Opinion ID: 3034029
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Sixth Amendment Protections

Text: [1] Dare argues that he was sentenced in violation of the Sixth Amendment constitutional protections articulated in Apprendi, then in Blakely, and most recently in United States v. Booker, ___ U.S. ___, 125 S. Ct. 738 (2005). In Apprendi, the Court held that “[o]ther than the fact of a prior conviction, any fact that increases the penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory maximum must be submitted to a jury, and proved beyond a reasonable doubt.” Apprendi, 530 U.S. at 490. In Blakely, the Court stated, “Our precedents make clear, however, that the ‘statutory maximum’ for Apprendi purposes if 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, 124 S. Ct. at 2537 (emphasis in original). In Booker, the Court stated: Accordingly, we reaffirm our holding in Apprendi: Any fact (other than a prior conviction) which is necessary to support a sentence exceeding the maximum authorized by the facts established by a plea of guilty or a jury verdict must be admitted by the defendant or proved to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. Booker, 125 S. Ct. at 756. The government maintains that Dare’s sentence did not violate the Sixth Amendment and should be affirmed pursuant to the holding in Harris v. United States, 536 U.S. 545 (2002). The defendant in Harris sold a small quantity of marijuana in his pawnshop with an unconcealed pistol at his side. Harris was arrested for violating drug and firearms laws, including 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A). The indictment, similar to the indictment in this case, said nothing of “brandishing” a firearm and made no reference to subsections of the statute. HarUNITED STATES v. DARE 13629 ris was found guilty at a bench trial of knowingly carrying a firearm during and in relation to a drug trafficking crime. At sentencing, Harris disputed that he brandished the gun, just as Dare disputed that he brandished or discharged the gun in the present case. The district court in Harris found, by a preponderance of the evidence, that Harris had brandished a gun and sentenced him to seven years. Harris, 536 U.S. at 551. Harris maintained that under Jones v. United States, 526 U.S. 227 (1999) (federal carjacking statute interpreted as setting out elements of separate offenses), brandishing is a separate offense for which he had not been indicted. Harris also maintained that even if brandishing is a sentencing factor, a jury must find this factor beyond a reasonable doubt. Id. [2] The Court, in a plurality opinion, stated, “§ 924(c)(1)(A) defines a single offense” and “[the statute] regards brandishing and discharging as sentencing factors to be found by the judge, not offense elements to be found by the jury.” Harris, 536 U.S. at 556. The Court distinguished Apprendi on the basis that the judge-found facts in Apprendi extended the sentence beyond the statutory maximum, while judge-found facts in Harris only increased the defendant’s minimum sentence, and did not affect the maximum sentence. Harris, 536 U.S. at 562-65. The Harris plurality distinguished Apprendi, stating: [O]nce the jury finds all those facts, Apprendi says that the defendant has been convicted of the crime; the Fifth and Sixth Amendments have been observed; and the Government has been authorized to impose any sentence below the maximum. That is why, as Apprendi noted, “nothing in this history suggests that it is impermissible for judges to exercise discretion — taking into consideration various factors relating both to offense and offender — in imposing a judgment within the range.” Id. at 481, 120 S. Ct. 2348. . . . [T]he judicial factfinding does not “expose a defendant to a punishment greater than 13630 UNITED STATES v. DARE that otherwise legally prescribed.” Apprendi, [530 U.S.] at 483, n.10, 120 S. Ct. 2348. Harris, 536 U.S. at 565 (emphasis in original). The Harris plurality reaffirmed the holding in McMillan v. Pennsylvania, 477 U.S. 79 (1986), that a state legislature may specify the condition for a mandatory minimum sentence for possession of a firearm without making the condition an element of the crime. See Harris, 536 U.S. at 566-67. The Harris plurality concluded: Reaffirming McMillan and employing the approach outlined in that case, we conclude that the federal provision at issue, 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A)(ii), is constitutional. Basing a 2-year increase in the defendant’s minimum sentence on a judicial finding of brandishing does not evade the requirements of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments. Congress “simply took one factor that has always been considered by sen- tencing courts to bear on punishment . . . and dic- tated the precise weight to be given that factor.” McMillan, 477 U.S. at 89-90, 106 S.Ct. 2411. That factor need not be alleged in the indictment, submitted to the jury, or proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Harris, 536 U.S. at 568. Dare argues that Harris should be distinguished because Harris’s minimum was increased by two years, from five to seven years, based upon the court’s determination that Harris brandished the firearm, whereas his minimum doubled from five to ten years for discharge of the firearm, thereby raising constitutional concerns. We cannot limit Harris based upon the harshness of the sentence imposed under § 924(c). The Harris plurality stated: The Fifth and Sixth Amendments ensure that the defendant “will never get more punishment than he UNITED STATES v. DARE 13631 bargained for when he did the crime,” but they do not promise that he will receive “anything less” than that. Apprendi, [503 U.S.] at 498, 120 S.Ct. 2348 (Scalia, J., concurring). If the grand jury has alleged, and the trial jury has found, all the facts