U.S. v. Harris

Dist. Ct. did not err in sentencing defendant to 196-month term of incarceration on armed robbery and brandishing firearm charges, even though parties had stipulated to lower sentencing range to account for failure of defendant’s federal defender to update either defendant or his state-court counsel in pending state-court armed robbery charge about status of instant federal court proceedings so as to allow defendant to delay pleading guilty to state charge in order to obtain lower sentencing range on instant federal offense. Dist. Ct. committed no error in failing to abide by recommended sentencing range, where record showed that Dist. Ct. had acknowledged recommended range and indicated that it was under no obligation to follow said range instead of range that applied to facts of case. Ct. further noted that Dist. Ct. had actually afforded defendant considerable leniency by subtracting 36 months from defendant’s “proper sentence” to account for three years that defendant had served on state-court sentence.