Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-07-03145/USCOURTS-caDC-07-03145-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Reginald Baugham
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued November 16, 2009 Decided July 30, 2010

No. 07-3145

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

APPELLEE

v.

REGINALD BAUGHAM,

APPELLANT

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 01cr00253-02)

Marshall N. Perkins argued the cause for appellant. 

With him on the briefs was Steven J. McCool, appointed by the

court.

Ryan W. Bounds, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the

cause for appellee. On the brief were Roy W. McLeese III and

John P. Gidez, Assistant U.S. Attorneys.

Before: HENDERSON, ROGERS, and BROWN, Circuit

Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed PER CURIAM.

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Opinion concurring in the judgment filed by Circuit

Judge BROWN.

PER CURIAM: Reginald Baugham, convicted in the

district court of various federal drug and conspiracy offenses,

challenges his sentence and asks this court to vacate and remand

for resentencing. He argues the district court failed to observe

the requirements of 21 U.S.C. § 851(a) and (b) when it enhanced

his sentence based on a prior drug conviction and that it levied

a vindictive fine on him in violation of his constitutional due

process rights. We find the district court committed no error

that requires resentencing and affirm both Baugham’s prison

term and fine. 

I

Together with four co-defendants, Reginald Baugham

was tried in 2003 for a number of drug and conspiracy charges.

He was ultimately convicted on three counts: conspiracy to

distribute crack cocaine, 21 U.S.C. § 846; distribution of crack,

id. § 841(a) & 841(b)(1)(C); and possession of crack with intent

to distribute, id. § 841(a)(1) & 841(b)(1)(B)(iii). J.A. 127. Prior

to trial, the government filed with the district court and served

upon Baugham pursuant to 21 U.S.C. § 851(a) an information

listing three prior convictions in Baugham’s criminal record. 

J.A. 95. Filing such an information is a prerequisite under

§ 851(a) for any sentence to be enhanced based on prior

convictions. This particular information, however, incorrectly

inserted the name of one of Baugham’s co-defendants rather

than Baugham himself as the subject of the prior convictions.

All other elements of the information—the case heading reading

“United States of America v. Reginald Baugham,” the case

number, and details of the prior convictions—were correct. Id.

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Relying on the prior drug conviction listed in the

information and without either the government or Baugham

drawing attention to the misstated name, the district court

announced an enhanced sentence of life in prison, two 30-year

sentences to run concurrently with the life sentence, ten years of

supervised release, and a special assessment of $300. Id. at

128–32. Prior to announcing the sentence, the district court did

not—as is required by 21 U.S.C. § 851(b)—inquire of Baugham

whether he affirmed or denied the prior convictions or notify

him that failure to challenge the convictions would preclude him

from raising such challenges after sentencing. See Brief for

Appellee 15. On direct appeal, this court affirmed Baugham’s

convictions but remanded for resentencing pursuant to United

States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005). See United States v.

Baugham, 449 F.3d 167, 183–84 (D.C. Cir. 2006). At

resentencing, the district court again relied on the § 851(a)

information with no one identifying its misstatement and again

failed to conduct a § 851(b) colloquy with Baugham. The court

imposed an enhanced sentence of three concurrent 20-year

sentences and a fine of $1,000 to be paid gradually through a

prison work program. J.A. 173–75, 177–78. 

Baugham appealed the newer sentence under 28 U.S.C.

§ 1291, arguing the district court violated 21 U.S.C. § 851(a)

and (b) in its issuance of the sentence and that the $1,000 fine is

unconstitutionally vindictive. Because Baugham failed to

preserve his § 851(a) and vindictive sentence claims before the

district court, we review those claims for plain error. See United

States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 731–32 (1993); United States v.

Scott, 48 F.3d 1389, 1398 (5th Cir. 1995). Even though

Baugham also failed to preserve his § 851(b) claim, for reasons

explained in section II.B, we review that claim de novo and for

harmless error. See United States v. Gaviria, 116 F.3d 1498,

1518 (D.C. Cir. 1997). 

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II

Baugham’s appeal presents three arguments. First, he

claims the inclusion of a co-defendant’s name in the body of the

pre-trial information instead of his own rendered the information

invalid under § 851(a) and the district court’s reliance on the

information to enhance his sentence was therefore error. 

