Opinion ID: 166424
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Enhancement for Drug Quantity

Text: 50 At the sentencing hearing, the district court heard testimony from Special Agent Len Propps from the Division of Criminal Investigation in Cheyenne. Agent Propps testified that Ms. Bradford waived her Miranda rights after her arrest and told him she had made nine previous trips from California to Minnesota. See Sent. Tr. at 20, 26-27. According to Agent Propps, Ms. Bradford said she was paid $10,000 for this trip and $100 per day plus expenses for the other nine trips. Id. at 26. Agent Propps testified that Ms. Bradford never told [him] that she hauled cocaine nine separate times, id. at 27, but asserted that [they] were talking about cocaine, no other drug . . . nothing brought up other than she had made nine trips and she had got paid a hundred dollars for those trips. . . . She was talking about somebody in California . . . who she said were big people . . . dealing a hundred kilos every couple weeks. Id. Agent Propps verified three of the nine trips. Id. at 33. Ms. Bradford did not testify. 51 Based on Agent Propps' testimony and the presentence report, the court made the following findings: 52 I find that the defendant, indeed, made nine additional trips from Minneapolis to the West Coast. As she had admitted, and I think that these were trips for the purposes of transporting drugs, and I think that it is highly unlikely that such trips would not have involved more than 30 grams of drugs. In fact, I'll—of cocaine, in fact, and that I think the probation officer was reasonable in his conclusion that there would have been relevant conduct that involved more than 5 kilograms of cocaine, so that I think the probation officer is correct in determining the initial offense level . . . of 32, initially. . . . 53 Id. at 43. Thus, despite the fact that Ms. Bradford pled to possession of only 4.97 kilograms of cocaine with intent to distribute, see Aplt's App. at 99, the court sentenced her based on five kilograms of cocaine. With a criminal history in category I, five kilograms of cocaine garnered Ms. Bradford an offense level of thirty-two prior to adjustments for obstruction of justice and acceptance of responsibility. 54 At the hearing, Ms. Bradford objected to the court's inclusion of the additional thirty grams to which she did not plead, but did not make a Blakely -type argument. Prior to Blakely and Booker, we would have analyzed Ms. Bradford's objection under the traditional guideline standards requiring us to uphold the district court's determination as long as it was not based on guesswork and was supported by some indicia of reliability. See United States v. Ruiz-Castro, 92 F.3d 1519, 1534 (10th Cir.1996) (When the actual drugs underlying a drug quantity determination are not seized, the trial court may rely upon an estimate to establish the defendant's guideline offense level, so long as the information relied upon has some basis of support in the facts of the particular case, and bears sufficient indicia of reliability.) (internal quotation marks omitted); United States v. Richards, 27 F.3d 465, 469 (10th Cir.1994) (holding an estimate is proper as long as it has some basis of support in the facts of the particular case and is not guesswork) (internal quotation marks omitted); United States v. Garcia, 994 F.2d 1499, 1508 (10th Cir.1993) (same). 55 After Blakely and Booker, however, we analyze the determination of facts not only for support in the record, but for who determined the facts. If the judge made factual findings increasing the top of the guideline range, rather than the jury determining the facts or Ms. Bradford pleading to them, the sentence is unconstitutional. See Booker, 125 S.Ct. at 756. As with Ms. Bradford's obstruction of justice enhancement, we review for plain error the drug quantity issue, because Ms. Bradford did not raise a Blakely / Booker objection on this issue at trial or sentencing. See Gonzalez-Huerta, 403 F.3d at 729. 56 The first two prongs of the plain error test are met with regard to the drug quantity issue, because the district court made the finding that Ms. Bradford carried at least thirty grams of cocaine on one, some, or all of her previous nine trips. Unlike the majority of Booker plain error cases in this circuit, however, the government has conceded that the third and fourth prongs of plain error analysis may be satisfied here: 57 [S]hould this court decide that the Defendant's sentence was infected with a Blakely error that can be said to be `clear and obvious,' then it is an error that prejudiced the Defendant because it increased her total offense level by two levels, and it may likewise be an error of sufficient consequence to satisfy the fourth plain error requirement, because the evidence in support of that decision, while plainly sufficient under the guideline's preponderance standard, was in no sense either overwhelming or uncontradicted. 58 Aple's Br. at 48. We commend the government on its forthright acknowledgment that the third and fourth prong may be satisfied. 59 Our own review comports with this result. The third prong is satisfied because but for the court's finding that Ms. Bradford carried the additional thirty grams of cocaine on a previous trip, the result of the sentencing proceeding would have been different. Ms. Bradford's total offense level would have been two levels lower, as it would have been based only on the 4.97 kilograms of cocaine to which she pled guilty of possession. 60 The standard for meeting the fourth prong of plain error review is demanding, Gonzalez-Huerta, 403 F.3d at 737, but we have acknowledged that, depend[ing] on the facts of the particular case, it can be met. Id. If the error is particularly egregious, and our failure to notice it would result in a miscarriage of justice, we may notice the error. See United States v. Gilkey, 118 F.3d 702, 704 (10th Cir.1997); see also Olano, 507 U.S. at 736, 113 S.Ct. 1770. Although we have noted that not necessarily. . . all constitutional Booker errors that affect substantial rights also undermine the integrity, fairness, or public reputation of judicial proceedings, Dazey, 403 F.3d at 1179, we believe it is a sound exercise of our discretion to remand this case for resentencing despite Ms. Bradford's failure to assert Blakely/Booker error in the district court. She made numerous objections to the presentence report and objected strenuously to the factual basis on which the judge found the additional thirty grams of cocaine. See Sent. Tr. at 3, 5-9. Without the judge-found two-level enhancement based on the additional thirty grams, the top of the guideline range in which she would have been sentenced properly was 108 months. Although the new guideline range is advisory and not mandatory after Booker, the difference for Ms. Bradford would be at least twenty-four months of incarceration. In the unique circumstances of this case, this difference, coupled with the conceded lack of substantial evidence supporting the basis for the upward adjustment, is sufficient for us to notice the error and remand this case for resentencing in light of Booker. See Dazey, 403 F.3d at 1179 (noticing plain error where defendant received a substantial enhancement on the basis of judge-found facts he contested at the sentencing hearing, and he demonstrated a reasonable likelihood that post- Booker the outcome might have been significantly different); cf. Dowlin, 408 F.3d at 657 (refusing to notice plain error where defendant pointed to nothing in the record casting doubt on the fairness of her sentence, did not object to the facts on which her sentence was enhanced, did not identify mitigating evidence the district court failed to consider at sentencing which might justify a lower sentence, and the record contained ample evidence supporting the sentence imposed).