The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit's wit and writing style were on display, as the court entered sleuth mode to rule on a case involving an unusually courteous bank robber.

Its unsigned opinion came from a panel of Circuit Judges Robin S. Rosenbaum and Gerald B. Tjoflat, with Senior U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley III of the Southern District of New York, sitting by special designation.

The court had to decide whether the robber's conduct and language was threatening enough to justify a sentence enhancement.

It wasn't. And in the end, the panel vacated the defendant's two concurrent 46-month sentences from the district court.

"If this were an 'Encyclopedia Brown' mystery, it might be called The Case of the Polite Bank Robber," the opinion began.

The court explained that defendant Roberto Arturo Perez had taken no weapons into the Chase bank he robbed and into the Wells Fargo he attempted to rob in the space of one week in March 2017. There, he presented a note to bank tellers with instructions that included the words "please" and "thank you," and concluded with, "Press the alarm after I walk out. I have kids to feed. Thanks."

Perez "bargained pleasantly" with one teller for $5,000, according to the ruling, and was caught after allowing another to leave the counter mid-robbery, when another teller called for help. Perez pleaded guilty to robbery and attempted robbery without a plea agreement.

"Of course, there's no such thing as a good bank robbery," the panel wrote. "But from the perspective of the Sentencing Guidelines, there are certainly less bad ones."

This was one such case, the judges found, because although every robbery implies a threat of some sort, guidelines say defendants who used implicit or explicit threats of death in their crimes should be punished more harshly.

Senior U.S. District Judge James Lawrence King had found Perez's behavior warranted a threat-of-death enhancement, concluding a reasonable person would have feared for their life during the robberies.

The Eleventh Circuit disagreed, pointing out that Perez wore no disguise, made no suggestions of a weapon and made no threatening gestures.

"To the contrary, the evidence suggests that Perez's overall conduct would have somewhat mitigated a reasonable victim's fear of harm," the opinion said. "And his statement that he had 'kids to feed' also likely softened the impact of the demand, as it suggested that he was not devoid of empathy."

The 46-month sentence was on the low end of the enhancement spectrum, and the lower court did concede that the defendant's note "has a sense of overall threatening, and yet, it has a blandness to it … a plea for help for his kids," according to the opinion.

The state agreed with Perez's argument that the district court applied the wrong legal standard for a threat-of-death enhancement, but the panel said it nevertheless had a duty to decide independently. Alissa del Riego of Podhurst Orseck in Miami was appointed as an amicus lawyer to defend the judgment.

Del Reigo said it was an honor to be appointed to handle what she described as a tough issue.

"Both the appellant Mr. Perez and the government agreed that the application of the sentencing enhancement to Mr. Perez's sentence, given the record before the district court, was inappropriate," del Riego said. "I think it is generally beneficial to have an advocate with a different point of view to ensure every angle of the issue is explored, and I hope my service provided that benefit to the Court in this case."

Assistant Federal Public Defender Katherine Carmon in Miami represents the defendant. She did not respond to a request for comment by deadline. Jessica Kahn Obenauf prosecuted the case for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami, which declined to comment.

Perez's case was remanded for resentencing.

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