United States v. Timothy Beston, Jr., No. 21-2186 (8th Cir. 2022)
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Defendant pled guilty to one count of malicious mischief, in violation of 18 U.S.C. Sections 1363, 1153, for driving a stolen vehicle into a lake on the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation in North Dakota. The district court sentenced Defendant to 21 months imprisonment and 3 years supervised release, and it ordered him to pay restitution totaling $30,845.50. On appeal, Defendant challenged the restitution amount as violative of the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act (MVRA) and asserts that the government breached his plea agreement. The government moved to dismiss his appeal, citing the waiver of appellate rights in the plea agreement.
The Eighth Circuit denied the government’s motion and vacated the order of restitution. The court explained that the district court erred by failing to properly follow the procedure set forth in the MVRA, albeit under the leading of the government. The MVRA denies courts discretion as to “the point in time when property should be valued,” requiring that a district court review the value of the property either on the date of damage or the date of sentencing. Because the relevant conduct serving as the basis for Defendant’s offense was him receiving the stolen vehicle and driving it into the lake, the district court should have considered the value of the vehicle when he received the stolen vehicle and before he drove it into the lake, not when the vehicle was originally stolen from the dealership lot by someone else. The record, however, provides no indication that the district court used these relevant dates when determining the vehicle’s value.
Court Description: [Shepherd, Author, with Loken and Colloton, Circuit Judges] Criminal case - Criminal law. The government breached the plea agreement by effectively advocating for a higher restitution amount at sentencing, thereby undermining judicial fairness, and the court would not enforce the appeal waiver in defendant's guilty plea; defendant's oral objections to restitution at sentencing were sufficient to preserve the issue; the district court did not follow the procedure set forth in the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act in calculating the amount of the loss, and the evidence is insufficient to support the amount of restitution ordered; under the court's procedures for remanding a case in the event of a government-occasioned breach, the matter is remanded for further proceedings before a different judge. Judge Loken, concurring. Judge Colloton, dissenting.
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