United States v. Dan Petri

A full decade after an amendment to Rule 32 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, we are asked for the first time to determine whether the amendment represented a vast expansion of the district court’s fact-finding responsibilities at sentencing. The defendant, who pleaded guilty to aggravated identity theft and two other counts in connection with an ATM skimming scheme, insists that Rule 32(i)(3)(B) extends the district court’s fact-finding responsibility to all matters controverted, no matter how they are presented, throughout the entire sentencing phase. The rule’s context and history, though, strongly suggest otherwise and demonstrate an intent to narrow the rule’s scope to only those factual objections to the presentence report that have the potential to affect the sentence. Because we cannot square this strong evidence of legislative purpose with the defendant’s broad interpretation, we affirm.

I

A

Defendant Dan Petri, along with at least two co-conspirators, engaged in a scheme to skim account information and personal identification data from ATMs. By attaching a card reader and a camera to an ATM, they would capture a customer’s account information and…