The Court remands for a Crosby proceeding, however, since the sentencing occurred before Booker. (At which proceeding, one assumes, Valdez will simply convert his unsuccessful pitch for a § 5K2.13 departure into an equally unsuccessful argument for a below-the-Guidelines sentence pursuant to Booker and the Section 3553(a) factors. But one can always hope; the good Judge may enjoy a fine breakfast that morning and deliver rare leniency from the bench that afternoon).
The only legal issue of note is the Court's conclusion that "a district court is not required to accept evidence concerning a defendant's mental and emotional states offered by a defendant's own expert, but rather may rely on its own assessment of defendant's mental state based on its own assessment of the defendant's mental state based upon its observations, even when they conflict with those of the expert." Op. at 15. Judge Duffy thus did not err as a matter of law when he concluded, despite a psychiatrist's report & testimony that Valdez had an IQ of 55 and a host of other mental ailments, that Valdez did not suffer from a "significantly reduced mental capacity" within the meaning of § 5K2.13. The judge's factual finding on this point was also not clearly erroneous, the Circuit concluded, supported as it was by Judge Duffy's observations of Valdez's behavior in court as well as by the nature of the offense of conviction (a relatively sophisticated ruse ripping off the phone company).
