Court vacates sentence for Rand Paul's neighbor, says it was too lenient

[Zippyjuan]

I agree entirely that the attacker did not get an accurate sentence. However, is it appropriate that a person can be re-sentenced after they were sentenced?

From just yesterday:

https://www.wkyt.com/content/news/S...orney-appeals-to-Supreme-Court-564803592.html

Sen. Rand Paul attacker's attorney appeals to Supreme Court

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. (AP) - A man who tackled U.S. Sen. Rand Paul and broke his ribs has asked for the Supreme Court's opinion after an appellate court vacated his 30-day jail sentence and suggested it was too lenient.

A three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in September that there was "no compelling justification" for Rene Boucher's sentence. The judges called the sentence "well-below-guidelines" and ordered a resentencing.

The Daily News reports attorney Matt Baker filed a petition last week with the U.S. Supreme Court asking justices to consider whether a resentencing hearing violates Boucher's constitutional rights entitling him to due process and protecting him against double jeopardy.

Boucher has already served the 30-day sentence for the 2017 attack outside the senator's home.

A resentencing hearing has not been set.

Rand was also awarded $580,000.


https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/the-prohibition-against-double-jeopardy.html

Double Jeopardy Basics

“Jeopardy” in the legal sense describes the risk brought by criminal prosecution. With notions of fairness and finality in mind, the Framers of the Constitution included the Double Jeopardy Clause to prevent the government from trying or punishing a defendant more than once.

Specifically, double jeopardy protects against:

a prosecution for the same offense after an acquittal
a prosecution for the same offense after a conviction, and
more than one punishment for the same offense.
A defendant facing any of these scenarios can hold up the Double Jeopardy Clause as a shield.

There are clear instances when this shield is available, such as when a jury has acquitted a defendant and the state brings the same charges a second time. (If the prosecution discovered new evidence of the defendant’s guilt after the initial trial, too bad.) Double jeopardy also bars punishment in certain prototypical scenarios—for example, when a judge tries to resentence someone who has already served the punishment for the crime in question.

But there’s often not an obvious answer as to whether the Double Jeopardy Clause applies. Certain principles guide courts in making the determination.

 

[Schifference]

From just yesterday:

https://www.wkyt.com/content/news/S...orney-appeals-to-Supreme-Court-564803592.html




https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/the-prohibition-against-double-jeopardy.html

I am all for Rand but I am against Double Jeopardy. That is a slippery slope that liberty minded individuals should not support.

 

[Zippyjuan]

From March: https://www.wlky.com/article/new-trial-denied-for-rand-paul-attacker/26912097

New trial denied for Rand Paul attacker

A Kentucky judge denied a request for a new trial for the man accused of attacking senator Rand Paul.

A jury said Rene Boucher should pay more than $580,000 for injuries the senator suffered.

The judge rejected the motion, saying the jury award was not excessive considering Boucher's conduct and Paul's injuries.

Paul suffered multiple broken rips and contracted pneumonia after being tackeled in his yard in bowling green in 2017.

In June 2018, Boucher was sentenced to 30 days in prison and one year of supervised release after pleading guilty to assaulting Paul. His sentence also included 100 hours of community service.

 

[eleganz]

OP's article from Sept.

This is the latest.


Boucher asks U.S. Supreme Court to review sentence reversal

https://www.courier-journal.com/sto...sks-supreme-court-sentence-review/4176703002/

The attorney for Rene Boucher has requested the U.S. Supreme Court review a lower court’s ruling reversing the 30-day prison sentence Boucher was ordered to serve after pleading guilty to assaulting his neighbor, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul.

Attorney Matt Baker on Friday filed with the Supreme Court a petition for a writ of certiorari, a legal term used to define a formal request for the high court to order a lower court to send a case up for review.

 

[Swordsmyth]

A new sentencing date has been set for a Kentucky man who tackled U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, breaking several of the lawmaker's ribs.

Rene Boucher was scheduled to be resentenced on July 27 on a count of assaulting a member of Congress, the Bowling Green Daily News reported.

Boucher had served a 30-day sentence, paid a $10,000 fine and performed community services after pleading guilty to attacking his then-neighbor Paul over a lawn maintenance issue along their property line in 2017.

Paul had six broken ribs and later suffered bouts of pneumonia and underwent surgery to remove part of his damaged lung.

Federal prosecutors appealed the sentence, stating 30 days was too lenient considering Paul’s injuries. A federal appeals court agreed with prosecutors in September 2019 and ordered Boucher to be resentenced, vacating his 30-day sentence.

Special prosecutor Bradley Shepard is seeking a 21-month sentence.

More at: https://www.wiscnews.com/news/natio...cle_0c7a44c6-8401-5b97-85cc-9aef66ba6418.html

 

[Valli6]

Boucher resentencing July 27, 2020 - more details

More details from the Bowling Green Daily News:
https://www.bgdailynews.com/news/bo...cle_c1b01588-4036-5eeb-bd29-0c64603a5eeb.html

Boucher set for July sentencing, attorney asks for dismissal
By Justin Story [email protected]
Jun 17, 2020

…In court filings, Baker has framed the prosecution’s subsequent appeal of the 30-day sentence as the government going back on its word and exposing Boucher to the risk of double jeopardy due to his having completed his incarceration and paid his fine.

Shepard has argued that the government never gave up its right to appeal Boucher’s sentence and has taken the position in court filings that the 30-day sentence was too lenient in comparison to similar assault cases in the federal court system.

Baker, in his motion to dismiss, posits a scenario in which Boucher would be ordered to return to court for repeated sentencing hearings after further appeals from prosecutors unsatisfied with the latest punishment imposed.

