US v. Rostoff, et al
Case Date: 04/24/1995
Court: United States Court of Appeals
Docket No: 93-1376
|
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT _________________________ No. 93-1376 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Appellant, v. STEVEN M. ROSTOFF, ET AL., Defendants, Appellees. _________________________ APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS [Hon. Rya W. Zobel, U.S. District Judge] ___________________ _________________________ Before Torruella, Chief Judge, ___________ Selya and Stahl, Circuit Judges. ______________ _________________________ Peter A. Mullin, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom _______________ Donald K. Stern, United States Attorney, and Jonathan L. Kotlier, _______________ ___________________ Assistant United States Attorney, were on brief for the United States. Roger A. Cox for defendant Steven M. Rostoff; Michael J. _____________ ___________ Traft, with whom Carney & Bassil was on brief, for defendant _____ ________________ David Rostoff; Erica M. Foster, with whom Foster and Peterson was _______________ ___________________ on brief, for defendant James Harris; Thomas M. Hoopes for _________________ defendant Dolores DiCologero; and William A. Brown for defendant ________________ Paul J. Bonaiuto. _________________________ April 24, 1995 _________________________ SELYA, Circuit Judge. In this case, the district court SELYA, Circuit Judge. _____________ departed downward from the guideline sentencing range (GSR) as to each of five defendants on the theory that the harm attributed to them, measured by the amount of loss sustained by the victim, overstated the seriousness of the offense of conviction. The government now asks us to evaluate both the lawfulness of the downward departures and the propriety of the court's role-in-the- offense adjustments for two defendants, David and Steven Rostoff. We uphold the sentences of all defendants except the Rostoffs (who must be resentenced as a result of erroneous role determinations). I. BACKGROUND I. BACKGROUND A federal grand jury indicted the brothers Rostoff, together with James Harris, Dolores DiCologero, and Paul J. Bonaiuto, on charges, inter alia, of conspiracy, bank fraud, and _____ ____ the making of false statements. See 18 U.S.C. 371, 1344, and ___ 1044. These charges stemmed from a failed foray into the New England condominium market a market that rose to giddy heights in the mid-to-late-1980s and then plunged precipitously. The conspiracy count constituted the hub of the indictment. In it, the grand jury charged that, from December 1985 to February 1989, the defendants, aided and abetted by others, fraudulently induced a federally insured financial institution, the Bank for Savings (the bank), to grant several hundred loans, totalling in excess of $30,000,000, to persons purchasing condominium units from David Rostoff, Steven Rostoff, 2 and James Harris (collectively, "the Rostoff group" or "the developers"). Like spokes running from the hub, 43 of these loans gave rise to 86 "mirror image" bank fraud and false statement counts against various defendants. The trial jury plausibly could have found that the scheme tracked the following script. The bank had a firm policy of refusing to grant first mortgage loans in excess of 80% of the lower of the sale price or the appraised value of residential real estate; and, when mortgages were written on that basis, the bank ordinarily required the balance of the purchase price to be paid in cash by the borrower. In 1986, bank officials, eager to maintain a lucrative working relationship with the Rostoff group, bent the rules. The bankers allowed the developers to assist common customers (i.e., persons who bought condominiums from the ____ Rostoff group and financed the purchases through the bank) in an uncommon way: by taking back second mortgages to circumvent the cash down-payment requirement. The bankers conditioned this concession on the express understanding that the second mortgages would be enforced, and that each purchaser would make at least a 10% down payment from his or her own capital. This arrangement proved too tame for the developers' purposes. To facilitate sales, they cooked the books, surreptitiously telling selected buyers that they would not enforce the second mortgages, or, alternatively, that they would not demand interest payments on particular second mortgages until resale of the encumbered condominiums. More importantly, the 3 developers set out to subvert the down-payment requirement by orchestrating a paper shuffle designed to create the (false) impression that the buyers were putting 10% down in order to acquire the properties, when they were not. In many instances, the developers accomplished this sleight of hand by offering customers a 10% discount from the stated purchase price. When a customer agreed to buy at the reduced price, the developers submitted documents to the bank that overstated the actual purchase price by 10% and treated the negotiated discount as a down payment. This flim-flam took on added significance because the bank underwrote the loans on the basis of an 80% loan-to- value (LTV) ratio, using purchase price as a principal measure of value. Thus, an inflated purchase price often caused the bank to approve a higher first mortgage loan than would have been forthcoming had it known the true purchase price. In the end, many buyers acquired condominiums without making any down payment or other cash