Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca4-08-04439/USCOURTS-ca4-08-04439-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Antonio Bernard Dean
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

PUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.  No. 08-4439

ANTONIO BERNARD DEAN,

Defendant-Appellant. 

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Western District of North Carolina, at Charlotte.

Robert J. Conrad, Jr., Chief District Judge.

(3:06-cr-00443-RJC-1)

Argued: March 25, 2010

Decided: May 5, 2010

Before WILKINSON and MOTZ, Circuit Judges,

and Joseph R. GOODWIN, Chief United States District

Judge for the Southern District of West Virginia,

sitting by designation.

Affirmed by published opinion. Judge Wilkinson wrote the

opinion, in which Judge Motz and Judge Goodwin joined.

COUNSEL

ARGUED: Ross Hall Richardson, FEDERAL DEFENDERS

OF WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA, INC., Charlotte, North

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Carolina, for Appellant. Adam Christopher Morris, OFFICE

OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Charlotte, North

Carolina, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Claire J. Rauscher, Executive Director, FEDERAL DEFENDERS OF WESTERN

NORTH CAROLINA, INC., Charlotte, North Carolina, for

Appellant. Gretchen C. F. Shappert, United States Attorney,

Charlotte, North Carolina, for Appellee.

WILKINSON, Circuit Judge:

Antonio Bernard Dean challenges the imposition of a "career offender" sentence enhancement under the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines following his conviction on a drug possession

charge. Dean was eligible for that enhancement only if the

two predicate offenses upon which it was based were "separated by an intervening arrest." See U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual § 4A1.2(a)(2) (2007). Dean argues that in

determining that an intervening arrest had occurred, the district court erred by relying on materials prohibited by the

Supreme Court’s decision in Shepard v. United States, 544

U.S. 13 (2005).

In United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005), and its

progeny, the Supreme Court intended two things. First, it

sought to eliminate conflict between the Sixth Amendment

jury trial right and the Sentencing Guidelines scheme, a task

it accomplished by rendering the once-mandatory Guidelines

advisory. Second, it endeavored to accord a greater, though

not a complete, measure of latitude to district courts at sentencing, both in their ability to find facts and to determine the

most appropriate sentence. Dean’s contention runs afoul of

both these principles and would require us to backtrack significantly on the teachings of Booker and its progeny.

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I.

In December 2006, Dean was charged with one count of

possession with intent to distribute cocaine, in violation of 21

U.S.C. § 841. The offense carries a maximum sentence of

twenty years. 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(C). He pled guilty without a plea agreement. The Pre-Sentence Investigation Report

("PSR") calculated an advisory Sentencing Guidelines range

of 151 to 188 months’ imprisonment. This range reflected the

conclusion that Dean qualified as a "career offender" within

the meaning of the Guidelines, which increased both his

offense level and his criminal history classification. See

USSG § 4B1.1(b). Under the Guidelines, Dean was eligible

for this enhancement if he had "at least two prior felony convictions of either a crime of violence or a controlled substance

offense." Id. The PSR concluded that Dean was a career

offender since his record showed that he had pled guilty to

two cocaine felonies in North Carolina state court.

Dean, however, objected. The two predicate offenses cited

by the PSR had been sentenced the same day, and the Guidelines provide that in such a situation, they are to be counted

as only a single offense unless it can be shown that the sentences "were imposed for offenses that were separated by an

intervening arrest." USSG § 4A1.2(a)(2); see also USSG

§ 4B1.2(c)(2). An intervening arrest means that "the defendant is arrested for the first offense prior to committing the

second offense." USSG § 4A1.2(a)(2). Dean objected to his

career offender classification on these grounds, arguing that

there was no intervening arrest separating the predicate

offenses cited by the PSR. Treating the two sentences as a single conviction would have produced a Guidelines range of

thirty to thirty-seven months’ imprisonment.

The issue was taken up at Dean’s sentencing hearing in

April 2008. The government claimed that Dean was arrested

for the first offense on April 1, 1999, and that he committed

the second offense on January 26, 2000. In support of these

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propositions, it produced copies of two bond orders from state

magistrate judges, as well as certain records from the state

court clerk’s office. The docket number listed on each of the

respective magistrate’s orders corresponded with the docket

numbers associated with Dean’s two prior convictions. The

first order was dated April 2, 1999, and indicated that Dean

had committed and been arrested for a drug felony the day

before, on April 1. The second order was issued January 27,

2000, and stated that Dean had committed and been arrested

for a drug felony the day before, on January 26.

Over Dean’s continued objection, the district court concluded on the basis of the government’s evidence that an

intervening arrest had taken place. The court then sentenced

Dean to the Guidelines minimum of 151 months’ imprisonment. This appeal followed.

II.

