Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-04-03434/USCOURTS-ca8-04-03434-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Joshua M. Tilson
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 04-3434

___________

United States of America, *

*

Appellee, *

* Appeal from the United States

v. * District Court for the Western

* District of Missouri.

Joshua M. Tilson, *

* [PUBLISHED]

Appellant. *

___________

Submitted: October 21, 2004

Filed: July 15, 2005

___________

Before MELLOY, McMILLIAN and COLLOTON, Circuit Judges.

___________

MELLOY, Circuit Judge.

Joshua M. Tilson entered a guilty plea to unlawful transport of firearms and

was sentenced to 180 months in prison. The judgment was entered on July 8, 2004,

and his deadline to file a notice of appeal was due July 22, 2004. See Fed. R. App.

P. 4(b)(1)(A); 26(a)(2). Defendant filed his motion to extend time to file notice of

appeal on August 13, 2004. See Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(5)(A)(ii) (allowing the district

Appellate Case: 04-3434 Page: 1 Date Filed: 07/15/2005 Entry ID: 1928534
1

The Honorable Fernando J. Gaitan, Jr., United States District Court Judge for

the Western District of Missouri.

-2-

court1

 to extend the time to file a notice of appeal if the petitioner shows “excusable

neglect or good cause”). The district court denied the motion. 

We review a denial of a motion for extension of time to file a notice of appeal

for an abuse of discretion. Gibbons v. United States, 317 F.3d 852, 853-54 (8th Cir.

2003). We find there was no abuse of discretion below because Tilson failed to show

excusable neglect or good cause for his filing delay. Further, even if we were to

reach the merits of his appeal, Tilson would not be entitled to relief. Tilson seeks to

appeal his sentence based on supposed judicial fact-finding in violation of Blakely

v. Washington, 124 S. Ct. 2531 (2004). Tilson’s argument is that the district court

should not have considered Tilson’s three prior violent felonies in calculating his

sentence. However, Blakely does not apply to the fact of a prior conviction. 124 S.

Ct. at 2536. The judgment of the district court is therefore affirmed.

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Appellate Case: 04-3434 Page: 2 Date Filed: 07/15/2005 Entry ID: 1928534