Claiborne has died, counsel tells Court
on May 31, 2007 at 11:46 am
UPDATE, 2 p.m. Michael Dwyer, assistant federal public defender in St. Louis, formally notified the Supreme Court on Thursday that Mario Claiborne had died. Dwyer’s “suggestion of death” said that he had learned on Wednesday “that Petitioner Mario Claiborne died in St. Louis, Missouri, on May 30, 2007. Counsel does not know the exact cause of death and has not yet received official notice of Claiborne’s death from any governmental source. Petitioner’s mother confirmed his death to counsel. When Petitioner’s counsel receives a death certificate, he will file it with the Court.”
A 23-year-old St. Louis man identified by police there as Mario Claiborne was shot dead in an incident on city streets Tuesday, according to a story in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper. The federal public defender’s office in St. Louis indicated that this is the same individual whose case testing U.S. Sentencing Guidelines has been awaiting a decision by the Supreme Court. That office would not give details because attorneys who had worked on the case were unavailable.
The case of Claiborne v. U.S. (docket 06-5618) was heard by the Court on Feb. 20, along with a second Guidelines case (Rita v. U.S., 06-5754). The cases were heard in tandem because they both test what sentence under the Guideline may be treated as “reasonable” when challenged on appeal. The Clairborne appeal asks whether a sentence below the Guideline range is presumed to be reasonable, while the Rita case asks whether a sentence within a Guideline range is presumed to be reasonable.
Under Supreme Court Rule 35, when a party to a case has died, a personal representative may be named if the legal interests would survive the death. That would not be possible in a case involving a convicted and sentenced individual, who has the sole legal interest in the outcome. Thus, it would appear that the Claiborne case would simply be dismissed by the Court, leaving that aspect of the Guidelines reasonableness inquiry unsettled — unless the coming decision in the Rita case goes beyond the single issue presented there.
Claiborne was given a 15-month prison sentence for a cocaine possession crime, and that was below the minimum Guideline range of 37 months. The Eighth Circuit Court ordered a new sentencing, finding that a below-range sentence was unreasonable. Claiborne had been released pending the new sentencing.
If the deceased individual in St. Louis is, in fact, the same person as in the Court case, the Court is expected to be notified promptly of the death. Either side in the case may do so.