Under Shepard v. United States, 544 U.S. 13 (2005), a sentencing court attempting to determine the character of a prior

offense to which a defendant pled guilty generally may look

only to certain documents: "the statutory definition, charging

document, written plea agreement, transcript of plea colloquy,

and any explicit factual finding by the trial judge to which the

defendant assented." Id. at 16. Shepard was founded on two

rationales: concern that a wider inquiry would violate the

Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury and a desire to avoid

elaborate proceedings in which an earlier trial might be

picked apart. Id. at 23-25.

Dean argues that the district court erred by relying on materials other than the sort Shepard allows to establish that an

intervening arrest had occurred. For purposes of this appeal,

we assume that the magistrate’s orders and clerk’s office

records that Dean seeks to exclude would not qualify for

admission under Shepard, since the government has not

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argued otherwise. Nonetheless, Dean’s claim is mistaken for

several reasons.

A.

The Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury applies to the

finding of "any fact that increases the penalty for a crime

beyond the prescribed statutory maximum." United States v.

Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 231 (2005) (citation omitted). There is

an exception to this principle, however. Under the doctrine

originating in Almendarez–Torres v. United States, 523 U.S.

224, 239-47 (1998), there is no right to have a jury determine

the existence of the "fact of a prior conviction," nor of any

fact "necessarily" established for the conviction to have been

valid. See Booker, 543 U.S. at 231; Shepard, 544 U.S. at 24-

25.

The reason for this exception is that a prior conviction and

any subsidiary conclusions it necessarily entailed are more

like legal facts than real-world ones. As we have explained,

decisions like "Booker[ ] and Shepard do not, of course, transmogrify what have always been questions of law into questions of fact." United States v. Thompson, 421 F.3d 278, 285

(4th Cir. 2005). And the process of putting two and two

together—of reasoning that a jury that convicted a defendant

of a given offense necessarily found that the defendant

engaged in conduct that is an essential element of the offense

—is a matter of legal reasoning, not factual inference. See

Shepard, 544 U.S. at 25; Thompson, 421 F.3d at 282-83. 

But while facts established through a prior conviction are

excepted from the Sixth Amendment jury trial right, respect

for the Sixth Amendment requires that this exception be kept

within its proper bounds. That was one of the lessons of Shepard, which noted that in some cases the meaning of a prior

conviction may be "debatable." Shepard, 544 U.S. at 25.

Shepard therefore held that courts relying on the Almendarez–Torres exception could consider as evidence only offiUNITED STATES v. DEAN 5

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cial documents establishing the matter with "the conclusive

significance of a prior judicial record." Id.

Shepard’s Sixth Amendment holding was meant to ensure

that judges do not "smuggle in contraband facts—those that

are reserved for juries—under the mantle" of the AlmendarezTorres exception. Thompson, 421 F.3d at 282. It should be

obvious that in contexts where there is no Sixth Amendment

right to trial by jury, there is no need to rely on Shepard’s

technique for ensuring that the Almendarez-Torres exception

to the jury-trial right genuinely applies. In arguing that the

intervening arrest determination violated the Sixth Amendment, however, Dean runs headlong into this principle.

In Booker, the Supreme Court held that the then-mandatory

Sentencing Guidelines violated the Sixth Amendment since

they allowed a defendant’s sentence to be increased beyond

the maximum allowable by law if the sentencing judge made

certain factual findings. Booker, 543 U.S. at 243-44. The

Court’s solution was to convert the Guidelines from binding

law to an advisory document. Id. at 246. Once the Guidelines

were stripped of legal force, the Sixth Amendment no longer

pertained to them—that, after all, was the reason for the stripping. As we have explained:

Sentencing judges may find facts relevant to determining a Guidelines range by a preponderance of the

evidence, so long as that Guidelines sentence is

treated as advisory and falls within the statutory

maximum authorized by the jury’s verdict. Indeed,

"many individual Guidelines apply higher sentences

in the presence of special facts" and "[i]n many

cases, the sentencing judge, not the jury, will determine the existence of those facts." That "does not

violate the Sixth Amendment," however, because

"[a]s far as the law is concerned, the judge could disregard the Guidelines and apply the same sentence in

the absence of the special facts." The point is thus

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that the Guidelines must be advisory, not that judges

may find no facts.

United States v. Benkahla, 530 F.3d 300, 312 (4th Cir. 2008)

(quoting Rita v. United States, 551 U.S. 338, 352 (2007)).

The Guidelines’ career offender provisions are no less advisory than any other portion. See United States v. Moreland,

437 F.3d 424, 436 (4th Cir. 2006); see also Gall v. United

States, 552 U.S. 38, 49 (2007) (noting that "the abuse-ofdiscretion standard of review applies to appellate review of all

sentencing decisions."); Kimbrough v. United States, 552 U.S.

