Opinion ID: 1195896
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Supreme Court Case Law Prevents Going Outside the Record

Text: Although I do not believe we need to even address Pruitt's prior record level because he should be exposed to no sentence exceeding 12 months regardless of his prior record level, I agree that the district court erred in assuming the worst possible prior record level for Pruitt under North Carolina's recidivist statute instead of making an individualized finding as to Pruitt based on his record under North Carolina law. However, looking back today, I see no way to determine Pruitt's prior record level with any accuracy. The determination would require the district court to find unknowable factual answers to unknowable questions. We do not even know what facts, if any, the North Carolina judges used years ago to calculate the prior record level, or whether such a calculation was made, or who made the calculations, if anyone, or how one would now go about reconstructing whatever it is that would have constituted Pruitt's unknown prior record level. And to make matters worse, Supreme Court case law forbids federal district courts in career offender cases from calculating a state law sentence based on facts outside the record. Federal district courts may look only to the fact of conviction and the statutory definition of the prior offense, and they may not determine what the conduct was or try to reconstruct facts that would determine the prior record level. Taylor v. United States, 495 U.S. 575, 601-02, 110 S.Ct. 2143, 109 L.Ed.2d 607 (1990). Federal courts must avoid subsequent evidentiary inquiries into the factual basis for the earlier conviction, and they may not resolve disputed findings of fact about what the defendant and the state judge understood as the factual basis of the prior plea. Shepard v. United States, 544 U.S. 13, 20, 25, 125 S.Ct. 1254, 161 L.Ed.2d 205 (2005).