171688P.pdf   06/22/2018  United States  v.  Gervais (Ken) Ngombwa
   U.S. Court of Appeals Case No:  17-1688
   U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa - Cedar Rapids   
   [PUBLISHED] [Shepherd, Author, with Melloy and Grasz, Circuit Judges] 
   Criminal case - Criminal law and sentencing. The district court developed 
   the record on defendant's claims of ineffective assistance of counsel, and 
   the claim could be raised on direct appeal; the district court did not err 
   in denying the claim as there was a more than reasonable basis for defense 
   counsel's decision not to investigate five members of defendant's family 
   because he determined that any potential information an investigation 
   would uncover would have detrimental value and could be easily attacked on 
   cross-examination; the district court correctly determined that 
   defendant's charges, which captured conduct ranging over 16 years, should 
   be grouped; the district court did not err in applying the "one-book" rule 
   to the grouped counts as application of the rule does not create an Ex 
   Post Facto Clause violation; the district court did not err in departing 
   upwards and raising defendant's Criminal History Category I to Category IV 
   under Guidelines Sec. 4A.13 for underscored criminal history; the court 
   independently assessed the voluminous evidence showing defendant was a 
   participant in the Rwandan genocide; nor did the court err in considering 
   defendant's GACACA convictions as proxies to adequately explain why it 
   determined the intermediate criminal history categories failed to meet the 
   purposes of Guidelines Sec. 4A1.3; at sentencing, the court could consider 
   witness statements attesting to defendant's participation in the genocide 
   over defendant's objection as the statements, while hearsay, were 
   corroborated by DHS investigations; the district court did not err in 
   considering at sentencing the testimony of an expert from the UK over 
   defendant's objection that there was no way to enforce a binding oath on a 
   non-citizen; in any event, any procedural error in sentencing was harmless 
   in light of the district court clear statements that it would have imposed 
   the same 180-month sentence based on its analysis of the 3553(a) factors.