Second, Baugham claims the district court erred when it failed

to conduct the sentencing colloquy required by § 851(b). Third,

he claims the district court’s imposition of a $1,000 fine at

resentencing demonstrates a vindictive and unconstitutional

effort to “punish[] [Baugham] for vindicating his legitimate

appellate rights.” Brief for Appellant 23. We consider each

claim in order.

A

The portion of § 851(a) relevant to Baugham’s first

claim reads:

No person who stands convicted of an offense

under this part shall be sentenced to increased

punishment by reason of one or more prior

convictions, unless before trial, or before entry

of a plea of guilty, the United States attorney

files an information with the court (and serves a

copy of such information on the person or

counsel for the person) stating in writing the

previous convictions to be relied upon.

21 U.S.C. § 851(a)(1). In United States v. Vanness, we held that

“[a] prosecutor’s compliance with § 851(a)(1) is simply a

necessary condition to a judge’s imposing an enhanced sentence

on the basis of a defendant’s prior convictions.” 85 F.3d 661,

663 n.2 (D.C. Cir. 1996). Similarly, in United States v.

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Kennedy, we held that “[s]ection 851(a) is a firm and strict rule”

and that a failure to comply with its “statutory scheme” may not

be excused as harmless. 133 F.3d 53, 59 (D.C. Cir. 1998)

(quoting United States v. Weaver, 905 F.2d 1466, 1481 (11th

Cir. 1990)). Hence, our caselaw makes clear that a prosecutor

must strictly comply with § 851(a) in order for the court to

impose a sentence enhancement based on a defendant’s prior

conviction; it recognizes the statute’s due process purpose,

which is to ensure the defendant is aware before trial that he

faces possible sentence enhancement as he assesses his legal

options and to afford him a chance to contest allegations of prior

convictions. See Kennedy, 133 F.3d at 59; Vanness, 85 F.3d at

663-64. 

Our caselaw also makes clear, however, that to comply

with § 851(a) the information need not be perfect with respect

to every jot and tittle. In Vanness, the prosecutor filed an

information that misstated the minimum prison term the

defendant faced. 85 F.3d at 663. We nevertheless affirmed the

enhanced sentence, holding that, because § 851(a) does not

require the prosecutor to notify the defendant of the minimum

sentence, the prosecutor’s mistake was merely a “gratuitous

misstatement” that did not amount to a failure to comply with

the statute. Id. at 664. Indeed, the text of § 851(a) makes clear

that, in order to comply with it, the prosecutor need only (1) file

with the court and (2) serve on the defendant (3) an information

stating “the previous convictions to be relied upon” (4) before

trial or a guilty plea. Here, it is undisputed that the prosecutor

filed and served in a timely manner an information detailing

Baugham’s prior convictions. Thus, the prosecutor strictly

complied with § 851(a)’s requirements. 

The question then becomes: Given that the prosecutor

satisfied the “necessary condition” that he comply with § 851(a),

Id. at 663 n.2, under what standard should we review the

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mistake regarding the defendant’s name? Baugham did not

object to the mistake in the district court. Ordinarily, “[w]hen

a defendant does not timely object to an error in the district

court, appellate review is limited by the ‘plain error’ standard.”

United States v. Simpson, 430 F.3d 1177, 1183 (D.C. Cir. 2005).

Our caselaw has not, it appears, expressly applied plain error to

an alleged defect in a § 851(a) information. Also, in Vanness,

we applied de novo and harmless error review to the “gratuitous

misstatement,” even though we did not make clear whether the

defendant had timely objected in the district court. See 85 F.3d

at 664.

We need not resolve the standard-of-review question,

however, because Baugham has failed to show prejudice, which

is required under either standard. At no point has he asserted

that the misstated name in the information caused him any

hardship or confusion. To the contrary, his lawyer

acknowledged, both in his Memorandum in Aid of Sentencing

and at the resentencing hearing, that the information regarded

Baugham and affected his prospective sentence. In other words,

here, as in Vanness, “[t]here is no indication that [the defendant]

relied on [the misstatement] in deciding whether to put the

government to its proof at trial, and there is every indication that

he knew what was coming at sentencing.” Id. Therefore, the

misstatement did not prejudice Baugham and his appeal on this

ground fails. 

