [00:20:49] Speaker 00: there are collateral adverse consequences of a conviction. [00:20:53] Speaker 00: And so the court should address the validity of a conviction. [00:20:57] Speaker 00: In 1987, the Supreme Court agreed and in Ray versus United States made clear that the concurrent sentencing doctrine does not apply under those circumstances. [00:21:08] Speaker 00: But this case in Harris in 2012, not the same Harris case that Ms. [00:21:13] Speaker 00: Yaffe was talking about, but in Harris applied the concurrent sentencing doctrine and [00:21:19] Speaker 00: and explain the distinction that in Ray and Montoya for that matter, and I think in Williams, the 2022 case, all of those cases involved circumstances under which there were adverse sentences or collateral consequences and the defendant was challenging the conviction as to certain counts. [00:21:37] Speaker 00: Or as in Williams, where the changing the drug quantity calculation as to the drug count also changed the potential sentence [00:21:48] Speaker 00: on the gun count because of a cross-reference. [00:21:51] Speaker 00: Those are cases in which applying the concurrent sentencing doctrine would not be appropriate. [00:21:57] Speaker 00: Here, however, Mr. Smith has conceded that the district court did not err in finding there was no sufficiently analogous guideline to Oklahoma child neglect. [00:22:11] Speaker 00: That 120 month sentence should stand. [00:22:15] Speaker 00: And if you look at the, [00:22:18] Speaker 00: the facts of sentencing here, the government asked for a 240-month sentence, the defendant asked for a 60-month sentence, and the district court imposed a 120-month sentence on both counts. [00:22:31] Speaker 00: And I respectfully disagree with Ms. [00:22:34] Speaker 00: Yaffe that the fact that the court gave the same sentence on both of those counts after finding no sufficiently analogous guideline suggests that the court would be inclined to impose a lower sentence on both rounds [00:22:47] Speaker 00: if this were remanded. [00:22:49] Speaker 03: Well, counsel, just to make sure we're understanding your argument, do you need the concurrent sentencing doctrine to succeed on this issue? [00:23:04] Speaker 00: I should not, because I don't think that the district court erred in finding that the federal assault guideline was- Well, I understand that part. [00:23:15] Speaker 03: But do you need it on the harmless error part? [00:23:19] Speaker 00: There are actually two different ways that I could win on harmless error. [00:23:23] Speaker 00: First is if this court just looks at it and says, this is not a court, given the statements that it made and the decision that it made at sentencing and the fact that the defendant has conceded that the 120 month sentence, the no sufficiently analogous guideline finding was correct as to child neglect. [00:23:42] Speaker 00: the court could just decline to review this under the confirmed sentencing doctrine. [00:23:46] Speaker 00: However, it could also look at the record and conclude, particularly based on the egregious facts of this case and the circumstances of the similar case in Walker, where the government conceded that 2A 2.2 was sufficiently analogous. [00:24:04] Speaker 00: But the district court explained that the guideline was [00:24:12] Speaker 00: particularly inadequate to address the harms of child abuse. [00:24:18] Speaker 00: And thus this court could conclude that even if it did not exercise its discretion to apply the concurrent sentencing doctrine, that the error here was harmless because even if this were to go back, the district court could apply whatever guideline [00:24:35] Speaker 00: and conclude and very upward to apply the same sentence for child abuse as for child neglect. [00:24:43] Speaker 03: And that's- Could I just ask you, is there anything else that the court said at the sentencing proceeding that would give us reason to think it's reasonably probable that the court would still impose 120 months sentence? [00:25:07] Speaker 00: I don't think the court said a lot about its reasons beyond that finding. [00:25:15] Speaker 00: But I'm sorry, I don't have that transcript before me. [00:25:19] Speaker 00: But I note that my brief does not cite a lot of language suggesting that the court said, as courts sometimes do, that I would impose the same sentence regardless of the finding. [00:25:30] Speaker 00: So we don't have that. [00:25:32] Speaker 00: But given the fact that an assault conviction [00:25:37] Speaker 00: and sentence in the range that's discussed in the briefs would have applied if Joel Smith beat MV with a belt one time. [00:25:46] Speaker 00: And here we have a situation where the testimony establishes that these children were beaten daily, that he locked her into a pack and play every night, made her work in the hot sun from the ages of five to nine for four years. [00:26:00] Speaker 00: I do not think it is even colorable [00:26:05] Speaker 00: that on remand this court, that the district court would impose a sentence lower than 120 months as to the child neglect. [00:26:12] Speaker 01: This is a child that we- Could you address the Cottrell case? [00:26:18] Speaker 01: The appellant relied on that. [00:26:21] Speaker 01: And that seems to suggest that in the normal course when we are, [00:26:31] Speaker 01: mindful of the sentencing package doctrine that we would remand in a way that the district court would be free to re-sentence on all