Source: http://defensenewsletter.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_archive.html
Timestamp: 2013-06-19 05:27:49
Document Index: 309341213

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 924', '§ 2255', '§ 2255', '§ 2255', '§ 922', '§ 3156', '§ 922', '§ 922', '§ 922', '§ 924', '§ 924', '§ 924', '§ 924', '§ 924']

In U.S. v. Duncan, No. 03-15315 (Feb. 24, 2005), the Court (Anderson, Birch & Land b.d.), vacating its prior published opinion, held that the defendant could not satisfy the "substantial rights" third prong of "plain error" because he could not show that he would have received a lesser sentence but for the Booker error of sentencing him under a mandatory regime. The court also rejected the defendant’s "creative" ex post facto argument.In an opening footnote, the Court noted that the defendant was "not entitled" to have the Court address challenges to enhancements under Apprendi other than those raised in his initial brief, citing U.S. v. Levy, 379 F.3d 1241 (11th Cir. 2004). [Query: can one argue that because Booker, unlike Apprendi, is the type of intervening change in controlling law dictating a different result that a district court must consider nothwithstanding the "law of the case," Booker, unlike Apprendi, is not waived by the failure to raise it in an initial brief on direct appeal.]Citing U.S. v. Rodriguez, 2005 WL 272952 (11th Cir. Feb. 4, 2005), the Court reiterated that Booker error consists not of enhancements based on judge, not jury, findings, but on the use of a mandatory Guidelines regime. The Court noted that Judge Breyer’s portion of Booker, which made the Guidelines advisory, "essentially changes what is authorized by a jury verdict – from the sentence that was authorized by mandatory Guidelines to the sentence that is authorized by the U.S. Code." The Court noted that the maximum sentence for Duncan’s offense was life. Hence, his actual life sentence did not exceed the maximum.Further, Duncan could not show an adverse impact on his "substantial rights." The Court recognized that Duncan had been sentenced on the basis of a greater drug quantity than provided in the jury’s special verdict. However, the Court noted that, post-Booker, it is still permissible, under an advisory regime, for a judge to increase a sentence based on acquitted conduct. The Court noted U.S. v. Watts, 519 U.S. 148 (1997) and stated: "Booker does not suggest that the consideration of acquitted conduct violates the Sixth Amendment as long as the judge does not impose a sentence that exceeds what is authorized by the jury’s verdict." [Query: how can an acquittal, post-Booker, be construed to "authorize" any increment in punishment?]Rejecting the views of other circuits, the Court noted that plain error analysis must apply the remedy portion of Booker retroactively. The Court found no discussion of plain error in Booker and did not read an implied finding of plain error in the disposition of the case. The Court found that Duncan could not meet the third prong of plain error because, as he admitted, there was nothing in the record to suggest that the defendant would have imposed a lower sentence under an advisory system.Finally, the Court rejected the ex post facto argument that Booker could not be applied retrospectively to increase the statutory maximum. The Court pointed out that in the U.S. Code life was the maximum punishment at the time Duncan committed his offense. Thus, the U.S. Code gave Duncan fair warning of the potential punishment for his offense.
