Marvin Peugh, Petitioner v. United States (569 U.S. 530)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 10, 2013 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 569 U.S. 530 · 133 S. Ct. 2072
- Decided
- June 10, 2013
- Term
- October Term 2012
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice Sotomayor
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice SOTOMAYOR delivered the opinion of the Court, except as to Part III-C. The Constitution forbids the passage of ex post facto laws, a category that includes "[e]very law that changes the punishment , and inflicts a greater punishment, than the law annexed to the crime, when committed." Calder v. Bull, 3 Dall. 386, 390, 1 L.Ed. 648 (1798) (emphasis deleted). The U.S. Sentencing Guidelines set forth an advisory sentencing range for each defendant convicted in federal court. We consider here whether there is an ex post facto violation when a defendant is sentenced under Guidelines promulgated after he committed his criminal acts and the new version provides a higher applicable Guidelines sentencing range than the version in place at the time of the offense. We hold that there is. I Petitioner Marvin Peugh and his cousin, Steven Hollewell, ran two farming-related businesses in Illinois. Grainery, Inc., bought, stored, and sold grain; Agri-Tech, Inc., provided farming services to landowners and tenants. When the Grainery began experiencing cash-flow problems, Peugh and Hollewell engaged in two fraudulent schemes. First, they obtained a series of bank loans by representing falsely the existence of contracts for future grain deliveries from Agri-Tech to the Grainery. When they failed to pay back the principal on these loans, the bank suffered losses of over $2 million.…
Excerpt of a 65,445-character opinion. The full text and citation network load in the interactive viewer above.