expenditure (except for closing costs). The bank's closing attorney, defendant Bonaiuto, and the manager of the bank's mortgage department, defendant DiCologero, knowingly participated in fabricating this tissue of lies, half-truths, and evasions. Between September 1986 and February 1989, the bank engaged Bonaiuto to close at least 240 loans to the developers' customers. Although no fewer than five borrowers testified at trial that they asked Bonaiuto about apocryphal deposits shown on their settlement sheets, he did not 4 notify the bank of any discrepancies.1 DiCologero also worked closely with the developers, handling the day-to-day administration of the loan approval process. The prosecution proved her awareness of the ongoing scheme largely by circumstantial evidence.2 Following a lengthy trial, a jury found each of the five defendants guilty of conspiracy to defraud the bank. In addition, the jury found Steven Rostoff guilty on a total of 72 "mirror image" counts of bank fraud and making false statements (representing 36 transactions), David Rostoff guilty on 32 such counts (representing 16 transactions), Harris guilty on 52 such counts (representing 26 transactions), Bonaiuto guilty on 10 such counts (representing five transactions), and DiCologero guilty on two such counts (representing one transaction). On January 29, 1993, the district court convened a ____________________ 1We note two related facts. First, after investigators discovered the fraud, Bonaiuto falsely asserted that he had queried borrowers about the deposits shown on the settlement sheets, and that they had assured him that they had made the indicated down payments. Second, Bonaiuto also acted as closing attorney for the bank in connection with his own purchase of two condominium units from the Rostoff group. On each occasion, he submitted a settlement sheet to the bank showing that he had tendered a 10% down payment when, in fact, he had made no down payment at all. 2One vignette is particularly telling. On July 23, 1987, DiCologero's husband closed a mortgage loan at the bank in order to finance his purchase of a condominium from the Rostoff group. The settlement statement falsely indicated that a $7,700 deposit had been made when, in fact, DiCologero's husband had purchased the condominium with no cash down payment (advancing only $1,663.40 in closing costs). The record shows that DiCologero shepherded the loan through the bank's approval process. 5 disposition hearing.3 By then, the bank had become insolvent, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) had become the receiver. The court determined that the FDIC sustained losses due to the defendants' activities in the $2,000,000 $5,000,000 range. The court then calculated the offense level of all defendants except DiCologero on the basis of this loss computation, see U.S.S.G. 2F1.1(b)(1)(K) (providing a ___ 10-level enhancement for fraud crimes involving losses of more than $2,000,000, up to and including $5,000,000), arriving at an adjusted offense level (OL) of 20 for the Rostoff brothers and Bonaiuto, and 18 for Harris. The court attributed slightly under $1,000,000 in losses to DiCologero and, after other interim adjustments, settled on an OL of 18. The court factored in the defendants' criminal history scores all were first offenders and arrived at a GSR of 33-41 months at OL-20 and a GSR of 27-33 months at OL-18. Finding, however, that in each instance the amount of loss overstated the seriousness of the particular ____________________ 3The jury convicted the defendants on a count that charged a conspiracy beginning in 1985 and continuing into 1989. It is well established that the sentencing guidelines apply to offenses that straddle the effective date of the guidelines (November 1, 1987). See United States v. David, 940 F.2d 722, 739 (1st Cir.), ___ _____________ _____ cert. denied, 502 U.S. 989 (1991). Even in such cases, however, _____ ______ the guidelines in effect at the time of sentencing, not those in effect at the tag end of the offense, ordinarily control at sentencing, except where ex post facto concerns loom. Cf., e.g., __ ____ _____ ___ ____ United States v. Harotunian, 920 F.2d 1040, 1041-42 (1st Cir. ______________ __________ 1990). The district court, invoking this exception, applied the November 1987 version of the guidelines. No party questioned that choice below, and no party asks us to revisit it on appeal. Since we follow the district court's lead, all references herein are to the November 1987 edition of the guidelines unless otherwise specifically indicated. 6 defendant's criminality, Judge Zobel departed downward. She sentenced David and Steven Rostoff to serve 15-month terms of immurement; sentenced Harris to a nine-month prison term; sentenced Bonaiuto to two years probation, six months of which was to be served in a community treatment center; and sentenced DiCologero to two years of straight probation. This appeal followed. II. THE DOWNWARD DEPARTURES II. THE DOWNWARD DEPARTURES In sentencing under the guidelines, departures are the exception rather than the rule. See United States v. Diaz- ___ _____________ _____ Villafane, 874 F.2d 43, 52 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 862 _________ _____ ______ (1989). When a district court nonetheless departs, and an appeal eventuates, we ask three general questions: (1) Is the reason that the sentencing court gave for departing of a type that lawfully can ground a departure in an appropriate case? (2) Is