The Second Circuit heard oral arguments April 9 in Sean Combs' appeal of his 50-month Mann Act sentence, spotlighting the contested use of acquitted conduct in federal sentencing.
A federal appeals panel heard oral arguments April 9 in Sean Combs' challenge to his 50-month prison sentence, focusing on whether the district court improperly relied on conduct for which a jury had acquitted him when calculating his sentencing guidelines range [1]. The hearing placed the Second Circuit at the center of a recurring and unresolved tension in federal sentencing law: the extent to which judges may enhance a sentence based on facts a jury explicitly rejected.
Combs was convicted on Mann Act charges and sentenced to 50 months [1]. The jury acquitted him on separate racketeering and sex trafficking counts [1]. Defense counsel Alexandra Shapiro argued before the three-judge panel that the district court failed to give adequate weight to those acquittals before layering acquitted conduct into the sentencing calculus [1]. Shapiro's argument was that the court treated conduct the jury rejected as a meaningful driver of the ultimate sentence, a practice she characterized as undermining the verdict's force [1].
Judge M. Miller Baker, one of the three panelists, questioned government counsel directly on the justification for using acquitted conduct when that conduct amounted to, in the judge's framing, a secondary matter relative to the charges of conviction [1]. The government has maintained that the Sentencing Guidelines permit courts to consider relevant conduct regardless of acquittal, a position grounded in longstanding Supreme Court precedent holding that guidelines calculations are not subject to the Sixth Amendment's jury-finding requirement. The Second Circuit has not yet issued a ruling.
The stakes extend well beyond Combs. The acquitted-conduct question has been contested in federal courts for decades, and the Supreme Court declined to resolve it squarely as recently as 2024, when it denied certiorari in a closely watched sentencing challenge. A Second Circuit ruling that curtails the practice, or that requires district courts to document a more rigorous weighing of acquittals, could affect sentencing calculations for a substantial portion of the federal criminal docket [1]. Defense practitioners across the country have tracked the case as a potential vehicle for circuit-level limits on the enhancement practice.
The panel gave no indication from the bench when it would issue a decision. If the Second Circuit reverses or vacates the sentence, the case would return to the district court for resentencing under clarified standards. If it affirms, Shapiro may seek en banc review or petition the Supreme Court, which has shown renewed interest in Sixth Amendment sentencing questions in recent terms [1].