CA1: adventures in restitution

US v. Ziskind, Nos. 04-2076, 04-2579.  These guys stole razors.  "Mach3 razors" to be precise.  $254,000 worth of them, to be exact.  In this case, the government concedes that the defendant was given to much supervised release since "The government concedes that the thirty-six-month supervised release term was error.  18 U.S.C. § 3583(b) provides that the maximum period of supervised release for a misdemeanor is one year."  

On the other hand, the defendants argue that they were improperly given consecutive sentences, but the court finds that the defendants (that were charged with misdemeanors) were properly sentenced as the judge applied the mushy 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) and 18 U.S.C. § 3584(b) factors properly. 

The court holds that post-Booker, judicial determination of the restitution amounts is permissible.  But, it gets a bit more interesting when the defendants argue that Gillette, by moving to quash a subpoena, and stating that it was willing to waive restitution (so as not to get involved with poor peoples' law), deprived the government of standing to seek restitution.  The court resolves this argument by stating that restitution is actually a criminal penalty.