Garnishment and Appeals
Chimene Hamilton Onyeri challenged a district court’s order to garnish monthly annuity payments he received after having been convicted of RICO and ordered to pay restitution of $178,374.41. The issue in the case was whether his original notice of appeal for the conviction of his sentence was valid for the district court’s garnishment ordered which was entered months after he had been sentenced. The Fifth Circuit said it was not. The court said he was required to file a second timely notice of appeal following the final order of garnishment.
The Fifth Circuit explained that a defendant may not use a garnishment proceeding to challenge the underlying judgment and restitution order in his case. The question was whether the reverse was true. The court reasoned that if a notice of appeal from an initial judgment setting mandatory restitution isn’t sufficient also to appeal the amount of restitution (citing Manrique v. United States), then a notice of appeal from a judgment ordering restitution couldn’t be thought to extend to the enforcement of that obligation. Applying this logic, Onyeri needed to file a second notice of appeal for the garnishment order to preserve any error.