Sentencing; Whether the imposition of a $125,000 fine violated the Eighth Amendment’s Excessive Fines Clause; Whether defendants’ claims were barred by their appellate waivers; Proportionality of the fines

The court held that defendants in their appellate waiver waived the right to make reasonableness challenges to the fines imposed at sentencing, and that their challenge under the Eighth Amendment’s Excessive Fines Clause failed on the merits where their $125,000 fines were “not grossly disproportional.” They each pled guilty to “making false statements relating to health care matters with identical plea agreements containing appellate waivers.” They stipulated to submitting “2,986 claims to government health care benefit programs for ‘medically unnecessary’” drug screens and admitted receiving $166,632.22 from the programs for them. The district court sentenced them to 5 years of probation, “restitution of $166,632.22 to be paid jointly and severally, and a fine of $125,000 each.” They argued that the imposition of $125,000 fines was unreasonable and unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment. The court noted it has “repeatedly held that procedural and substantive reasonableness challenges to a sentence fall within the scope of a general appellate waiver like the ones at issue here.” It concluded that they “knowingly and voluntarily agreed to their appellate waivers, so the waivers bar review of their procedural and substantive reasonableness challenges.” As to their Eighth Amendment challenge, the court has “never adopted the defendants’ position that appellate waivers ‘do not preclude review of sentences that exceed lawful bounds or are unconstitutional.’” It was unnecessary to determine if one of the recognized limited exceptions applied here because their Eighth Amendment claim failed on the merits. The court held “that the plea agreements’ stipulated facts define the offense for our Excessive Fines Clause analysis.” The nature of their “offense was an extensive fraudulent billing scheme that lasted an entire year and defrauded government benefits programs of $166,632.22.” The $125,000 fine was more than double the top of the advisory Guidelines range. “But the maximum fine that the district court could have imposed was the greater of $250,000 or twice the loss amount, meaning $333,264.44.” Thus, the fine imposed “was less than half the statutory maximum.” In addition, the “restitution award compensated the government for the monetary loss suffered, but the additional fines punished defendants for their intangible harm to the healthcare system and served as a potential deterrent to similar misconduct by others.” Affirmed.