Michael Vick, Victor Rita and other federal guideline calculation stories

I mentioned in class a few famous/notable cases involving interesting guideline calculation issues, and here now are some links to facilitate further reading for those who might be interested. 

Let's start with Michael Vick, whose case is in the news again these days.  As you may recall, Vick pleaded guilty (like our friend Kent) and you can/should check out his plea agreement and the case's fact summary.  Notably, the plea agreement stipulated to an ultimate offense level to 13 for a guideline range of 12-18 months.  But, a "Brief of Amici Curaie" filed by a group of "organizations concerned about animal welfare and responsible dog ownership" can be access here, and it asserted (1) that the "agreed upon offense level does not adequately reflect the nature of Vick's conduct nor his role in the offense," (2) that Vick's guideline offense level should be 20 and his sentencing range 33-41 months, (3) the court should impose a 57-month sentence and a $250,000 fine. 

Now on to Victor Rita, whose case was the subject of the Rita v. US ruling by the Supreme Court that appears at pp. 199-210 in our casebook.   Though I got the exact facts of Rita's crimes a bit off in class, I am right about how a cross-reference increased his guideline range.  Here are snippet's from the Supreme Court's discussion of how Victor Rita got in trouble and ended up faced a guideline sentencing range of 33-41 months:

The basic crime in this case concerns two false statements which Victor Rita, the petitioner, made under oath to a federal grand jury.  The jury was investigating a gun company called InterOrdnance....  The investigating prosecutor brought Rita before the grand jury, placed him under oath [and] Rita denied that the Government agent had asked him for [a machine gun] kit, and also denied that he had spoken soon thereafter about the [gun] kit to someone at InterOrdnance.  The Government claimed these statements were false, charged Rita with perjury, making false statements, and obstructing justice, and, after a jury trial, obtained convictions on all counts....

[P]ursuant to the Guidelines, the [presentence] report, in calculating a recommended sentence, groups the five counts of conviction together, treating them as if they amounted to the single most serious count among them (and ignoring all others). See USSG §3D1.1. The single most serious offense in Rita’s case is “perjury.”  The relevant Guideline, §2J1.3(c)(1), instructs the sentencing court (and the probation officer) to calculate the Guidelines sentence for “perjury . . . in respect to a criminal offense” by applying the Guideline for an “accessory after the fact,” as to that criminal offense. §2X3.1.  And that latter Guideline says that the judge, for calculation purposes, should take as a base offense level, a level that is “6 levels lower than the offense level for the underlying offense."  Here the “underlying offense” consisted of InterOrdnance’s possible violation of the machinegun registration law. The base offense level for the gun registration crime is 26.  See USSG §2M5.2.  Six levels less is 20.  And 20, says the presentence report, is the base offense level applicable to Rita for purposes of Guidelines sentence calculation.

Students will get lots and lots of bonus particulation points by using the comments for either (a) expressing interest in (and/or providing links to) other interesting guideline calculation cases, or (b)expressing in rank order with explaination how they think Kent, Vick and Rita stack up in terms of offense culpability and the purposes of punishment.  (Lots of thoughtful comments will also increase the chances I will cancel Friday's class.)