Opinion
2:20-cr-219 WBS
11-09-2022
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff, v. ASHLEY MARIE AURICH, Defendant.
ORDER DENYING REQUEST FOR CONTINUANCE OF SENTENCING HEARING
WILLIAM B. SHUBB UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
The court has received the parties' response to the court's Order requiring an explanation for their request to continue the sentencing date in this matter, and finds it insufficient to justify the requested continuance. It has been more than 21 months since the defendant entered her guilty plea in this matter, and the Probation Officer's Draft Presentence Investigatioon Report has been available to counsel since March 23, 2021. There is no justifiable reason why counsel on either side should need additional time to propose arguments or objections to that report.
Counsel make reference to “relevant defelopments” in the Pacheco case. However, since this court is well familiar with that case, having conducted the sentencing hearing and imposed the sentence, there should be no need to familiarize the court with the facts of that case. Further, the parties should have sufficient time in the next five weeks before the sentencing hearing to present the court with whatever additional facts from the Pacheco case they wish it to consider.
Counsel also represent that Mr. Griffin is engated in a trial in another court which began on October 31, 2022. First, counsel do not represent that such trial will not conclude by December 12, 2022, when sentencing is acheculed in this case. Second, the sentencing date in this case was set by stipulation of counsel, in which stipulation Mr. Griffin joined, five weeks before the trial in which he is now engaged commenced. Third, there is no representation that the judge presiding in that case would not be willing to give Mr. Griffin time off to attend the sentencing hearing in this case. The court appreciates that many of the attorneys representing defendants in this court have busy practices in other courts, but this court cannot postpone its proceedings every time counsel has a matter in another court.
Justice delayed is justice denied. As the court has attempted to explain to the United States Attorney in connection with other cases, sentencing disparities and inconsistencies are best minimalized when codefendants, whether charged in the same or separate cases, can be sentenced at at the same time. For those reasons, the court would have preferred to sentence Ms. Aurich at the same time as it sentenced Mr. Pacheco. By having the sentencing hearings set at different times, the court has already been deprived of that opportunity. Scheduling the sentencing hearings five months apart would only compound the problem.
For all of the foregoing reasons, the parties' request to continue the sentencing date in this matter is DENIED.