85, 101-08 (2007). The maximum sentence to which Dean

could lawfully have been sentenced was twenty years, regardless of whether or not he was a career offender. See 21 U.S.C.

§ 841(b)(1)(C). That being so, Shepard’s Sixth Amendmentbased limitations on the kind of sources a sentencing judge

may consult were not implicated by the enhancement in

Dean’s advisory Guidelines sentence, which, we note,

resulted in a recommended range well below the statutory

maximum.

Dean protests that Shepard has previously been applied in

advisory Guidelines cases. E.g., United States v. MaroquinBran, 587 F.3d 214 (4th Cir. 2009); United States v. Farrior,

535 F.3d 210 (4th Cir. 2008). But those cases do not address

the issue of whether Shepard’s Sixth Amendment limitations

apply to advisory Guidelines sentences. Because those cases

applied Shepard’s statutory rule, and because Dean has disavowed any challenge regarding Shepard’s statutory rule, the

cases do not assist Dean in any way. As to the Sixth Amendment point, the language of Rita and the logic of Booker is

inescapable: because the Sixth Amendment does not apply to

the process of calculating an advisory sentence under the

Guidelines, Shepard’s Sixth Amendment-based evidentiary

restrictions do not apply to that process either.

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B.

Dean’s argument also founders on a second principle enunciated in Rita and Gall, the Supreme Court’s major sentencing

decisions in the wake of Booker. Those cases were clear not

only that the Sentencing Guidelines have been purged of any

Sixth Amendment defect, but that a sentencing court may rely

upon its discretion to fashion the sentence it reasonably

believes most appropriate. Under the regime established in

Rita and Gall, it is not only permissible but indeed critical for

a sentencing court to calculate a defendant’s advisory range

using the fact-finding tools normally available to it.

For one thing, the Guidelines continue to play an important

role in the sentencing process. A district court must begin its

sentencing determination by calculating the Guidelines range,

and this typically requires the judge to make any number of

factual determinations and judgment calls. Rita, 551 U.S. at

351-54. But that is only the beginning. A sentencing court is

not bound by the Guidelines. Id. at 355. Rather, its sentencing

decision must reflect an "individualized assessment based on

the facts presented," an assessment that is entitled to "due deference" from any reviewing court. Gall, 552 U.S. at 51. As

Gall explained, sentencing courts are "in a superior position

to find facts and judge their import" for purposes of determining the most appropriate sentence for a given defendant since

"[t]he judge sees and hears the evidence, makes credibility

determinations, has full knowledge of the facts and gains

insights not conveyed by the record." Id. (citation omitted).

In short, under Rita and Gall, sentencing courts are licensed

to find a host of facts and to assign weight and relevance to

those findings as they reasonably see fit. In that context, it

makes little sense to tie their hands artificially when it comes

to the sources they can consult as they go about this discretionary task.

To be sure, a sentencing court’s ability to find facts is not

unlimited. Its fact-finding with respect to prior convictions is

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constrained in two notable ways. First, federal sentencing proceedings are generally not the appropriate vehicle for mounting collateral attacks on the validity of prior convictions. See

Custis v. United States, 511 U.S. 485, 497 (1994); see also

United States v. Bacon, 94 F.3d 158, 163-64 & n.5 (4th Cir.

1996); USSG § 4A1.2, cmt (n. 6). As the Custis Court noted,

allowing such attacks "would require sentencing courts to

rummage through frequently nonexistent or difficult to obtain

state-court transcripts or records that may date from another

era, and may come from any one of the 50 States," and would

"delay and impair the orderly administration of justice." Custis, 511 U.S. at 496-97. In this case, however, Dean does not

raise such a challenge.

Second, under the "categorical approach" to assessing prior

convictions, a sentencing court is to look to the legal definition of the offense rather than the factual record of the defendant’s particular case to ascertain the character of the

defendant’s conduct. Originally developed in the context of

18 U.S.C. § 924(e), the Armed Career Criminal Act

("ACCA"), the categorical approach has been extended to the

career offender provisions under the Guidelines. See United

States v. Seay, 553 F.3d 732, 737 (4th Cir. 2009); United

States v. Diaz-Ibarra, 522 F.3d 343, 352-53 (4th Cir. 2008).

Shepard and Taylor v. United States, 495 U.S. 575 (1991), an

earlier decision from which Shepard sprang, also imposed

evidentiary restrictions on sentencing courts in connection

with the categorical approach. Because of the way some

offenses are defined, a simple record of conviction in some

situations will be insufficient to establish whether the defendant’s conduct qualifies under the categorical approach. Shepard and Taylor held that when that happens, a sentencing

court may continue to attempt to determine the nature of the

defendant’s prior offense, but only by looking to a specified

set of "conclusive records." Shepard, 544 U.S. at 21. 

