Opinion ID: 615992
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Barnes' Waived Arguments

Text: At re-sentencing, the district court dismissed as waived several new arguments Barnes raised in his post-remand sentencing brief. Barnes asked the court to disregard the parties' stipulation that the conspiracy involved between five-to-fifteen kilograms and, instead, treat the drug quantity at issue as less than 25 grams. He felt the larger drug quantity overstated his criminality. He additionally argued that, due to the fictitious nature of the drugs and the government's ability to dictate the amount, the court should treat the amount of drugs involved as zero grams or find that he could not have completed the conspiracy. Finally, he requested that the court reconsider his four-level enhancement for being an organizer or leader of five or more participants in the commission of an offense, as well as his two-level enhancement for willful obstruction of justice. The court rejected Barnes' argument that the amount of drugs involved should be considered less than the amount to which his co-conspirators stipulated because [the argument] d[id] not appear to have been . . . raised on appeal, and the Court of Appeals did not explicitly discuss it. The court also noted that even if the argument were not waived, it would not find it to have any merit. The court similarly disregarded Barnes' subsidiary argument that he was incapable of producing any drug amount. The court found that this argument, too, was not raised on appeal and [w]as outside the scope of remand. As before, the court elaborated that had the issue been properly raised, and remanded for [its] determination, [it] would [have] reject[ed] it. With respect to his objection to its sentence enhancements, the district court held that Barnes could have appealed the application of these enhancements [during his first appeal]. Since he did not do so, the court ruled that he waived his arguments against them such that they d[id] not fall within the permissible areas of discussion . . . on remand. The district court excluded each of these arguments as ones that could have been raised in his first appeal, were not so raised, and, therefore, were beyond the scope of this Court's remand.