Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-04-03427/USCOURTS-ca8-04-03427-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Kevin Edward Lea
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 04-3427

___________

United States of America, *

*

Appellee, *

*

v. * Appeal from the United States

* District Court for the

Kevin Edward Lea, * Western District of Missouri.

*

Appellant. * [PUBLISHED]

*

___________

Submitted: March 7, 2005 

Filed: March 24, 2005 

___________

Before MELLOY, McMILLIAN, and GRUENDER, Circuit Judges.

___________

PER CURIAM.

Kevin Edward Lea appeals the sentence the district court imposed after he

pleaded guilty to a drug charge. We vacate Lea’s sentence and remand for

resentencing in light of United States v. Booker, 125 S.Ct. 738 (2005).

Lea pleaded guilty to conspiring to manufacture methamphetamine, in violation

of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1) and 846. He entered into a written plea agreement in which

he stipulated to specific offense conduct and acknowledged that these admissions

would be used to calculate his sentence under the federal Sentencing Guidelines.

Before sentencing, however, he objected to being sentenced under the Guidelines,

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arguing they were unconstitutional based on the Supreme Court’s then-recent

decision in Blakely v. Washington, 124 S.Ct. 2531 (2004). The district court rejected

Lea’s constitutional challenge and imposed a Guidelines sentence of 110 months

imprisonment and 4 years supervised release. On appeal, Lea renews his

constitutional challenge to the Guidelines.

In Booker, the Supreme Court held that the mandatory aspect of the federal

Sentencing Guidelines was unconstitutional and modified Sentencing Reform Act

provisions to make the Guidelines advisory. See 125 S. Ct. at 756-57. We disagree

with the government’s position on appeal that because Lea’s Guidelines sentence was

based on facts he admitted or to which he stipulated, he cannot challenge his

sentence. Booker specifically rejected the invitation to leave the Guidelines as

binding in cases that do not involve judicial factfinding. See id. at 768. Because Lea

properly preserved his challenge to the constitutionality of the Guidelines, we

conclude he is entitled to be sentenced under an advisory, rather than mandatory,

Guidelines scheme.

We also reject the government’s argument that Lea expressly waived, in the

plea agreement, his right to make this constitutional challenge on appeal. Paragraph

15 of the plea agreement expressly allowed Lea to dispute at his sentencing hearing

any issue not “specifically listed” in Paragraph 14. Paragraph 12 gave Lea the right

to appeal any sentencing issues not “specifically addressed” in Paragraph 14. Lea’s

acknowledgment in Paragraph 14 that certain Guidelines provisions would be

applicable to his case did not specifically address the issue of mandatory or advisory

application of the Guidelines. Therefore, the language of the plea agreement cannot

be construed to foreclose Lea’s ability to make this constitutional challenge.

Finally, we cannot conclude, on the record before us, that it was harmless error

for the district court to sentence Lea under a Guidelines scheme the court believed to

be mandatory. See Booker, 125 S. Ct. at 769 (in cases not involving Sixth

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Amendment violation, whether resentencing is warranted may depend on application

of harmless-error doctrine). We note that the district court sentenced Lea at the low

end of his Guidelines range, and had it not felt bound by the Guidelines, could have

imposed a sentence as low as 60 months. Cf. Williams v. United States, 503 U.S.

193, 202-03 (1992) (when district court misapplies Guidelines, remand is required

unless reviewing court determines, on basis of whole record, that error is harmless,

i.e., error did not affect district court’s selection of sentence imposed); United States

v. Hensley, 36 F.3d 39, 42 (8th Cir. 1994) (where record did not show conclusively

whether district court considered Guidelines policy statements in imposing sentence,

remand was proper because “we cannot be certain the error was harmless”).

Accordingly, we reverse as to Lea’s sentence and remand to the district court

so that Lea may be resentenced in accordance with Booker.

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