Source: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Braxton_v._United_States/Opinion_of_the_Court
Timestamp: 2020-02-19 14:21:50
Document Index: 125934588

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1114', '§ 111', '§ 924', '§ 1', '§ 1', '§ 994', '§ 994', '§ 1']

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Braxton v. United States/Opinion of the Court
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663442Braxton v. United States — Opinion of the Court
At about 7 a.m. on June 10, 1988, four United States marshals arrived at Thomas Braxton's door with a warrant for his arrest. One of the marshals, Deputy Jenkins, knocked. There was no answer, though they could hear someone inside. Thirty minutes later the officers returned with a key to Braxton's apartment. Jenkins knocked again; and again received no answer. He unlocked the door, only to find it secured with a chain-lock as well-which he broke by kicking the door open. "[C]ontemporaneous with the door opening, a gunshot was fired through the door opening. The gunshot lodged in the front door just above the doorknob. That's the outside of the front door." App. 17. The door slammed shut and the officers withdrew. A moment later, Jenkins again kicked the door open. Another shot was fired, this too lodging in the front of the door, about five feet from the floor. The officers again withdrew, and the area was barricaded. Braxton, who had fired the shots, eventually gave himself up, and was charged in a three-count indictment with (1) an attempt to kill a deputy United States marshal (18 U.S.C. § 1114), (2) assault on a deputy marshal (18 U.S.C. § 111), and (3) the use of a firearm during a crime of violence (18 U.S.C. § 924(c)).
As the District Court noted, there was no plea agreement in this case. Braxton argues that his plea did not "contai[n]" a stipulation because by "containing a stipulation," the Guidelines mean a stipulation that is part of a formal plea agreement. Some Circuits to consider the question have agreed with that interpretation, believing that the "stipulation" must be part of the "quid pro quo" for the Government's agreement not to charge a higher offense. See, e.g., United States v. McCall, 915 F.2d 811, 816, n. 4 (CA2 1990); United States v. Warters, 885 F.2d 1266, 1273, n. 5 (CA5 1989). But as the Government points out, § 1B1.2 does not by its terms limit its application to stipulations contained in plea agreements; the language speaks only of "plea[s] . . . containing a stipulation." Since, the Government argues, any formal assent to a set of facts constitutes a stipulation, Braxton's guilty plea "contain[ed] a stipulation" upon which the court could rely in setting his base-offense level. That was the approach of the court below.
After we had granted Braxton's petition for certiorari, the Commission requested public comment on whether § 1B1.2(a) should be "amended to provide expressly that such a stipulation must be as part of a formal plea agreement," 56 Fed.Reg. 1891 (1991), which is the precise question raised by the first part of Braxton's petition here. The Commission took this action pursuant to its statutory duty "periodically [to] review and revise" the Guidelines. 28 U.S.C. § 994(o ). The Guidelines are of course implemented by the courts, so in charging the Commission "periodically [to] review and revise" the Guidelines, Congress necessarily contemplated that the Commission would periodically review the work of the courts, and would make whatever clarifying revisions to the Guidelines conflicting judicial decisions might suggest. This congressional expectation alone might induce us to be more restrained and circumspect in using our certiorari power as the primary means of resolving such conflicts; but there is even further indication that we ought to adopt that course. In addition to the duty to review and revise the guidelines, Congress has granted the Commission the unusual explicit power to decide whether and to what extent its amendments reducing sentences will be given retroactive effect, 28 U.S.C. § 994(u). This power has been implemented in Guideline § 1B1.10, which sets forth the amendments that justify sentence reduction.
We think it was not. The stipulation does not say that Braxton shot at the marshals; any such conclusion is an inference at best, and an inference from ambiguous facts. To give just one example of the ambiguity: The Government proffered (and Braxton agreed) that Braxton shot "through the door opening," and that the bullet lodged in the "front [of the] door." App. 17. It is difficult to understand how both of these facts could possibly be true, at least on an ordinary understanding of what "door opening" consists of. One does not shoot through a door opening and hit the door, any more than one walks through a door opening and bumps into the door. But in any case, if one accepts the stipulation that both shots lodged in the front of the (inward-opening) door, it would be unreasonable to conclude that Braxton was shooting at the marshals unless it was also stipulated that the marshals had entered the room. That was not stipulated, and does not appear to have been the fact. But even if one could properly conclude that the stipulation "specifically established" that Braxton had shot "at the marshals," it would also have to have established that he did so with the intent of killing them. #fn-s-s [1] Not only is there nothing in the stipulation from which that could even be inferred, but the statements of Braxton's attorney at the hearing flatly deny it.
We of course do not know what actually happened that morning in June, but that is not the question before us. The only issue for resolution is whether a stipulation that at best supports two reasonable readings-one that Braxton shot across the room at the marshals when they entered, and one that he shot across the room before they entered to frighten them off-is a stipulation that "specifically establishes" that Braxton attempted to murder one of the marshals. It does not.
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