necessary to impose the maximum, the barriers between govern- ment and defendant fall. The judge may select any sentence within the range, based on facts not alleged in the indictment or proved to the jury — even if those facts are specified by the legislature, and even if they persuade the judge to choose a much higher sentence than he or she otherwise would have imposed. That a fact affects the defendant’s sen- tence, even dramatically so, does not by itself make it an element. Harris, 536 U.S. at 566. [3] Thus, under Harris, the district court could have sentenced Dare to any sentence within the range of five years to life without further fact finding. According to Harris, judge- found facts that increase a sentence under § 924(c) are not in the jury’s domain because the findings do not increase the possible sentence beyond the statutory maximum of life imprisonment. See Harris, 536 U.S. at 557; 536 U.S. 578-79 (Thomas, J., dissenting) (“[T]he constitutional analysis adopted by the plurality would hold equally true if the mandatory minimum for a violation of § 924(c)(1) without brandishing was five years, but the mandatory minimum with brandishing was life imprisonment.”). Justice Breyer observed in his concurring opinion in Harris that one cannot easily distinguish Apprendi from Harris “in terms of logic.” Harris, 536 U.S. at 569. Justice Thomas observed in his dissenting opinion in Harris that the fact that a defendant brandished a firearm “indisputably alters the prescribed range of penalties to which he is exposed under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A).” Harris, 536 U.S. at 575 (Thomas, J., 13632 UNITED STATES v. DARE dissenting). Justice Thomas noted, “Whether one raises the floor or raises the ceiling it is impossible to dispute that the defendant is exposed to greater punishment than is otherwise prescribed.” Id. at 579. He stated: Looking to the principles that animated the decision in Apprendi and the bases for the historical practice upon which Apprendi rested (rather than the historical pedigree of mandatory minimums), there are no logical grounds for treating facts triggering mandatory minimums any differently than facts that increase the statutory maximum. In either case the defendant cannot predict the judgment from the face of the felony, see [Apprendi], 530 U.S. at 478-79, 120 S.Ct. 2348, and the absolute statutory limits of his punishment change, constituting an increased penalty. Id. at 579-80. We agree that Dare could not predict his punishment from the face of his indictment or from the facts he admitted in his plea. For most sentences imposed under § 924(c)(1), the minimum sentence is the maximum sentence, even though the defendant is exposed to a possible sentence as severe as life imprisonment.2 Harris, 536 U.S. at 578 (Thomas, J., dissent- 2 Cf. United States v. Harris, 397 F.3d 404, 411-12 (6th Cir. 2005) (“If we look only at the theoretical possibility of a life sentence for any § 924(c) violation, the reasoning of Booker suggests that there is no Sixth Amendment violation. However, under the Guidelines regime, a life sentence was only possible — absent an upward departure — for a person who, having previously been convicted for a violation of § 924(c), is again convicted of violating the subsection, the second time with a very serious weapon. See 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(C)(ii) (mandating life sentence only in the case of a ‘second or subsequent conviction under this subsection’ where ‘the firearm involved is a machinegun or destructive device, or is equipped with a firearm silencer or firearm muffler’). Given the severe constraints on imposition of a life sentence in the pre-Booker world, it would seem strikingly at odds with the principles set forth in Booker to hold that the sudden advisory nature of the Guidelines prevents the (still mandatory) provisions of § 924(c) from violating the Sixth Amendment.”) UNITED STATES v. DARE 13633 ing) (citing sentencing data); U.S.S.G. § 2K2.4(b). Nevertheless, we cannot distinguish the sentence imposed in Harris from the one imposed in this case. [4] Dare argues that the constitutional analysis in Harris was effectively overruled by the plurality in Booker, ___ U.S. ___, 125 S. Ct. at 756. We agree that Harris is difficult to reconcile with the Supreme Court’s recent Sixth Amendment jurisprudence, but Harris has not been overruled. See United States v. Cardenas, 405 F.3d 1046, 1048 (9th Cir. 2005) (“Booker does not bear on mandatory minimums.”); United States v. Jones, 418 F.3d 726, 732 (7th Cir. 2005) (“Under Harris, which the Supreme Court did not disturb in Booker, imposition of the ten-year mandatory minimum sentence for violation of 924(c)(1)(A)(iii) did not violate the Sixth Amendment.”); United States v. Duncan, 413 F.3d 680, 683 (7th Cir. 2005) (“[N]othing in Booker or Blakely suggests that the Court reconsidered, much less overruled, its holding in Harris.”); id. at 683 n.3 (collecting cases from other circuits concluding that Booker does not apply to statutory mandatory minimum sentences). [5] We cannot question Harris’ authority as binding precedent. Hart v. Massanari, 266 F.3d 1155, 1171 (9th Cir. 2001) (“A decision of the Supreme Court will control that corner of the law unless and until the Supreme Court itself overrules or modifies it. Judges of the inferior courts may voice their criti- cisms, but follow it they must.”); Duncan, 413 F.3d at 683-84 (“[E]ven if the logic and spirit of those decisions [Booker and Blakely] could be interpreted to have eroded the Court’s previous rationale for permitting mandatory minimum sentences based on judicial factfinding, it certainly is not our role as an intermediate appellate court to overrule a decision of the Supreme Court or even to anticipate such an overruling by the Court.”). 13634 UNITED STATES v. DARE