Opinion ID: 2973267
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Enhancement of Ward’s Sentence

Text: Ward contends that the district court improperly increased his sentence by sixty months based upon the erroneous guilty verdict on Count Three, for possession of a firearm in the furtherance of a drug trafficking crime. This is because the jury did not specify which category or categories of weapons it determined that Ward was using or carrying. Ward contends, therefore, that because the sixty-month enhancement was 12 not a fact admitted by him or proved to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt, the sentence violated the rule in United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005). Based on the Supreme Court’s decision in Booker and this Court’s decision in Harris, 397 F.3d at 412-13, Ward argues that the sixty-month enhancement for possessing a semiautomatic assault weapon pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) cannot be imposed. Ward also notes that pursuant to Booker, the Sentencing Guidelines are now advisory, thereby requiring the sentencing court to consider Guideline ranges, but permitting that court to tailor the sentence in light of other statutory concerns. One of the alternative sentences given by the district court was seventy months’ imprisonment, based on a range of 97-106 months and a downward departure under U.S.S.G. § 5K1.1. According to the district court, this sentence assumes “that there is no enhancement for the semi-automatic assault rifle.” Ward asks that in the event his convictions are not reversed and the case is not remanded for retrial, the case be remanded to the district court for re-sentencing to a term of seventy months’ imprisonment. The Government asserts that in light of the Supreme Court’s decision in Booker, and the district court’s pronouncement of multiple alternative sentences, this case should be remanded to the district court for re-sentencing. Because it alleges that the evidence of Ward’s possession of a semi-automatic assault weapon was 13 overwhelming, the Government further contends that at the re-sentencing hearing, the district court should be permitted to impose a ten-year statutory sentence in connection with Ward’s § 924(c) conviction. We conclude that the district court committed plain error in sentencing Ward. The sentence in this case was “imposed under a framework that has now been substantially altered by Booker’s severing and excising of 18 U.S.C. § 3553(b)(1), the provision that made the Guidelines mandatory.” United States v. Barnett, 398 F.3d 516, 530 (6th Cir. 2005). The district court must be afforded the opportunity to sentence Ward “under a regime in which the guidelines are treated as advisory.” Id. Because it is unclear as to what sentence the district court would have imposed under an advisory guidelines system, we will vacate Ward’s sentence and remand for resentencing. In light of the overwhelming evidence that Ward possessed the semi-automatic assault weapon, we agree with the Government’s contention that the district court should be permitted on remand to impose the ten-year statutory sentence in connection with Ward’s § 924(c) conviction. However, we are not instructing the district court to impose such a sentence.