United States v. Fu Xin Chen (Jia Wu Chen)


22-765-cr United States v. Fu Xin Chen (Jia Wu Chen) UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT SUMMARY ORDER RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A SUMMARY ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT’S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION “SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY CITING A SUMMARY ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL. At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, held at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the City of New York, on the 27th day of February, two thousand twenty-three. PRESENT: ROBERT D. SACK, ALISON J. NATHAN, Circuit Judges, GARY R. BROWN District Judge. * _____________________________________ United States of America, Appellee, v. 22-765 Fu Xin Chen, Wu Guo Shun, You Zhong Peng, Ping-Jing Wu, AKA Chen Ling, Tong You Cheng, Ming-Shun Hu, Defendants, Jia Wu Chen, Defendant-Appellant. _____________________________________ * Judge Gary R. Brown, of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, sitting by designation. FOR APPELLEE: Susan Corkery, Ivory L. Bishop, Jr., Assistant United States Attorneys, for Breon Peace, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Brooklyn, NY. FOR DEFENDANT-APPELLANT: Jia Wu Chen, pro se, Atwater, CA. Appeal from an order of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (Korman, J.). UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND DECREED that the order of the district court is AFFIRMED. Jia Wu Chen pleaded guilty to three counts of hostage taking. In February 1997, the district court sentenced him without any discussion to a mandatory life sentence under the governing statute. He did not appeal. Then, in 2022, he moved, pro se, for compassionate release pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A). He primarily argued that his relative youth (23 years old) at the time of his offense was an extraordinary and compelling reason warranting compassionate release. Chen also invoked the fact that the United States Sentencing Guidelines are now discretionary and the mandatory deportation that he, an undocumented immigrant from China, would face upon release. The district court denied the motion in a text order: The defendant committed a series of heinous crimes, namely murder, kidnapping, rape, and torturing his victims. The only appropriate sentence under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) is the one he received. Nor are any [of] the defendant’s alleged reasons for a sentence reduction extraordinary and compelling. He is serving a statutorily mandated life sentence, see 18 U.S.C. § 1203(a), which is not excessive in any sense of the term given the crimes he committed. Moreover, the facts of this case belie any assertion that he lacked impulse control or the ability to understand the …

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