In U.S. v. Shelton, No. 04-12602 (Feb. 25, 2005), the Court (Carnes, Hull, Marcus) concluded that no Sixth Amendmetn Booker violations occurred during sentencing, but remanded for resentencing because the district court erred in sentencing under a mandatory Guidelines regime, and the defendant established a reasonable probability that the district court would have imposed a lesser sentence but for the mandatory Guidelines regime.The Court noted that after the defendant pled guilty to crack cocaine trafficking and § 924(c) charges, the sentencing court "expressed its disapproval of the [190-month] sentence." The sentencing court commented that Shelton’s sentence was "very, very severe." The sentencing court noted that "unfortunately" the Guidelines criminal-history calculation took into account each of the defendant’s past charges and do not take into account the fact that the sentences imposed on these charges were short as a result of such factors as the youth of the defendant or the amount of drugs involved. The district court later noted that Congress had taken "a very, very hard stance when it comes to guns and drugs," and most significantly indicated that the most lenient sentence it could impose, a sentence at the low end of the Guidelines range, was "more than [was] appropriate in this situation."Reviewing the issues for plain error (Shelton raised Booker issue for the first time in his initial brief), the Court found no error in the district court’s reliance on prior convictions to increase the defendant’s sentence, noting that Almendarez-Torres remains good law.The Court also found no error in the sentencing court’s reliance on drug quantities no alleged in the indictment, pointing out that the defendant admitted to these drug quantities at his plea colloquy, and citing U.S. v. Frye, 2005 WL 315563 (11th Cir. Feb. 10, 2005).Emphasizing that the defendant timely raised his Booker issues in his initial brief on direct appeal, the Court found error in the reliance on mandatory Guidelines: "Although the district court followed the correct sentencing procedure when it sentenced Shelton, the Supreme Court has now excised the mandatory nature of the Guidelines in Booker." The error is now "plain" in light of Booker. Finally, the error affected the defendant’s substantial rights, because the sentencing court "expressed its view several times that the sentence required by the Guidelines was too severe, and noted that "unfortunately" the criminal history computation overstated the defendant’s criminal background. Further, the court sentenced the defendant to the bottom of the Guidelines range. Thus, the defendant established a "reasonable probability" of a lesser sentence under a non-mandatory system.The Court concluded that the fourth prong of plain error was also met, because the error seriously affected the fairness integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings. The Court distinguished U.S. v. Curtis, 380 F.3d 1308 (11th Cir. 2004), which had held that the fourth prong of plain error was not satisfied by a Blakely error, noting that this portion of Curtis was an "alternative ruling," that Curtis had found no "substantial rights" impact (unlike Shelton), and that the Curtis panel had assumed that the error merely involved a Sixth Amendment violation, not the use of a mandatory system, as Booker provided.
2/28/2005 11:15:00 AM
In Varela v. U.S., No. 04-11725 (Feb. 17, 2005), the Court (Birch, Barkett, Hull) held that Blakely v. Washington, and, by extension, Booker, is not retroactive to cases on collateral review pursuant to Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288 (1989).Varela, whose conviction became final on May 15, 2000 (Apprendi was decided on June 26, 2000), brought a § 2255 motion challenging his sentence under Apprendi. The district court denied the motion, and, on appeal, the Eleventh Circuit granted a motion for a certificate of appealability to decide whether Blakely (now Booker) could apply retroactively.Varela argued that Blakely (now Booker) should apply retroactively because its rule is "implicit in the concept of ordered liberty," and therefore qualified as "one of those very cases that should be determined to be retroactive to matters on collateral attack."Citing Schriro v. Summerlin, 124 S.Ct. 2519 (2004), which analyzed the Ring rule under Teague, the Court noted that, as in Schriro, the rule announced in Booker was a "prototypical procedural rule." The jury vs. judge rule was not a watershed rule of criminal procedure. The Court joined McReynolds v. U.S., 2005 WL 237642 (7th Cir. Feb. 2, 2005) in concluding that Booker does not apply retroactively to cases on collateral review. The Court concluded: "Booker’s constitutional rule falls squarely under the category of new rules of criminal procedure that do not apply retroactively to § 2255 cases on collateral review."Query: Is it still possible to argue, in light of Varela, in a § 2255, that Blakely and Booker do not announce a "new" rule. Note that Ring announced a new rule because it overruled Walton v. Arizona. But Blakely and Booker, arguably, merely applied the old Apprendi rule.Also, Varela’s conviction became final pre-Apprendi. But what about defendants whose convictions became final after Apprendi (of after Blakely): for post-Apprendi defendants, is there any "new" rule in Blakely or Booker? And what about the distinction that in Ring, the defendant still had the benefit of a beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard, unlike the defendant in Varela? And what of the substantive law change wrought by Booker, not addressed in Varela?