Shepard and Taylor embraced the categorical approach and

those related evidentiary restrictions out of desire for the

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"avoidance of collateral trials." Shepard, 544 U.S. at 23. Their

aim was to protect sentencing courts from becoming forums

in which the prosecution and defense attempt to reproduce the

defendant’s earlier trial. See Taylor 495 U.S. at 601-02. In an

attempt to evoke these concerns, Dean raises the specter of

"mini-trials," arguing that to allow the magistrate’s orders to

be used to establish his arrest date and the date he committed

the offense would mire sentencing courts in complex proceedings that Shepard and Taylor sought to avoid.

This argument, however, misses the mark. As we have

noted, sentencing courts find facts all the time. Even before

reaching the question of whether the Guidelines recommendation is the most appropriate in a given case, a court must make

a variety of factual determinations under the Guidelines. A

judge calculating a Guidelines range, for instance, must determine whether a defendant was involved in criminal activity

involving five or more participants or that "was otherwise

extensive," and if so, must give the defendant a four-level

offense-level increase if it considers him "an organizer or

leader" of the activity and a three-level increase if it considers

him a "manager or supervisor." See USSG § 3B1.1. As this

example (and many others) demonstrate, simply determining

the date of a particular event is hardly the most laborious sort

of determination a sentencing court has to make. The questions involved in the "intervening arrest" inquiry involve discrete and objective facts rather than qualitative assessments of

the sort at issue in Shepard and Taylor and in a great many

Guidelines determinations. Were this a diving or a figureskating contest, the degree of difficulty might be pegged at no

more than two or three on a scale of ten.

Most importantly, what Dean overlooks is that neither the

date he was arrested for a crime nor the date he committed

one bears upon the nature of the conduct underlying his prior

convictions. The categorical approach is a way of classifying

the activity involved in prior offenses, not an across-the-board

prohibition on learning any detail in some way related to a

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prior conviction. This distinction is one our circuit has repeatedly noted. In United States v. Martinez-Melgar, 591 F.3d

733 (4th Cir. 2010), for instance, we rejected the defendant’s

invocation of Shepard and Taylor, noting that those cases

concerned the "substantive content of a prior conviction"

rather than the existence of one. Id. at 739. And in Thompson,

an ACCA case, we distinguished our earlier decision in

United States v. Washington, 404 F.3d 834 (4th Cir. 2005),

noting that the question of whether a set of offenses were

committed on "separate occasions" did not entail the kind of

"wide-ranging, fact-intensive findings" necessary to determine whether a prior offense presented "a serious potential

risk of physical injury to another" under USSG

§ 4B1.2(a)(2)), which had been the issue in Washington.

Thompson, 421 F.3d at 286.

A policy that seeks to avoid re-litigating what the defendant

did or did not do in a series of events that indisputably

resulted in a criminal conviction is one thing. It seems entirely

sensible to declare that one trial is enough, at least where a

fairly accurate proxy for those issues is available. But when

the question does not bear upon the character of the acts for

which the defendant was tried, this concern does not come

into play.

The scheme envisioned in Rita and Gall is one in which

sentencing courts have enhanced authority and flexibility in

determining sentences. Limitations like the categorical

approach circumscribe their activities to an extent, but they

cannot be allowed to reach beyond their legitimate bounds if

sentencing discretion is to be taken seriously. To accept

Dean’s Shepard claim in this case would require us to cut

back on Booker, Gall, and Rita. This we cannot and will not

do.

III.

Across the range of its major sentencing decisions, the

Supreme Court has labored to bring a sense of balance to the

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sentencing process. Common to cases like Rita and Gall,

Shepard and Taylor, Custis and others, is a desire to facilitate

sentencing—to help district courts fulfill their mission of

determining the most appropriate sentence in each case before

them. Part of this means removing obstacles to judicious sentencing, giving district courts discretion to find facts and exercise their judgment as they reasonably see fit. And part of this

means disallowing inquiries that threaten to mire sentencing

courts in complicated questions tangential to the task at hand.

The point is to facilitate the sentencing process, not to sink it.

For the reasons noted, the fact found by the district court in

this case clearly advanced the cause of facilitation.

The district court thus did not err in consulting the records

of an intervening arrest offered by the government. Those

records indicated that Dean was arrested for his first drug felony before he committed his second, and Dean offered no evidence whatsoever to rebut that conclusion. The district court

therefore was justified in its finding that Dean’s prior offenses

were separated by an intervening arrest and thus that Dean

qualified for a career offender enhancement in his advisory

Guidelines calculation. Accordingly, the judgment of the district court is hereby

AFFIRMED.

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