the court's factfinding in respect to the cited reason sustainable on whole-record review? (3) Is the degree of the departure reasonable? See United States v. Mendez-Colon, 15 F.3d ___ _____________ ____________ 188, 189 (1st Cir. 1994); United States v. Rivera, 994 F.2d 942, ______________ ______ 950-52 (1st Cir. 1993); Diaz-Villafane, 874 F.2d at 49. A ______________ departure passes muster only if all three inquiries yield an affirmative response. In this case, the government asserts that the lower court erred at each step along the departure path. We trace the contours of the court's decision and then address the three 7 relevant questions.4 A. The Anatomy of the Departure Decision. A. The Anatomy of the Departure Decision. _____________________________________ In fraud cases controlled by the guidelines, the amount of the victims' monetary loss (actual or intended) is a proxy for the seriousness of the offense, and, thus, a key determinant of the severity of the perpetrator's sentence. See United States v. ___ _____________ Lilly, 13 F.3d 15, 17, 19 (1st Cir. 1994); United States v. _____ ______________ Tardiff, 969 F.2d 1283, 1285 (1st Cir. 1992). Recognizing, _______ however, that no proxy is perfect, the applicable edition of the sentencing guidelines cautions that: In a few instances, the total dollar loss that results from the offense may overstate its seriousness. Such situations typically occur when a misrepresentation is of limited materiality or is not the sole cause of the loss . . . In such instances, a downward departure may be warranted. U.S.S.G. 2F1.1, comment. (n.11) (Nov. 1987). The defendants in this case all moved for downward departures based on application note 11. The district court accommodated their requests, linking its largesse to a linchpin finding that numerous factors, apart from the defendants' conduct, inflated the losses sustained by the FDIC. The court premised its linchpin finding primarily on three subsidiary findings. (1) The court remarked the bank's gadarene rush to participate in the condominium boom despite the obvious risks. ____________________ 4Inasmuch as the Rostoffs must be resentenced for other reasons, see infra Part III, we limit our departure inquiry to ___ _____ the sentences imposed upon Harris, DiCologero, and Bonaiuto, respectively. 8 To the court's way of thinking, this overeagerness was driven by greed after all, the bank based incentive compensation for top officials on loan production and fomented a "lend at all costs" mentality that led senior managers to condone the defendants' shenanigans. The court expressed great skepticism about senior management's professed lack of knowledge or responsibility, concluding that, at the very least, management had acted negligently, particularly in authorizing loan approvals, and had bent its policies grotesquely to retain the Rostoff group's business. In the court's view, these shortcomings contributed mightily to the extent of the eventual losses. (2) Next, the court found that the buyers were neither dupes nor victims in the traditional sense. To the contrary, the court thought they had become willing participants in the defendants' scheme. Their cupidity drove up prices in the condominium market and, thus, contributed substantially to the amount of money eventually lost. (3) Finally, the court observed that economic forces not under the control of, or precipitated by, the defendants, especially the sudden, unforeseen collapse of the New England real estate market a collapse that decimated the demand for residential condominiums increased the magnitude of the losses. The district court believed that these factors, in combination, contributed so directly to the extent of the loss that the defendants were entitled to a substantial measure of relief. In the sections that follow, we test the legal and factual sufficiency of the court's stated ground. Finally, we 9 examine the reasonableness of the actual departures insofar as they affect Harris, DiCologero, and Bonaiuto. B. Step One: The Court's Reason. B. Step One: The Court's Reason. _____________________________ While the government assails the departure decision on all available fronts, its fundamental point is that, as a matter of law, the guidelines simply do not authorize departures under a "multiple loss causation" theory. Since this assertion questions whether the departure-justifying reason cited by the court below is of a kind that the guidelines, in principle, permit a sentencing court to embrace for that purpose, we afford plenary review. See Rivera, 994 F.2d at 951; Diaz-Villafane, 874 F.2d at ___ ______ ______________ 49. In evaluating multiple loss causation as a departure- justifying circumstance, we do not write on a pristine page. In United States v. Gregorio, 956 F.2d 341 (1st Cir. 1992), we ______________ ________ approved the manner in which the district court, acting under the general fraud guideline, U.S.S.G. 2F1.1, structured its downward departure to "reflect[] `multiple causation' for victim loss." Id. at 344. Although the "sufficiency of the basis for departing ___ in response to multiple causation of victim loss" was not at issue on that occasion, id. at 347 n.10, we stated unambiguously ___ that "`multiple causation' of victim loss is a `Commission- identified' circumstance in which a downward departure may be ____________ warranted." Id. at 347. We do not believe that these words, ___ even if technically dictum, can be read other than as an outright