Fifth Circuit Reversal of Count of Conviction Based on Statute of Limitations May Permit the Reversed Count Conduct as Relevant Conduct for Affirmed Count (7/28/24)

In United States v. Boswell, 109 F.4th 36 (5th Cir. 2024), CA5 here and GS here, the Court reversed Boswell’s conviction for bankruptcy-fraud conviction (Count One) and affirmed his conviction for tax evasion (Count Two).

The Court reversed the bankruptcy-fraud conviction based on the indictment being untimely under the 5-year statute of limitations. When Count One was originally indicted as a one-count indictment, the indictment was obtained within the 5-year period but the Government sought and obtained a sealing order for the indictment. Then, about 6 months after the 5-month period expired, the Government obtained a superseding indictment adding tax evasion (Count Two), and the indictment was unsealed. The tax evasion statute of limitations is 6-years, so that Count was clearly timely.

The Court reversed the bankruptcy-fraud conviction because the Government failed to adduce a satisfactory reason for the Government to obtain an order sealing the original indictment. The Court relied principally upon the reasoning United States v. Gigante, 436 F. Supp. 2d 647 (S.D.N.Y. 2006) which dismissed because the Government’s claims for need of a superseding indictment were rejected. Hence, the Court reversed the bankruptcy-fraud charge (Count One) for failure to satisfy the required statute of limitations.

The conviction on the tax evasion count (Count Two) was affirmed. The Court rejected Boswell’s various claims on Count Two, holding: (i) the two convictions were not inextricably intertwined so that improper conviction on Count One required reversal on Count Two, (ii) the trial court properly rejected Boswell’s request for a bill of particulars on Count Two; (iii) there was no variance between the evidence and the tax evasion crime charged in Count Two, so Boswell was not surprised by the evidence at trial; (iv) there was no constructive amendment of Count Two as charged; (v) the evidence was sufficient to support the jury verdict; and (vi) the errors, if any, did not support application of the “cumulative error” doctrine permitting reversal for individual nonreversible errors which in the aggregate impaired the right to a fair trial.

All of this is fairly routine. I post on the case to address a related issue regarding sentencing calculations.

The Court does not mention that Boswell claimed error in the sentencing calculations and did not remand for re-sentencing. I infer (maybe more accurately speculate) that the trial court considered both convictions in its sentencing calculations and ultimate sentence. Readers will recall that the U.S. Sentencing Commission recently eliminated acquitted conduct from the relevant conduct consideration for sentencing. See Sentencing Guidelines Amendment Eliminates Acquitted Conduct from Sentencing Calculations (6/6/24; 6/11/24), here. The amendments are effective 11/1/24. I assume that, if there had been a remand for re-sentencing, the issue would be whether the reversal of Count One would mean that the Court could not consider the reversed conviction as relevant conduct for the conviction on Count Two. I believe that reversal would not qualify under the new acquitted conduct rule because the reversal did not mean that there ever was a finding of not guilty (meaning no acquitted conduct), so the reversal would be treated like uncharged conduct which can be treated as relevant conduct for the sentencing calculations. (Of course, this begs the question of whether the bankruptcy-fraud was relevant conduct for the tax evasion conviction.)