Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-04-03782/USCOURTS-ca8-04-03782-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
David L. Quigg
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

1

The Honorable Ortrie D. Smith, United States District Judge for the Western

District of Missouri.

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 04-3782

___________

United States of America, *

*

Appellee, *

* Appeal from the United States

v. * District Court for the

* Western District of Missouri.

David L. Quigg, *

* [UNPUBLISHED]

Appellant. *

___________

Submitted: October 7, 2005

Filed: October 20, 2005 

___________

Before MURPHY, COLLOTON, and BENTON, Circuit Judges.

___________

PER CURIAM.

After David L. Quigg pleaded guilty to manufacturing and conspiring to

manufacture a methamphetamine mixture containing 50 grams or more of actual

methamphetamine, the district court1

 sentenced Quigg to 93 months imprisonment and

3 years supervised release. He appeals, and we affirm.

On appeal Quigg argues that the district court violated the principles in Blakely

v. Washington, 124 S. Ct. 2531 (2004), by enhancing his sentence based on drug

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quantities that were neither charged in the indictment nor admitted by him, and by

sentencing him pursuant to a mandatory sentencing scheme that is no longer

constitutional. This argument fails. A district court commits error by enhancing a

defendant’s sentence based on judge-found facts pursuant to a mandatory Guidelines

scheme, see United States v. Booker, 125 S. Ct. 738, 756, 764 (2005); United States

v. Salter, 418 F.3d 860, 862 (8th Cir. 2005), and here, the district court relied on facts

in the presentence report (PSR) showing that Quigg was accountable for drugs having

a marijuana equivalency of 3,496 kilograms. Quigg does not contend on appeal,

however, that the facts recited in the PSR do not support the drug amount attributable

to him, and having failed in the district court to object specifically to the factual

allegations, Quigg is deemed to have admitted these facts for purposes of Booker. See

United States v. McCully, 407 F.3d 931, 933 (8th Cir. 2005).

The district court did err under Booker by applying the Guidelines as a

mandatory sentencing scheme, see Booker, 125 S. Ct. at 764 (holding Guidelines to

be only advisory), and Quigg preserved the error at sentencing by invoking Blakely,

see United States v. Pirani, 406 F.3d 543, 549-50 (8th Cir. 2005) (en banc), petition

for cert. filed, (U.S. July 27, 2005) (No. 05-5547). Nevertheless, we conclude that the

government has shown that the error is harmless. See United States v. Haidley, 400

F.3d 642, 644-45 (8th Cir. 2005). At sentencing, the district court discussed at length

why it had chosen a sentence in the middle of the Guidelines range. The court

expressed disappointment that Quigg had chosen to blame others for his criminal

conduct. The court also commented that it was troubled by Quigg’s post-plea

repeated use of methamphetamine, and that it was declining to sentence him at the

bottom of the Guidelines range as a consequence for that behavior, and to deter similar

conduct in others. The court added that the sentence imposed was adequate to address

the criminal conduct, and thus that there was no reason to go to the top of the

Guidelines range. In these circumstances, we harbor no “grave doubt whether the

application of the mandatory guidelines substantially influenced the district court’s”

selection of Quigg’s sentence. See United States v. Brooks, 417 F.3d 982, 985 (8th

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Cir. 2005) (mandatory application of the Guidelines was harmless error where district

court “sentenced [defendant] to the middle of the applicable guideline range, stating

explicitly that it did not ‘believe that this is a low end of the guidelines case’” and “it

consider[ed] the need for adequate punishment, deterrence, and protection of the

public”).

Accordingly, we affirm Quigg’s sentence.

______________________________

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