endorsement of multiple loss causation as a permissible basis for 10 departing downward, and, indeed, as a departure-justifying reason that the guidelines encourage. See generally Rivera, 994 F.2d at ___ _________ ______ 948 (explaining that the guidelines sometimes "offer the district court, which is considering whether to depart, special assistance, by specifically encouraging" certain types of departures). Despite the plain import of Gregorio, the government ________ maintains that multiple loss causation is an invalid basis for a downward departure. Gregorio is irrelevant here, the government ________ says, because the Gregorio court had before it the November 1990 ________ version of the guidelines, which, like the original (1987) version, authorized departures when "the total dollar loss that results from the offense [overstates] its seriousness," such as when "a misrepresentation . . . is not the sole cause of the loss." 956 F.2d at 345 (citing November 1990 version of application note 11).5 In the government's view, time has passed Gregorio by, for the Sentencing Commission rewrote the ________ application notes to section 2F1.1 effective November 1, 1991, consolidating several preexisting notes into a new note 10. In the process, the Commission eliminated any reference to "the sole cause of the loss" language.6 The government proceeds to weave ____________________ 5The November 1990 version of application note 11 is identical to the 1987 version and, thus, controls in this case. See supra note 3. ___ _____ 6The new note reads in pertinent part: In cases in which the loss . . . does not fully capture the harmfulness and seriousness of the conduct, an upward departure may be 11 a tapestry from several gossamer strands of speculation and surmise, hypothesizing that the Commission, recognizing that it had improvidently promulgated former note 11, acknowledged the error of its ways and junked the original reference. Using this hypothesis as a springboard, the government then jumps to the conclusion that the Commission, in essaying the revision, tacitly rejected multiple loss causation as an appropriate factor in the departure calculus. We need not resolve the issue of whether the Commission, in revising the application notes in a way that dropped the "sole cause of the loss" language, intended to drum multiple loss causation out of the ranks of encouraged departures. To avoid ex post facto difficulties, courts should __ ____ _____ "normally apply [guideline] amendments retroactively only if they clarify a guideline, but not if they substantively change a guideline." United States v. Prezioso, 989 F.2d 52, 53 (1st Cir. _____________ ________ 1993); accord Isabel v. United States, 980 F.2d 60, 62 (1st Cir. ______ ______ _____________ 1992). This rule stymies the government in this instance. If, on the one hand, as the government argues, the Commission's rewriting of the application notes bars downward departures premised on multiple loss causation, then that revision cannot be ____________________ warranted. . . . In a few instances, the loss . . . may overstate the seriousness of the offense. This may occur, for example, where a defendant attempted to negotiate an instrument that was so obviously fraudulent that no one would seriously consider honoring it. U.S.S.G. 2F1.1 comment., n.10 (Nov. 1991). 12 applied retroactively for doing so would change the substance of the fraud guideline, U.S.S.G. 2F1.1, as that guideline was explicated in Gregorio. See Prezioso, 989 F.2d at 54 ________ ___ ________ (explaining that a new interpretation of a guideline that contradicts existing circuit precedent "alters the guideline" and, hence, constitutes a substantive change that can only apply prospectively). If, on the other hand, the revision does not bar downward departures for multiple loss causation, then the district court's selection of multiple loss causation as its departure-justifying ground is, under Gregorio, unimpugnable. ________ Consequently, we hold that, under the original pre-1991 version of the guidelines the version that controls here the district court permissibly singled out multiple loss causation as a departure-justifying circumstance.7 C. Step Two: The Factual Predicate. C. Step Two: The Factual Predicate. ________________________________ Since the lower court isolated a conceptually proper departure-justifying circumstance, the second step of the review process looms. At this stage, we must determine whether, on the whole record, the court supportably could have found that the departure-justifying circumstance actually existed. See Diaz- ___ _____ ____________________ 7The government also suggests, in what it bills as a separate argument, that the district court improperly relied on the conduct of the bank and of the buyers as a basis for departing. At bottom, however, this suggestion is predicated on the government's assertion that it is improper to focus on any ___ causes of the loss apart from the conduct of the defendants. As we have pointed out, such a position is inconsistent with both the unambiguous language of the original commentary that accompanied section 2F1.1 and the clear import of existing circuit precedent. Hence, the government's "separate" suggestion adds nothing to its flagship argument. 