Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-05-01054/USCOURTS-ca8-05-01054-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Basil Han
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

1

The Honorable Linda R. Reade, United States District Judge for the Northern

District of Iowa.

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 05-1054

___________

United States of America, *

*

Appellee, *

* Appeal from the United States

v. * District Court for the

* Northern District of Iowa.

Basil Han, *

* [UNPUBLISHED]

Appellant. *

___________

Submitted: July 21, 2005

 Filed: July 26, 2005

___________

Before BYE, McMILLIAN, and RILEY, Circuit Judges.

___________

PER CURIAM.

Basil Han (Han) pled guilty to conspiring to distribute human growth hormone

for unauthorized use, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371. Over Han’s objection under

Blakely v. Washington, 124 S. Ct. 2531 (2004), the district court1

 applied a 12-level

loss-amount enhancement under U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1(b)(1)(G), then granted a 3-level

decrease for accepting responsibility, and after calculating a Guidelines imprisonment

range of 18 to 24 months, sentenced Han to 24 months’ imprisonment and 3 years’

Appellate Case: 05-1054 Page: 1 Date Filed: 07/26/2005 Entry ID: 1932657
-2-

supervised release. The court also stated it had considered all of the factors in 18

U.S.C. § 3553(a)(1)-(7), and imposed an alternative discretionary sentence of 24

months (with all other sentence conditions remaining the same), if the Guidelines

were later found unconstitutional as a whole or in relation to the court’s application

in this case. On appeal, Han argues that the district court violated his Sixth

Amendment rights by applying the loss-amount enhancement based on facts that were

neither admitted by him nor proved to a jury.

Although application of the enhancement under a mandatory Guidelines system

violated the Sixth Amendment, see United States v. Booker, 125 S. Ct. 738, 756

(2005), the error was harmless in the face of the alternative discretionary sentence,

see United States v. Bassett, 406 F.3d 526, 527 (8th Cir. 2005) (per curiam)

(imposition of enhancement based on facts neither admitted by defendant nor proven

to jury, in violation of Sixth Amendment, was harmless where district court imposed

alternative identical sentence based on use of its discretion after consideration of §

3553(a) factors).

Accordingly, we affirm.

______________________________

Appellate Case: 05-1054 Page: 2 Date Filed: 07/26/2005 Entry ID: 1932657