The motion summarizes the events that led to the assault outside the senator’s house.

Boucher had previously disposed of piles of yard waste that had been collected in Paul’s yard within sight of Boucher’s property.

Baker has argued that Boucher believed the piles were amassed in response to Boucher trimming maple trees on Paul’s side of the property line that had grown over onto Boucher’s property.

The night before the assault, Boucher attempted to dispose of a pile by burning it with gasoline but suffered burns to his face, neck and arms when the pile ignited.

Boucher has maintained that Paul’s politics didn’t motivate his actions.

“There is something fundamentally wrong and patently unfair about this whole scenario,” Baker said in his motion. “It appears that the government is getting a ‘mulligan’ for the simple reason that the victim is a United States Senator. If Senator Paul’s political opinions or political office were somehow related to the reason for Boucher’s actions, then an entirely different outcome might have been warranted and obtained at sentencing. But this case has never been about politics or a clash of political viewpoints; rather, it was a dispute over lawn maintenance in a gated community, where one of the principals just happened to be a United States Senator.”

The judge who originally sentenced Boucher, special judge Marianne Battani, is no longer participating in the case.

A senior U.S. District Court judge based in Michigan, Battani announced earlier this month that she planned to step away from her duties after being diagnosed with cancer, the Detroit Free Press reported June 8.

U.S. District Judge Matthew Leitman of the Eastern District of Michigan has been appointed as new special judge to hear Boucher’s case , according to federal court records.

– Follow courts reporter Justin Story on Twitter @jstorydailynews or visit bgdailynews.com.

https://www.bgdailynews.com/news/bo...cle_c1b01588-4036-5eeb-bd29-0c64603a5eeb.html

Judge Matthew Leitman was nominated to the District Court by President Barack Obama on July 25, 2013, and confirmed by the United States Senate on March 12, 2014.

Judge Leitman clerked for Justice Charles L. Levin of the Michigan Supreme Court from 1993-1994 and was in private practice from 1994 until his appointment. Judge Leitman's private practice focused on complex commercial litigation, criminal defense, and appellate litigation. Judge Leitman also authored several articles on a variety of legal issues, including criminal procedure, health care fraud, and litigating sales commission disputes.
https://www.mied.uscourts.gov/index.cfm?pageFunction=chambers&judgeid=45

 

[Valli6]

Rene Boucher was scheduled to be resentenced on July 27 on a count of assaulting a member of Congress, the Bowling Green Daily News reported.

Bump

 

[dannno]

https://www.wnky.com/federal-judge-resentences-rene-boucher-to-14-months/

Federal judge resentences Rene Boucher to 14 months

BOWLING GREEN, Ky.- A federal judge has resentenced the neighbor who attacked Sen. Rand Paul at his Bowling Green home.


Judge Matthew Leitman issued the sentence of 14 months Monday afternoon. The government was seeking a sentence of 21 months.


Boucher is ordered to spend eight months behind bars and six months of home confinement.


Boucher will serve seven months in prison due to 30 days of time already served.


Boucher attacked Sen. Paul in November 2017 over a dispute about yard debris.


Boucher and the government can both appeal the judge’s ruling. The parties will meet again to discuss the case in three weeks.

 

[Sammy]

The Judge is probably a rand Paul hater!

 

[Valli6]

https://www.wnky.com/federal-judge-resentences-rene-boucher-to-14-months/
Boucher and the government can both appeal the judge’s ruling. The parties will meet again to discuss the case in three weeks.

Sounds like it's still not over!

 

[Swordsmyth]

The neighbor who lost his temper and attacked Republican U.S. Sen. Rand Paul in 2017, breaking six of his ribs, has been sentenced to an additional 13 months confinement.

A federal judge initially sentenced Rene Boucher to 30 days in jail for the November 2017 attack, along with 100 hours of community service and a $10,000 fine.

During a video hearing Monday, U.S. District Judge Matthew F. Leitman handed down the new sentence against Boucher – eight months in prison and six months on home confinement.

However, Leitman gave Boucher credit for the 30 days he already served, so he will have seven more months behind bars.

The new sentence for Boucher still wasn’t as long as the government wanted.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Brad Shepard objected to the sentence, which could lead to yet another appeal by the government for stiffer sentence for Boucher.

Paul and his wife, Kelly, submitted written statements about the attack the first time Boucher was sentenced, but spoke in person during the video hearing Monday.

Paul said he’d never had cross words with Boucher and so had no idea he was unhappy before Boucher blindsided him.

Paul described the intense pain and his struggles to breathe after the attack, as well as the history of physical problems since, including bouts with pneumonia, night sweats and fever; coughing up blood; surgery to remove part of his scarred lung; and still more surgery to drain infected fluid.

Paul said his lung capacity will likely be reduced the rest of his life, and he has chronic pain.

“I don’t know what a night without pain is like, or a day without pain,” Paul said.

Kelly Paul told the judge of the strain and fear his injuries and suffering caused for her and other family members.

In one visit to the emergency room, doctors inserted a huge needle into Paul’s chest to draw out fluid, not using anesthesia because of the need to move quickly, she said.

Another time, a doctor told them there was an 80 percent chance that cancer had developed in the scarred area of Paul’s lung, his wife said.

“Now in constantly worry,” Kelly Paul said.

More at: https://www.kentucky.com/article244514887.html

It should have been a death sentence for attempted murder.

 

[Valli6]

The attack made national news because of Paul’s position, but prosecutors have acknowledged it had nothing to do with politics.

When was that?! Rand has suggested otherwise!

stacking limbs and other yard waste near their shared property line.

Still with the sleazy wording! "near their shared property line" means on his own property!