Sixth Circuit on procedures and reasonableness

The Sixth Circuit has closed its week with an interesting sentencing decision in US v. Meeker, No. 03-1873 (6th Cir. June 17, 2005) (available here).  Meeker involves a defendant who "employed a fraudulent investment scheme to bilk 76 people and two small businesses out of nearly $3.8 million during an eight-year period," and after "pleading guilty, Meeker was sentenced to 84 months in prison and ordered to pay $3,770,445.24 in restitution."

Meeker ultimately receives a plain error remand, but the Sixth Circuit addresses a number of non-Booker procedural issues concerning notice and also speaks of upward departures and reasonableness in its disposition.  Many passages in Meeker are quite interesting, especially the court's discussion of sentences in comparable white-collar cases in the Sixth Circuit and elsewhere.