Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-04-02898/USCOURTS-ca8-04-02898-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Richard Lincoln
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

1

The Honorable Linda R. Reade, United States District Judge for the Northern

District of Iowa.

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 04-2898

___________

United States of America, *

*

Appellee, *

* Appeal from the United States

v. * District Court for the

* Northern District of Iowa.

Richard Lincoln, *

*

Appellant. *

___________

Submitted: May 11, 2005

Filed: July 5, 2005

___________

Before MORRIS SHEPPARD ARNOLD, MURPHY, and BENTON, Circuit Judges.

___________

MORRIS SHEPPARD ARNOLD, Circuit Judge.

Richard Lincoln appeals his sentence on one count of conspiring to distribute

five grams or more of cocaine base (crack cocaine), see 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1),

(b)(1)(B), 846, and one count of distributing 2.75 grams of crack cocaine, see 21

U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(C). We affirm.

Mr. Lincoln maintains that the district court1

 clearly erred in calculating the

drug quantity for which it held him accountable for purposes of determining the

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applicable sentencing range under U.S.S.G. § 2D1.1. The evidence of drug quantity

produced at Mr. Lincoln's sentencing hearing included statements by Mr. Lincoln to

law enforcement officers about the frequency with which he bought crack cocaine

and the usual quantity that he bought. From this information, the district court

aggregated Mr. Lincoln's purchases and arrived at an amount exceeding 500 grams

of crack. Mr. Lincoln, however, testified at his sentencing hearing that, in his

statements to law enforcement officers, he had exaggerated his dealings in crack

cocaine in the hope that the officers would select him as an informant rather than

arrest him. He further attested that the actual drug quantity for which he was

responsible was closer to 50 grams than 500. The district court, which of course

observed Mr. Lincoln testify, found that he fabricated his testimony at sentencing to

avoid a long sentence, and it accepted instead the drug quantity implied by his earlier

statements to law enforcement officers. After a district court assesses a witness's

credibility, we rarely cast aspersions on its conclusion given that court's comparative

advantage at evaluating credibility. See United States v. Adipietro, 983 F.2d 1468,

1472 (8th Cir. 1993). We conclude that the district court did not clearly err here,

especially since Mr. Lincoln admitted to making the statements that contradicted his

testimony.

Mr. Lincoln also asserts that the district court violated his sixth amendment

rights by finding facts that increased his sentence. Although the district court

sentenced Mr. Lincoln before the Supreme Court's decision in United States v.

Booker, 125 S. Ct. 738 (2005), at his sentencing the court presciently anticipated the

advisory-guidelines regime created in that case by treating the guidelines as advisory

and taking into account all of the considerations set out in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). The

district court therefore did not violate Mr. Lincoln's sixth amendment rights because

it implemented the remedy that the Supreme Court devised in Booker, 125 S. Ct. at

764-65, for the sixth amendment violation that inhered in the mandatory-guidelines

system.

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Finally, Mr. Lincoln asseverates that his sentence of 324 months on the

conspiracy count is unreasonably long and should thus be reversed pursuant to

Booker, 125 S. Ct. at 765-68. His sentence, however, was within the guidelines range

for his offense level of 38 and criminal history category IV, and as a result, we think

that it is presumptively reasonable. Cf. United States v. Marcussen, 403 F.3d 982,

985 n.4 (8th Cir. 2005). Nothing in the record suggests that the district court based

its sentence on an "improper or irrelevant factor" or neglected "to consider a relevant

factor." See United States v. Haack, 403 F.3d 997, 1004 (8th Cir. 2005). Indeed, the

district court expressly justified Mr. Lincoln's sentence on grounds contained in 18

U.S.C. § 3553(a), methodically examining Mr. Lincoln's sentence in light of each of

the considerations listed there. Mr. Lincoln thus failed to rebut the presumption of

reasonableness that attaches to his sentence.

Affirmed.

______________________________

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