Opinion ID: 3040501
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Related Authority

Text: Whether, post-Booker, a judge may rely on acquitted con- duct at sentencing without violating the Sixth Amendment is 4 As Jones recognized, “[i]f a potential penalty might rise from 15 years to life on a nonjury determination, the jury’s role would correspondingly shrink from the significance usually carried by determinations of guilt to the relative importance of low-level gatekeeping: in some cases, a jury finding of fact necessary for a maximum 15-year sentence would merely open the door to a judicial finding sufficient for life imprisonment.” 526 U.S. at 243-44. 5 For instance, the recent sentencing decisions have forbidden judicial determinations of “harm to the victim,” which trigger an increased sentencing maximum, Jones, 526 U.S. at 232; judicial “sentencing factor” findings that raise the statutory maximum, Apprendi, 530 U.S. at 478, 494; judicial determination of “aggravating factors” necessary to impose the death penalty, Ring v. New Jersey, 536 U.S. 584, 588-89 (2002); and Guidelines findings that increase the applicable Guidelines range, Booker. 543 U.S. at 235. 870 UNITED STATES v. MERCADO an issue of first impression in this Circuit. The majority ignores Booker in claiming that the Supreme Court has provided a “complete answer” to this issue in United States v. Watts. In Booker, the Court took pains explicitly to limit and distinguish Watts, explaining that Watts answered a very different question than that presented in Booker. As Justice Stevens clarified, In Watts . . . we held that the Double Jeopardy Clause permitted a court to consider acquitted conduct in sentencing a defendant under the Guidelines. In neither Witte nor Watts was there any contention that the sentencing enhancement had exceeded the sentence authorized by the jury verdict in violation of the Sixth Amendment. The issue we confront today was simply not presented. 543 U.S. at 240. Stevens further elaborated that “Watts, in particular, presented a very narrow question regarding the interaction of the Guidelines with the Double Jeopardy Clause, and did not even have the benefit of full briefing or oral argument. It is unsurprising that we failed to consider fully the issues presented to us in these cases.” Id. at 240 n.4. In short, Watts has been “explicitly disavowed by the Supreme Court as a matter of Sixth Amendment law [and] has no bearing on this case in light of the Court’s more recent and relevant rulings.” United States v. Faust, 456 F.3d 1342, 1349 (11th Cir. 2006) (Barkett, J., dissenting). The majority’s reliance on Watts as dispositive of Sixth Amendment issues is misplaced.6 Watts neither considered nor decided the issue currently before us. 6 To the extent the majority argues that all relevant conduct can be considered by the district court, as it was before Watts or Booker, I agree that district courts have considerable latitude to review conduct outside of the offense of conviction. However, the effect of Apprendi and its progeny is to exclude acquitted conduct from this set of permissible considerations because it is not authorized by the jury verdict. UNITED STATES v. MERCADO 871 Nor has the Ninth Circuit addressed the Sixth Amendment issue we face. The government cites only other Circuits’ opinions for this proposition, but does cite two Ninth Circuit decisions — United States v. Johnson, 444 F.3d 1026, 1030 (9th Cir. 2006), and United States v. Lynch, 437 F.3d 902, 916 (9th Cir. 2006) (en banc) (per curiam) — in its briefing. However, neither of these opinions discusses Watts in the context of the Sixth Amendment issue before us. Rather, the two cases discuss Watts only in passing, noting that Watts remains good law — a fact acknowledged by Booker itself. These fleeting references may serve to re-confirm Watts’s Fifth Amendment holding, but do not extend Watts to the Sixth Amendment context. The opinions from other Circuits cited by the majority assume that no Sixth Amendment problem exists as long as the sentencing court stays beneath the statutory maximum. Clearly not so. The appropriate inquiry is whether a sentence has been authorized by the jury, not whether a sentence is below the statutory limit. I also note that “the ‘statutory maximum’ for Apprendi purposes is the maximum sentence a judge may impose solely on the basis of the facts reflected in the jury verdict or admitted by the defendant.” Blakely, 542 U.S. at 303. While sentences that exceed the statutory maximum lack the necessary jury authorization, so too do sentences that rely on conduct for which the jury has explicitly withheld authorization. In both cases, the judge’s sentence relies on a factual finding not made by the jury, exposing the defendant to a penalty exceeding the maximum to which he would have otherwise been subject. See Ring, 536 U.S. at 602 (“A defendant may not be expose[d] . . . to a penalty exceeding the maximum he would receive if punished according to the facts reflected in the jury verdict alone.”) (quotations and citations omitted). By failing to consider the substantive impact that the consideration of acquitted conduct has on the right to jury trial, each of these decisions ignores the impact of Jones, Apprendi, Ring, Blakely, and Booker. Thus, I am not content, as the majority is, to join this “parade of authority.” 872 UNITED STATES v. MERCADO