B

We turn to Baugham’s claim that the district court

violated § 851(b), which requires: 

[T]he court shall after conviction but before

pronouncement of the sentence inquire of the

[defendant] whether he affirms or denies that he

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has been previously convicted as alleged in the

information, and shall inform him that any

challenge to a prior conviction which is not made

before sentence is imposed may not thereafter be

raised to attack the sentence. 21 U.S.C.

§ 851(b).

Although Baugham did not preserve this claim and courts are

generally obligated to review unpreserved claims under the strict

plain error standard, we follow prior caselaw in this circuit and

review the challenge de novo and for harmlessness. See

Gaviria, 116 F.3d at 1518. The rule regarding preservation and

plain error aims to prevent parties from wasting judicial

resources by holding possible trial errors in reserve in hopes of

raising them on appeal. See City of Newport v. Fact Concerts,

Inc., 453 U.S. 247, 256 (1981) (indicating that the plain error

standard advances “interests in fair and effective trial

administration”). That logic, however, does not apply to

§ 851(b) errors. The purpose of § 851(b) is to place the

procedural onus on the district court to ensure defendants are

fully aware of their rights. See United States v. Cevallos, 538

F.2d 1122, 1128 (5th Cir. 1976) (“One purpose of § 851(b) is to

[e]nsure that a defendant knowingly and voluntarily waives his

right to challenge the previous conviction . . . . [A]nd its

omission can result in very real prejudice to a defendant who

learns only after he attempts to challenge the prior conviction

that that conviction has become unassailable.”). To penalize a

defendant for not alerting the district court to its failure to alert

him would pervert the statute and get it exactly backward. We

therefore conduct this inquiry de novo.

Under that standard, it is clear the district court erred by

not conducting the required colloquy, and the government

concedes as much. Brief for Appellee 15–16. The question then

is whether the government has carried its burden to demonstrate

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the error did not substantially harm Baugham by affecting his

sentence. We believe the government has. The government

correctly points out that even if the district court asked Baugham

whether he affirmed or denied the prior convictions, he could

not have raised any issues regarding the convictions. Baugham

has not indicated at any point—before trial, during trial, at

sentencing and resentencing, and now on appeal—that the drug

conviction on which his sentence enhancement depends was

invalid in any way. His counsel at sentencing even conceded

that he could not “find anyway around” the sentence

enhancement and requested the same 20-year sentence the

district court ultimately imposed. J.A. 159, 161–62. Further,

even if the drug conviction were invalid, no challenge can be

made to a prior conviction that is more than five years old. See

21 U.S.C. § 851(e). Baugham’s prior conviction occurred in

1996, J.A. 95, and was already more than five years old at the

start of his trial.

The only irregularity Baugham could have possibly

raised relates to the pretrial information’s erroneous use of a codefendant’s name. The government correctly notes that

nowhere in the record or in his brief does Baugham claim any

prejudice from the inaccuracy, and there is no indication he was

confused by it or relied on it to his detriment when formulating

his pre-trial strategy. While the district court erred in neglecting

the § 851(b) colloquy, the error was harmless.

C

In his final claim, Baugham argues the $1,000 fine in his

new sentence creates a “presumption of vindictiveness” on the

part of the district court since the court did not impose a fine in

the original sentence. Brief for Appellant 23. Baugham cites

North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U.S. 711 (1969), for the

proposition that when a court imposes a harsher sentence upon

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resentencing and “offer[s no] reason or justification for [the

higher] sentence beyond the naked power to impose it,” id. at

726, an appellate court should presume the sentencing court was

unconstitutionally punishing the defendant for exercising his

right to challenge his original sentence. 

