Opinion ID: 186717
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Vincent Hill and Jerome Martin.

Text: 164 No remand is needed for Hill and Martin either. The district court, again applying the Guidelines as if they were mandatory, sentenced Hill and Martin to life sentences for their federal convictions. When it came to sentencing the two for their D.C. convictions, the district court had discretion to impose sentences either concurrent with or consecutive to the life sentences for their federal convictions. The district court exercised its discretion and chose the more severe option that added consecutive sentences onto their life terms. That choice makes us confident that Hill and Martin would have fared no better had the district court viewed the Guidelines as only advisory. A mandatory application of the Guidelines, though mistaken, does not, by itself, trigger a Coles remand. The touchstone of our analysis is whether we can, from the record, confidently predict what the trial court would have done under Booker. Our decision in United States v. Smith, 401 F.3d 497 (D.C.Cir.2005), is instructive. 165 In United States v. Smith, the trial court, treating the Guidelines as mandatory, twice exercised its discretion to make an upward departure to impose a prison term that exceeded what the Guidelines called for. 46 Id. at 499. The case reached us on a Booker challenge to the mandatory use of the Guidelines. We held that although the trial court erred, there was no need to remand the case for resentencing because the two discretionary upward departures made us confident that the trial court was not compelled by the Guidelines to impose a sentence more severe than its independent judgment would have determined most appropriate in a world governed by Booker. Id. If anything, the mandatory guidelines seemed to have placed a cap on the defendant's sentence. We are confident that had the trial court acted under Booker, the defendant's sentence would have been at least as severe as it was before Booker. Where the record supports that confidence, there is no need for a Coles remand. 166 Like the upward departures in Smith, the district court's decision to impose consecutive sentences for Hill and Martin tacked on to the sentences they had already received convinces us that they were not prejudiced by the court's mistaken view of the Guidelines. Id. [C]onfident that the sentence would not have been lower for either Hill or Martin in a post- Booker sentencing regime, we affirm their sentences. See Gomez, 431 F.3d at 823. 47 167 For the foregoing reasons, we affirm all of the appellants' convictions and the sentences imposed therefor. 48 168 So ordered.