United States v. Burns, No. 14-8072 (10th Cir. 2015)
Annotate this CaseDefendant-Appellant Steven Burns challenged the amount of restitution that the district court ordered him to pay. Burns, a custodian at the Rock Springs, Wyoming post office, pled guilty to one count of possessing stolen mail. Burns admitted that from December 1, 2013, through January 25, 2014, he possessed letters, packages, mail, and articles and things contained therein, that had been stolen from post office boxes in the Rock Springs Post Office, knowing that those items had been stolen. The district court sentenced Burns to one year probation and ordered him to pay $3,090.58 in restitution under the Mandatory Victims’ Rights Act (“MVRA”). Burns argued: (1) the district court clearly erred in finding that he took all of the items on which the district court based the amount of restitution; and (2) that the controlling case law required a jury to find, beyond a reasonable doubt, the facts underlying a restitution award. The Tenth Circuit rejected both of these contentions on review of Burns' appeal, and affirmed the restitution order.
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