United States v. Samuel Eaton

MEMORANDUM

Samuel Eaton appeals from his resen-tencing by the district court pursuant to his convictions on two counts of bank larceny, 18 U.S.C. § 2113 (b). We review his challenge to the sentence de novo, United States v. Garcia-Guizar, 234 F.3d 483 , 489 n. 2 (9th Cir.2000), and affirm. Because the parties are familiar with the history of the case, we need not recount it here.

I

The district court was not required to impose the sixty-month “alternative sentence” on remand following our reversal of Eaton’s convictions under 18 U.S.C. § 844 in the previous appeal. Our remand order in that appeal was open-ended and, unlike in' any of the eases Eaton cites, did not direct the district court to impose the alternative sentence it had previously considered. The district court was therefore free to undertake a new sentencing analysis without regard to its earlier sentencing determinations. See United States v. Ponce, 51 F.3d 820, 825-26 (9th Cir.1995) (concluding that the “district court did not err in resentencing [the defendants] without regard to its previous [sentencing] determinations” because the disposition in the prior appeal simply “vacated the [original] sentences and…