13 Villafane, 874 F.2d at 49. Because this determination implicates _________ the court's factfinding, our standard of review is deferential. See id. (explaining that the findings of fact underlying a ___ ___ departure decision "may be set aside only for clear error"). Aside from the defendants' actions, the district court identified three factors that contributed to the magnitude of the loss in this case: (1) the conduct of the bank's senior management; (2) the buyers' esurience; and (3) the nosedive in condominium prices. The government does not seriously dispute either the incidence of these factors or their aggravating effect upon the amount of loss.8 Instead, the government asserts that the court clearly erred in finding an overstatement because the loss figures that the court used for sentencing purposes represented only a fraction of the actual losses caused by the defendants' criminal activity. This argument will not wash. Calculating the amount of loss for purposes of the sentencing guidelines is more an art than a science. Courts can, and frequently do, deal with rough ____________________ 8At any rate, the record buttresses the district court's conclusions. The evidence establishes that bank officials approved myriad loans, totalling millions of dollars, with an abandon commonly associated with drunken sailors. In the bargain, senior management routinely authorized loans that exceeded the bank's LTV ratio, backdated documents, and acted, to use the government's phrase, in an "incredibly negligent" fashion. The evidence also shows that many of the purchasers were sophisticated investors who, enthralled by gimmicks like the phantom down-payment concept, bought multiple properties. As sophisticated investors surely should know, projected profits that look too good to be true often are and often signify the presence of great financial hazards. Finally, an economist's affidavit, introduced at sentencing, graphically illustrates the extent to which the bottom fell out of the condominium market. 14 estimates. See United States v. Skrodzki, 9 F.3d 198, 203 (1st ___ _____________ ________ Cir. 1993); see also U.S.S.G. 2F1.1, comment., n.8 (stating that ___ ____ "the loss need not be precise," so long as the court "make[s] a reasonable estimate of the range of loss, given the available information"). Hence, a party dissatisfied with the sentencing court's quantification of the amount of loss in a particular case must go a long way to demonstrate that the finding is clearly erroneous. See Skrodzki, 9 F.3d at 203; Tardiff, 969 F.2d at ___ ________ _______ 1288. Here, the court computed the amount of loss based on 43 loans that were specifically enumerated in various substantive counts of the indictment, plus an additional 97 loans that the Federal Bureau of Identification (FBI) had classified as fraudulent. The court then excluded from its loss calculation for each defendant any loan that formed the basis for a specific count on which he or she had been acquitted. In restricting her computations to these 140 loans, the judge relied on an affidavit subscribed to by an FBI case agent, who reviewed the bank's records and culled out loans for which he found "specific evidence of fraud." Bearing in mind the wide berth that sentencing judges must be given in determining what information is, or is not, sufficiently reliable to be used in imposing sentence, see ___ Tardiff, 969 F.2d at 1287, we cannot say that Judge Zobel's _______ refusal to venture beyond these 140 loans constituted clear error especially since the record contains only sketchy information 15 about the origin and extent of losses on other loans. Nor can we say that the judge erred in excluding "acquitted" loans. Although relevant conduct must be determined by the court, not the jury, see, e.g., United States v. Tavano, 12 F.3d 301, 306 ___ ____ ______________ ______ (1st Cir. 1993); United States v. Mocciola, 891 F.2d 13, 17 (1st _____________ ________ Cir. 1989), we believe the evidence here falls well short of compelling a finding that any "acquitted" loans must be included __________ in calculating the amount of loss. Because the record adequately supports the district court's findings as to both multiple loss causation and amount of loss indeed, the government has shown us nothing that casts serious doubt on the plausibility of the court's findings in either respect we conclude that the departure decision passes muster at step two. D. Step Three: Reasonableness. D. Step Three: Reasonableness. ___________________________ We come now to the final step in the review process, focusing on whether the "direction and degree of departure" are reasonable. Diaz-Villafane, 874 F.2d at 49. The government says ______________ that the district court stumbled at this step by failing to explain how it arrived at such sizable sentence reductions and by exhibiting unreasonable leniency. We turn first to the absence of a particularized explanation of how the district court determined the extent to which it would depart. 