This claim has no merit. We put aside the abstruse

question of whether a 20-year sentence and a $1,000 fine is in

fact a more severe sentence than life in prison with no fine,

though we imagine few would opt for the latter if given the

choice. We also put aside more recent Supreme Court caselaw

that has pared back the sweeping presumption established by

Pearce and likely renders the presumption inapplicable to

Baugham’s resentencing. See Alabama v. Smith, 490 U.S. 794,

799 (1989) (“[The presumption applies in] circumstances . . . in

which there is a ‘reasonable likelihood’ that the increase in

sentence is the product of actual vindictiveness . . . . [Otherwise]

the burden remains upon the defendant to prove actual

vindictiveness.”). We rather turn our attention to the simple fact

that the district court at resentencing explained Baugham’s

modest fine as “an incentive to work while in prison,” J.A. 175,

which would better prepare him to be “a law-abiding citizen”

upon release, id. at 174. This reason does not exhibit

vindictiveness. Instead, it shows a justified concern with

rehabilitating Baugham in light of a new sentence that gave him

an actual prospect of full freedom. By enunciating a valid

reason for the fine, the district court clearly did not rely on mere

“naked power” to increase Baugham’s punishment, and that is

enough to remove the new sentence from the Pearce

presumption.

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III

Baugham has presented no error by the district court

that requires remand for resentencing. Baugham’s sentence is

therefore 

Affirmed.

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BROWN, Circuit Judge, concurring in the judgment: I 

arrive at the same result the court does in this case, but my 

path to it differs in three respects. 

First, I would apply a plain error standard—not de novo 

review—to Baugham’s claim that the information of prior 

convictions accepted by the district court did not comply with 

21 U.S.C. §851(a). The court refrains from articulating the 

particular standard, pointing out that prior cases in this circuit 

do not appear to apply plain error to such challenges. Those 

cases, however, either leave unsaid which standard they are 

applying, do not explain whether appellants preserved their 

challenges before the district court, or even imply the 

challenge was preserved, see United States v. Kennedy, 133 

F.3d 53, 59–60 (D.C. Cir. 1998) (discussing the district 

court’s findings on the relevant issue). In the absence of a 

firm statement that plain error review is never applicable to 

§ 851(a) challenges, I do not think this is an open question. 

The default rule followed by courts is that unpreserved errors 

are subject to procedural default and plain error review, see 

United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 731 (1993), and, 

generally, only errors that implicate a jurisdictional issue 

escape the rule. See United States v. Cotton, 535 U.S. 625, 

630–31 (2002) (“Consequently, defects in subject-matter 

jurisdiction require correction regardless of whether the error 

was raised in district court.”); United States v. Mezzanatto, 

513 U.S. 196, 200–01 (1995) (waiver of statutory provisions 

is presumptively available). If this court had meant in the past 

to designate § 851(a) as jurisdictional, it should have said so. 

The second point on which I differ is I would reject 

Baugham’s § 851(a) challenge under plain error review 

because he forfeited that challenge at the sentencing stage. 

The court cites circuit precedent obligating the government to 

strictly comply with § 851(a), but we have only applied that 

strict compliance rule to the section’s procedural 

requirements: those concerning filing, service, and timeliness. 

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See Kennedy, 133 F.3d at 59 (holding that § 851(a) requires 

government to comply with service rules); see also United 

States v. Belanger, 970 F.2d 416, 418 (7th Cir. 1992), 

overruled on separate grounds by United States v. Ceballos, 

302 F.3d 679 (7th Cir. 2002) (“Strict compliance with the 

mandatory language of the procedural requirements of § 851 

is required, especially with respect to the timing of the 

government’s filing with the court and serving on the 

defendant a notice.”).1

 We have not applied the strict rule to § 

851(a)’s more elastic requirements for the substantive 

contents of the information. The statute allows for correction 

of clerical errors any time prior to the pronouncement of the 

sentence. See 21 U.S.C. § 851(a)(1) (“Clerical mistakes in the 

information may be amended at any time prior to the 

pronouncement of sentence.”). Further, the statute indicates 

that responsibility for the accuracy of the information is not 

the government’s alone, but is in fact shared with the 

defendant in a burden-shifting scheme once the defendant 

receives the information. After the government timely files 

an information, the defendant is required to make any 

challenges to the prior convictions in writing to the 

government and the court, which will then hold a hearing if 

any challenge raises an issue that would except the defendant 

from sentence enhancement. See id. § 851(c)(1) (“If the 

person denies any allegation of the information of prior 

conviction, or claims that any conviction alleged is invalid, he 

shall file a written response to the information. . . . The court 

shall hold a hearing to determine any issues . . . which would 

except the person from increased punishment.”). The 

 

1

 This strict compliance rule is premised on a due process interest: 

§ 851(a)’s procedural requirements ensure the defendant is aware of 

possible sentence enhancement as he assesses his legal options and 

afford him a chance to contest allegations of prior convictions. See 

Kennedy, 133 F.3d at 59. 

