United States v. Husein

Fadya Husein (defendant) helped arrange a sale of ecstasy pills. A probation officer calculated her recommended guidelines sentence range as 37 to 46 months in prison. Before sentencing, she requesting a downward departure based on extraordinary family circumstances. Her father had suffered several strokes, and she and her mother worked opposite shifts at a factory to provide him round-the-clock care. Husein also helped care for and provide for three younger siblings who were high-school age or younger. Only Husein’s oldest brother was out of school, and he lived elsewhere, did not have a job, and would not return to help care for his father. Husein helped support the family and paid half the mortgage, which was in her name. The sentencing judge found Husein irreplaceable to her family and granted a downward departure, sentencing her to three years’ noncustodial release with nine months’ home confinement and one day of custodial imprisonment as a formality, which Husein was credited as having already served. The government did not suggest her noncustodial sentence should depend on her family continuing to need her, and the judge did not qualify her sentence. Four months later, Husein’s father died. The government appealed, arguing that changed circumstances undermined the basis for Husein’s sentence or, in the alternative, that the downward departure was an abuse of discretion or unreasonable.