1. The Need for Findings. In United States v. Emery, 1. The Need for Findings. ______________________ _____________ _____ 991 F.2d 907, 913 (1st Cir. 1993), we held that it is not necessary for a district court to "dissect its departure 16 decision, explaining in mathematical or pseudo-mathematical terms each microscopic choice made in arriving at the precise sentence." We opted instead for a pragmatic approach, recognizing the helpfulness of explanations but cautioning that "when the court has provided a reasoned justification for its decision to depart, and that statement constitutes an adequate summary from which an appellate tribunal can gauge the reasonableness of the departure's extent, it has no obligation to go further and attempt to quantify the impact of each incremental factor on the departure sentence." Id. This approach reflects ___ our view that judicial discretion, sensibly exercised, is in most cases the critical determinant of the degree of departure. See ___ United States v. Aymelek, 926 F.2d 64, 70 (1st Cir. 1991) ______________ _______ (holding that, in respect to unguided departures, "a sentencing court need not resort at all to analogies"); Diaz-Villafane, 874 ______________ F.2d at 51-52 (disavowing any intention to reduce departure decisions to exercises in "mechanistic bean-counting"). This approach is not discredited by cases such as United States v. Rosales, 19 F.3d 763 (1st Cir. 1994). There, _____________ _______ the district court gave only a terse summary of its reasons for departing, and offered no insight into how it settled upon the degree of departure. On appeal, this paucity of information compromised our ability to assess the departure's reasonableness and necessitated a new sentencing proceeding. See id. at 770. ___ ___ To be on the safe side, a sentencing judge should always endeavor to explain the extent of a departure. Yet judges 17 are human, and, like other human beings, they will sometimes fail to dot every "i" and cross every "t." When such a slip occurs and a sentencing court neglects to explain how it fixed the extent of a departure, no bright-line rule obtains. Such situations must be handled on a case by case basis. The bottom line is that we eschew a purely mechanical test one that merely asks whether or not the sentencing court has made findings explaining the degree of departure in favor of a practical one one that asks more broadly whether or not the sentencing court has supplied the appellate panel with sufficient information to enable it to determine the reasonableness of the departure. See, ___ e.g., United States v. Quinones, 26 F.3d 213, 219 (1st Cir. 1994) ____ _____________ ________ (stating that the court of appeals will overlook the omission of an explicit explanation anent the scope of a departure "if the reasons for the judge's choice are obvious or if an explanation can fairly be implied from the record as a whole"). Here, unlike in Rosales, appellate review is _______ facilitated by the sentencing court's detailed explication of the circumstances warranting departure. This thorough exposition is adequate to explain the departures' extent. In particular, Judge Zobel's founded determination that the amount of loss grossly overstated the seriousness of the defendants' criminal activity weighs heavily. Precisely because the guidelines use amount of loss as a proxy for culpability in fraud cases, a supportable finding that the loss exaggerates the reality of events often is tantamount to a finding that the conventional sentencing range 18 exaggerates a defendant's blameworthiness, and, thus, tends to invite a corresponding downward departure. So it is here. Accordingly, while we would have preferred a more deliberate discussion of the degree of departure, "we see no purpose served in this case . . . in remanding to make explicit what was implicit." United States v. Sclamo, 997 F.2d 970, 974 (1st Cir. _____________ ______ 1993). 2. The Departures' Extent. The second shot in the 2. The Departures' Extent. _______________________ government's sling comes closer to the mark. The three departures currently under review are substantial; as we show in the margin, the least generous of them (applicable to Harris) reduces the sentence to one-third the bottom of the GSR, and the other two departures (applicable to Bonaiuto and DiCologero, respectively) manifest even greater clemency.9 Nonetheless, we reject both the prosecution's implicit premise that unguided departures of this magnitude are presumptively unsound and its explicit premise ____________________ 9The following chart illustrates the degrees of departure: Defendant GSR Incarcerative _________ ___ _____________ Sentence ________ J. Harris 27-33 months 9 months P. Bonaiuto 33-41 months 0 D. DiCologero 27-33 months 0 Relatedly, the court placed Bonaiuto on two years probation, six months of which was to be served in a community treatment center, and sentenced DiCologero to a two-year term of straight probation. 19 that the particular departures sub judice are simply ___ ______ unreasonable.10 We begin at bedrock. In respect to unguided departures, once the sentencing court identifies a departure- justifying circumstance and decides to act upon it, there is no algebraic formula that it can invoke to quantify the departure's extent. Hence, determining the size of such a departure is "quintessentially a judgment call," Diaz-Villafane, 874 F.2d at ______________ 49, of a type that the law leaves almost entirely to the sentencing court's standardless discretion. This means, of course, that there is no single, correct, "one-size-fits-all" unguided departure; rather, in any given situation, a range of widely disparate options doubtless fall within the universe of acceptable sentencing outcomes. Similarly, once the trial judge departs, there is no litmus test that an appellate court can employ to verify that the extent of an unguided departure is or is not reasonable. ____________________ 10In general, departures can be classified as either "guided" or "unguided." As the label implies, a guided departure is one in which a "guideline or related commentary suggests that under [the] particular