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defendant must do this or risk forfeiting all challenges to the 

contents of the information once a sentence is imposed. See 

id. § 851(b) (“[A]ny challenge to a prior conviction which is 

not made before sentence is imposed may not thereafter be 

raised to attack the sentence.”); United States v. Beasley, 495 

F.3d 142, 146, 148 (4th Cir. 2007) (“21 U.S.C. § 851 is not 

jurisdictional and therefore is subject to the usual rules of 

procedural default. . . . Moreover, the requirements of § 851 

can be waived by defendants.”). 

Applying § 851’s scheme to Baugham’s case, it is clear 

the government filed and served a timely information 

detailing Baugham’s prior convictions and therefore met the 

strict and mandatory procedural requirement of § 851(a). 

Regarding the information’s substantive compliance, it 

contained the latent error regarding Baugham’s name. But 

because neither Baugham nor his counsel contested this error 

prior to trial, during the trial, or during two sentencing 

proceedings pursuant to his duties under § 851, he forfeited 

his challenge to it, precluding any legal error on the part of 

the district court when it accepted and relied on the 

information. The resulting enhanced sentence is therefore 

impervious to attack on this point. 

My third comment is not really a disagreement with the 

court, but a belief that one of its determinations would benefit 

from more explanation. I, too, would apply a de novo

standard to Baugham’s § 851(b) claim regarding the district 

court’s failure to grant him a proper colloquy at sentencing 

and resentencing even though Baugham failed to preserve this 

error. Our prior caselaw appears to require this, see United 

States v. Gaviria, 116 F.3d 1498, 1518 (D.C. Cir. 1997 (per 

curiam) (“Legal questions relating to sentencing are reviewed 

de novo.”), a requirement that—as already discussed—is in 

tension with the general rule that all errors are subject to 

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procedural default. It is therefore worth explaining this 

different treatment of § 851(b). 

The procedural default rule, with its scheme of 

preservation and plain error review, aims to prevent parties 

from wasting judicial resources by eliminating the incentive 

to hold possible trial errors in reserve in hopes of raising them 

on appeal. See City of Newport v. Fact Concerts, Inc., 453 

U.S. 247, 256 (1981) (indicating that the plain error standard 

advances “interests in fair and effective trial administration”). 

That logic, however, does not apply to § 851(b) errors. The 

purpose of § 851(b) is to place the procedural onus on the 

district court to ensure defendants are fully aware of their 

rights. See United States v. Cevallos, 538 F.2d 1122, 1128 

(5th Cir. 1976) (“One purpose of § 851(b) is to [e]nsure that a 

defendant knowingly and voluntarily waives his right to 

challenge the previous conviction . . . . [A]nd its omission can 

result in very real prejudice to a defendant who learns only 

after he attempts to challenge the prior conviction that that 

conviction has become unassailable.”). To penalize a 

defendant for not alerting the district court to its failure to 

alert him would pervert the statute and get it exactly 

backward. 

I recognize that Supreme Court caselaw appears to 

mandate plain error review for all unpreserved challenges, 

even when doing so would put the Federal Rules of Criminal 

Procedure and the U.S. Code at cross purposes. See Olano, 

507 U.S. at 731 (“Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 52(b), 

which governs on appeal from criminal proceedings, provides 

a court of appeals a limited power to correct errors that were 

forfeited because not timely raised in district court.”). 

However, our de novo and harmlessness review in this case 

ultimately results in affirmance of Baugham’s sentence, the 

same outcome that would a fortiori result from a plain error 

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inquiry. I therefore think that applying de novo review here 

serves to highlight a possible flaw in the federal standard of 

review doctrine, comfortable in the knowledge that the case 

does not turn on this question. 

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