counts. [00:26:40] Speaker 00: So could you address that, please? [00:26:43] Speaker 00: Yes, and my answer to that is simply yes. [00:26:45] Speaker 00: I am often here arguing for application of the sentencing package doctrine, right, that one count, that a significant error in one count would result in at least a possibility of a lower sentence as to the other counts. [00:27:01] Speaker 00: I just think that both the facts here and the fact that the district court had the full range. [00:27:10] Speaker 00: This wasn't a case where the court felt constrained by any guideline. [00:27:15] Speaker 00: The defendant asked for a 60-month sentence, and that was a sentence that the judge could have given as well. [00:27:22] Speaker 00: There was not a statutory minimum. [00:27:24] Speaker 00: There was nothing really that [00:27:26] Speaker 00: led this court, other than the 3553A factors that led this court to the 120 month sentence that imposed as opposed to the 240 the government asked for or the 60 that the defendant asked for. [00:27:43] Speaker 00: This is a situation where unlike those sentencing package doctrine cases, there's no reason to believe that the sentence that district court chose was anchored by any [00:27:56] Speaker 00: And so moving that range for one of the counts doesn't suggest that the district court would change the sentence as to the other counts. [00:28:04] Speaker 01: Thank you. [00:28:04] Speaker 01: That's very helpful. [00:28:05] Speaker 01: I think I better understand your argument. [00:28:07] Speaker 01: I think that, and please tell me if I've got it right. [00:28:10] Speaker 01: I think the government is not challenging the standard here, right? [00:28:15] Speaker 01: That the sentencing package doctrine doesn't apply. [00:28:17] Speaker 01: You're not suggesting it only applies when a conviction has been vacated. [00:28:20] Speaker 01: It squarely applies to the situation here. [00:28:22] Speaker 01: It's just that the facts here [00:28:26] Speaker 01: don't result in a position that would support the appellant, right? [00:28:33] Speaker 01: You're not quibbling with that first principle, right? [00:28:37] Speaker 00: I'm not sure. [00:28:39] Speaker 00: That's, I think, maybe a stronger statement of our position. [00:28:44] Speaker 00: Where the defendant hasn't challenged their conviction on the first count and hasn't challenged the same decision that was made by the district court as to the second count, [00:28:55] Speaker 00: Our position is that the lack of likelihood that or the lack of relationship between those two sentences where there's no guidelines change as to the second count or no guideline. [00:29:14] Speaker 00: And particularly here where the district court didn't, this is not a case like Petrol where the sentencing guidelines were wrongly calculated, right? [00:29:25] Speaker 00: where the district court was applying the wrong guidelines range and imposed a sentence based on the wrong range and needs an opportunity to correct it because the wrong range in those kinds of cases is what directs the district court's first sentencing determination. [00:29:44] Speaker 00: Here, the district court had ultimate discretion as to the entire range of punishments and chose 120 months. [00:29:53] Speaker 00: And for that reason, those sentencing package doctrine cases that focus on where the court got the range wrong and the new range would suggest that it should reconsider the entire sentence. [00:30:06] Speaker 00: Those cases don't really apply in this circumstance, really because of the facts, but more because the facts here are that the district court had before it the entire range of punishment. [00:30:19] Speaker 00: Does that answer your question? [00:30:20] Speaker 03: It does, thank you. [00:30:23] Speaker 03: Could you address the anchor effect argument? [00:30:27] Speaker 03: Oh, and before you do, I think I got us off track on the sentence. [00:30:30] Speaker 03: I think it's 180 months. [00:30:32] Speaker 00: Thank you. [00:30:35] Speaker 00: Yeah. [00:30:35] Speaker 00: Yes, I definitely misspoke a couple of times there. [00:30:38] Speaker 00: I think Ms. [00:30:40] Speaker 00: Yaffe is correct about the anchoring effect of a guideline sentence. [00:30:46] Speaker 00: And it's really the crux of the sentencing package doctrine as well. [00:30:50] Speaker 00: But here, because [00:30:53] Speaker 00: the counts, although based on related conduct, reflect the seriousness of the offenses. [00:31:02] Speaker 00: The child abuse conviction is for conduct at least as serious and not more serious than the child neglect conduct. [00:31:09] Speaker 00: And therefore, we don't believe that on remand, the district court would change a sentence at all. [00:31:16] Speaker 00: And for that reason, we would ask this court to affirm. [00:31:19] Speaker 03: Thank you. [00:31:20] Speaker 03: I think we're out of time. [00:31:22] Speaker 03: Thanks to both of you. [00:31:23] Speaker 03: You both packed in a lot of arguments there. [00:31:26] Speaker 03: And so I think we used the time efficiently. [00:31:31] Speaker 03: At this point, we'll consider this case submitted. [00:31:35] Speaker 03: Ms. [00:31:36] Speaker 03: Yaffe, I think that's it for you today, correct? [00:31:38] Speaker 03: Do you have another argument? [00:31:40] Speaker 03: If not, you may be excused. [00:31:43] Speaker 03: And Ms. [00:31:44] Speaker 03: Zalam, we'll be seeing you in the next case.