circumstances the departure should be calibrated by a particular analogy to the sentencing grid." Bruce M. Selya & Matthew R. Kipp, An Examination of Emerging ___________________________ Departure Jurisprudence Under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, ________________________________________________________________ 67 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1, 12 (1991). In contrast, an unguided departure, although it may be based on grounds specifically encouraged or identified in the guidelines, is not constrained by a specification of the means through which the sentencing court must calculate the departure's magnitude. See id. We restrict ___ ___ our discussion today to unguided departures, because former application note 11 to section 2F1.1, as it appeared in 1987, offered no definitive directions for determining the extent of downward departures based on multiple loss causation. 20 This stark reality, coupled with the district court's superior knowledge of the facts and its matchless ability to detect the subtle nuances that at times distinguish cases from the mine-run, argues convincingly for a deferential approach. See Rivera, 994 ___ ______ F.2d at 950 (discussing desirability of deference in light of "sentencing court's superior `feel' for the case") (quoting Diaz- _____ Villafane, 874 F.2d at 50); see generally Bruce M. Selya & _________ ___ _________ Matthew R. Kipp, An Examination of Emerging Departure ___________________________________________ Jurisprudence Under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, 67 Notre ______________________________________________________ Dame L. Rev. 1, 39-40 (1991) (explaining that, in reviewing the extent of an unguided departure, "the sentencing judge's decision is accorded generous latitude in recognition of the court's firsthand knowledge of the case"). We have consistently held, therefore, that appellate judges must exercise considerable restraint before disturbing the presider's reasoned definition of the degree of departure. See Rivera, 994 F.2d at 950; Diaz- ___ ______ _____ Villafane, 874 F.2d at 49-50. _________ To be sure, this emphasis on deference places a considerable burden on the sentencing judge. To ease the weight of this burden, the judge is entitled to expect counsel's help. The lawyers are (or, at least, they should be) a fecund source of assistance, for they have every incentive to give the trial court the benefit of their thinking on issues in the case. Indeed, the prosecution, which has an institutional interest in seeing that justice is done, possesses an incentive that borders on an obligation. 21 Departures fit neatly within this conceptual framework. Judges must forewarn the parties of imminent departures, see ___ Burns v. United States, 501 U.S. 129, 135-39 (1991), and, once _____ _____________ forewarned, the prosecution and the defense become full partners with the court in the departure pavane. Given the opportunity, the parties out of self-interest, if for no more ennobling reason should try to aid the court in determining what degree of departure best responds to the idiosyncratic features of the specific case. A prosecutor who forfeits this opportunity is in a peculiarly poor position to protest profusely when the judge, left to her own devices, thereafter exercises her discretion as she deems best. This brings us to a special circumstance that undermines the argument the United States advances here. Judge Zobel invited the government to make recommendations at the disposition hearing concerning the appropriate degree of departure for each defendant. The prosecutor declined the invitation, clinging stubbornly to his position that the court should not depart at all. At oral argument in this venue, the government sought to justify this maneuver by suggesting that its underlying position its claim that the district court could not lawfully depart somehow relieved it of any responsibility to assist the court in fixing the degree of departure. We are unpersuaded. The court below was faced with two distinct decisions: whether to depart, and if so, to what extent. Once the court 22 resolved the threshold issue and solicited the parties' views on the second issue, the prosecution, given its distinctive role, could not sidestep the separate inquiry as to the degree of departure merely because it disagreed with the court's initial ruling. Counsel who lose a point can neither pout nor play the ostrich, but must move on and confront the next set of issues. See, e.g., United States v. Smolar, 557 F.2d 13, 17 (1st Cir.), ___ ____ _____________ ______ cert. denied, 434 U.S. 866 (1977). Just as a lawyer who moves _____ ______ unsuccessfully for judgment as a matter of law must then give the court his suggested jury instructions on the issue or risk a less-than-favorable charge, so, too, a prosecutor who argues against a departure, loses, and then refuses to offer suggestions referable to the degree of departure runs a comparable risk. In this instance, the chickens came home to roost: the district court, unable to pry a recommendation out of the prosecution, granted sizable sentence reductions. Under these straitened circumstances, the government has an especially hard row to hoe in its effort to convince us that the district court displayed unreasonable generosity in shaping the departures. Because reasonableness is not an absolute, but a construct that "depends on the circumstances," Cotto v. United States, 993 F.2d _____ _____________ 274, 280 (1st Cir. 1993), the government's silence in the face of the lower court's timeous request for enlightenment concerning the appropriate extent of the departures affects our assessment of the departures' reasonableness. Put another way, the government, having been afforded an opportunity to influence a 23 discretionary decision and having chosen instead to stonewall, can expect that doubts will be resolved against it when, thereafter, it attempts to second-guess that decision.11 Cf. ___ Paterson-Leitch Co. v. Massachusetts Mun. Wholesale Elec. Co., ____________________ ________________________________________ 840 F.2d 985, 989 (1st Cir. 1988) ("Courts, like the Deity, are most frequently moved to help those who help themselves."). Against this backdrop, we conclude that the government has not shown the sentencing outcomes in this case to be beyond the realm of reason. In reviewing upward departures, we have ______ ratified very dramatic deviations from tabulated sentencing ranges so long as they have been shown to be responsive to the record. In Diaz-Villafane, for instance, we affirmed a 120-month ______________ sentence though the GSR topped out at 33 months. In approving this upward departure representing a 264% increase in the defendant's sentence we deferred to "the district court's ____________________ 11Our concurring brother misapprehends this point. Since reasonableness is necessarily a function of what the sentencing court knows, depriving the court of the prosecutor's judgments about the extent of an anticipated departure limits the court's knowledge and, thus, affects the reasonableness of its ensuing determination. Contrary to Judge Stahl's assumption, the unhelpful prosecutor does not "waive" anything; he simply makes his post hoc complaint less convincing. ____ ___ By like token, we do not believe that we are encouraging "empty exercise[s]." Post at 34. We agree that the ____ prosecutor who, as our concurring brother suggests, "recommend[s] a downward departure of one week," does not assist the sentencing court. Id. We disagree, however, that such a ruse would improve ___ the prosecution's position or help to alter the calculus of reasonableness. It should go without saying that, just as we expect lawyers who suggest jury instructions to base them on existing law or good faith arguments for new law, so do we expect the government to be candid and forthcoming in commenting upon the reasonableness of an anticipated departure. 24 firsthand knowledge of the case and its careful exposition of the reasons why it thought the situation to be markedly atypical." 874 F.2d at 52. Diaz-Villafane is not an aberration. See, e.g., ______________ ___ ____ United States v. Hernandez Coplin, 24 F.3d 312, 316 (1st Cir.) ______________ ________________ (upholding as reasonable 38-month and 46-month upward departures, representing increases of 380% and 328% over the respective GSR ceilings), cert. denied, 115 U.S. 378 (1994); United States v. _____ ______ _____________ Doe, 18 F.3d 41, 48-49 (1st Cir. 1994) (upholding as reasonable a ___ 45-month upward departure that represented a 166% increase over the GSR's apex); United States v. Figaro, 935 F.2d 4, 8-9 (1st _____________ ______ Cir. 1991) (upholding as reasonable an upward departure that tripled the defendant's sentence); United States v. Rodriguez- ______________ __________ Cardona, 924 F.2d 1148, 1156-57 (1st Cir.) (upholding as _______ reasonable an 84-month upward departure that represented an increase of 165% over the GSR's apex), cert. denied, 502 U.S. 809 _____ ______ (1991). Because we do not visualize departures as a one-way street leading invariably to higher sentences, the same reasoning applies ex proprio vigore to downward departures. This street __ _______ ______ runs both ways. Consequently, the amount of deference that is due to a district court's decision regarding the degree of departure does not expand and contract depending upon the departure's direction. See, e.g., United States v. White ___ ____ ______________ _____ Buffalo, 10 F.3d 575, 577-78 (8th Cir. 1993) (upholding as _______ reasonable a downward departure to a term of probation as against a GSR of 18-24 months); United States v. One Star, 9 F.3d 60, 61- _____________ ________ 25 62 (8th Cir. 1993) (upholding as reasonable a downward departure to a term of probation as against a GSR of 33-41 months); Sclamo, ______ 997 F.2d at 972 (upholding as reasonable a downward departure to a term of probation as against a GSR of 24-30 months); United ______ States v. Jagmohan, 909 F.2d 61, 65 (2d Cir. 1990) (affirming ______ ________ district court's downward departure from GSR of 15-21 months to a term of probation). We will not primp the peacock's plumage. Here, four critical factors militate against a holding that the departures are unreasonably steep: (1) the district court's supportable finding that the amount of loss vastly overstated the defendants' culpability, (2) the combined impact of the several external elements cited by the court (e.g., the greed displayed by the ____ lender's senior management, the bank's negligence, the buyers' complicity, and the market's collapse), (3) the special circumstance that the government refused to assist the court in the daunting task of determining the departures' size, and (4) the breadth of the court's discretion in this area of sentencing. Though the question is close, we conclude that the three departures are all within, albeit tiptoeing |