Opinion ID: 166841
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Mr. Kelly’s arguments on the merits

Text: On the merits, Mr. Kelly 1 claims that in light of United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 125 S. Ct. 738 (2005), the district court violated his Sixth Amendment rights by enhancing his sentence based on a finding by a preponderance of the evidence as to the amount of pseudoephedrine Mr. Kelly possessed. Mr. Kelly also claims that the district court committed nonconstitutional Booker error by applying the Guidelines in a mandatory fashion. See United States v. Gonzalez-Huerta, 403 F.3d 727, 731–32 (10th Cir.) (en banc) (distinguishing constitutional and non-constitutional Booker error), cert. denied, 126 S. Ct. 495 (2005). He thus contends that remand for resentencing is required. In addition, Mr. Kelly claims that on remand it would violate his due process rights for the sentencing judge to find facts under the remedial Booker opinion. Although made by his appointed counsel, we attribute these arguments to 1 Mr. Kelly. -4-
We agree that the district court committed non-constitutional Booker error by treating the Guidelines as mandatory rather than discretionary. See GonzalezHuerta, 403 F.3d at 731–32. Because Mr. Kelly preserved the error for appeal by objecting pro se at sentencing that the Guidelines “don’t allow the Court to have a discretionary manner in individual cases,” we must remand for resentencing unless that error was harmless. United States v. Geames, 427 F.3d 1333, 1339 (10th Cir. 2005). In United States v. Labastida-Segura, 396 F.3d 1140, 1143 (10th Cir. 2005), we held that where the district court mandatorily imposed a sentence that was already at the bottom of the guidelines range, to say that the district court would have imposed the same sentence given the new legal landscape (even after consulting the Sentencing Guidelines in an advisory capacity) places us in the zone of speculation and conjecture—we simply do not know what the district court would have done after hearing from the parties. We thus found that the error in Labastida-Segura was not harmless. Id. Similarly, because Mr. Kelly was sentenced at the bottom of the Guidelines range, and because there is no indication that the district court would have imposed the same sentence under a discretionary sentencing scheme, we cannot conclude that -5- the error was harmless. See United States v. Nickl, 427 F.3d 1286, 1302 (10th Cir. 2005). We therefore remand for resentencing. 2
Mr. Kelly claims that because his offense was committed before the Supreme Court’s decision in Booker, at resentencing the district court should be “limited to sentencing Mr. Kelly based on the facts admitted in his guilty plea.” He claims that “taking into account additional facts not admitted in connection with the guilty plea, would violate ex post facto principles inherent in the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.” And, because the guilty plea merely refers to “possession of pseudoephedrine,” not to any specific drug quantity, Mr. Kelly argues that at resentencing his base offense level should be 12 — based on the smallest amount of pseudoephedrine in the Guidelines. See U.S.S.G. § 2D1.11(d)(14). In the alternative, Mr. Kelly argues that any facts used at resentencing to increase his punishment must be found beyond a reasonable doubt. Mr. Kelly’s arguments are without merit. In United States v. Rines, we rejected the argument that applying Booker’s “remedial holding in sentencing for an offense that predated Booker would violate the Fifth Amendment’s Due Because we conclude that resentencing is required based on non- 2 constitutional Booker error, we need not address whether remand is also required due to constitutional Booker error. -6- Process Clause.” 419 F.3d 1104, 1106 (10th Cir. 2005). As we made clear, accepting this argument would be “contrary to the Supreme Court’s explicit instructions in Booker,” id., since the Supreme Court specifically held that “we must apply today’s holdings—both the Sixth Amendment holding and our remedial interpretation of the Sentencing Act—to all cases on direct review.” Booker, 125 S. Ct. at 769 (emphasis added). 3 We note in addition that even if the district court were precluded from finding facts at resentencing, Mr. Kelly is incorrect that the base offense level for the smallest amount of pseudoephedrine would apply because Mr. Kelly admitted in his objection to the presentence report and at the sentencing hearing that he possessed 0.813 kilograms of pseudoephedrine. 4 Mr. Kelly’s alternative argument — that at resentencing any sentenceenhancing facts must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt — also fails because 3 The First, Second, Fifth, Seventh, Ninth, and Eleventh circuits have similarly rejected ex post facto/due process challenges to application of the remedial portion of Booker. See United States v. Lata, 415 F.3d 107 (1st Cir. 2005); United States v. Vaughn, --- F.3d ----, 2005 WL 3219706 (2d Cir. 2005); United States v. Scroggins, 411 F.3d 572 (5th Cir. 2005); United States v. Jamison, 416 F.3d 538 (7th Cir. 2005); United States v. Dupas, 417 F.3d 1064 (9th Cir.), amended by 419 F.3d 916 (9th Cir. 2005); United States v. Duncan, 400 F.3d 1297 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, 126 S. Ct. 432 (2005). 4 Mr. Kelly contends that he is not bound by this admission because it was made by his attorney and is therefore not a “fact admitted by a defendant.” However, counsel’s admission to a drug amount made on Mr. Kelly’s behalf is sufficient. See United States v. Buonocore, 416 F.3d 1124, 1134 (10th Cir. 2005). -7- after Booker “district courts are still required to consider Guideline ranges, which are determined through application of the preponderance standard, just as they were before.” United States v. Magallanez, 408 F.3d 672, 685 (10th Cir.) (citation omitted, emphasis added), cert. denied, 126 S. Ct. 468 (2005). Although Mr. Kelly feels that the opinion in Magallanez was in error, we are bound by our precedent.