In U.S. v. Johnson, No. 04-16502 (Feb. 14, 2005), the Court (Tjoflat, Dubina, Cox) granted the defendant’s interlocutory appeal, holding that a conviction for being a felon-in-possession in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g) does not qualify as a "crime of violence" within the meaning of 18 U.S.C. § 3156(a)(4), and therefore was not a basis (as the district court ruled) for denying release after a guilty plea and pending sentencing.The Court rejected the argument that a § 922(g) charge involves a substantial risk of physical force and therefore qualifies as a "crime of violence." The Court recognized a circuit conflict on this issue, and sided with the courts which focused on the nature of the § 922(g) offense. The Court reasoned that illegal possession of a firearm by a felon did not inherently involve a risk of physical force. The Court noted that a felon’s possession of a firearm did not necessarily pose a greater risk of physical force than a non-felon’s possession, pointing out that some felons are convicted of non-violent felonies. The Court noted that in Leocal v. Ashcroft, 125 S.Ct. 377 (2004) the Supreme Court reasoned that a DUI conviction could not count as an offense involving a risk of harm because the harm was not a "natural outcome of an illegal use of force." The Court contrasted § 922(g) with a burglary, an offense which "necessarily creates a substantial risk of violence."The Court therefore remanded the case to the district court, for reconsideration of whether the defendant should be released pending sentencing.
2/16/2005 05:02:00 PM
In U.S. v. Grinard-Henry, No. 04-12677 (Feb. 11, 2005), the Court denied a defendant’s Booker-based motion for reconsideration of the Court’s order dismissing his appeal, finding that the defendant had waived his right of appeal as part of his plea agreement.The Court noted that the appeal waiver preserved the defendant’s right to appeal a sentence "above the statutory maximum." Reaffirming its recent holding in U.S. v. Rubbo, 2005 WL 120507 (11th Cir. Jan. 21, 2005), the Court held that this language referred only to the relevant statutory maximum, not to the Guideline maximum as construed in Blakely/Booker. The Court further noted that the appeal waiver preserved the defendant’s right to appeal "a sentence in violation of law apart from the sentencing guidelines." The Court found that this language did not permit the defendant to raise a Booker challenge to the application of the sentencing guidelines. The Court pointed out that at his plea colloquy the defendant acknowledged the district court’s power to impany any sentence "pursuant to the sentencing guidelines."
2/14/2005 02:02:00 PM
In U.S. v. Frye, No. 03-16377 (11th Cir. 2005), the Court found affirmed the conviction and sentence of a defendant who pled guilty to using a firearm in connection with a drug felon offense in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c), attempt to manufacture more than 50 grams of methamphetamine, and manufacture of more than 500 grams of methamphetamine.The Court rejected the argument that the plea was involuntary because of irreconciliable differences between the defendant and his lawyer, noting that the record of the plea colloquy showed that Frye was not pleading guilty involuntarily.The Court also rejected the argument that the defendant could not be convicted of violating § 924(c) because he was not convicted of an underlying drug felony offense. The Court joined other circuits which have held that an actual violation of a drug felony statute is not necessary to establish a § 924(c) violation. § 924(c) does not require that a defendant be convicted of, or even charged with, a predicate offense.Reviewing the factual resume at the plea colloquy, the Court further rejected the argument that the § 924(c) guilty plea was supported by insufficient facts.Finally, the Court found no Booker violation in the imposition of sentencing enhancements for being an organizer in the conspiracy, or for risk of harm to human life or the environment, based on factors that were neither admitted by him nor proved beyond a reasonable doubt. The Court found that the factual resume submitted to the district court as part of the plea colloquy supported the two enhancements. Frye admitted to the conduct underlying the sentence enhancements. The sentence therefore did not violate Booker.
2/14/2005 11:36:00 AM
2/08/2005 05:42:00 PM