A Second Circuit panel challenged prosecutors and defense counsel at oral argument over Sean Combs's 50-month Mann Act sentence and acquitted-conduct enhancements.
A federal appeals panel grilled attorneys for both Sean Combs and the government on April 9 over whether District Judge Arun Subramanian improperly allowed acquitted criminal conduct to drive Combs's 50-month prison sentence [1]. The argument, held before a Second Circuit panel in New York, centered on two Mann Act convictions, the sole counts on which a jury returned guilty verdicts after acquitting Combs on racketeering and sex-trafficking charges [1].
The appeal arises from Combs's sentencing by Judge Subramanian in the Southern District of New York following a trial that ended in partial acquittals on the most serious charges [1]. Defense counsel Alexandra Shapiro argued at oral argument that the district court improperly inflated the sentence by factoring in conduct the jury expressly rejected, and she pointed to a recent U.S. Sentencing Commission amendment that bars acquitted conduct from guidelines calculations as support for her position [1]. The government defended the sentence, but the panel pressed prosecutors on whether permitting such enhancements remains constitutionally sound in light of that amendment [1].
The substantive stakes extend well beyond Combs. The Sentencing Commission's amendment, adopted in the post-Booker era of advisory guidelines, draws a formal line between what a judge may consider for purposes of the guidelines calculation and what a jury has declined to find beyond a reasonable doubt [1]. Whether that amendment also constrains a sentencing judge's broader statutory discretion under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), or merely limits the mechanical guidelines arithmetic, is a question courts across circuits have answered inconsistently [1]. A Second Circuit ruling that the amendment curtails judicial discretion more broadly would create pressure on other circuits and could prompt Supreme Court review, given the existing split [1].
The panel's pointed questioning of both sides suggests the judges view the record as raising a genuine constitutional question rather than a straightforward application of settled law [1]. No ruling was issued from the bench. Second Circuit panels typically issue written opinions within several months of oral argument, though no formal timeline has been set in this matter [1].