Opinion ID: 169045
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Evidence of the Relevant Sentencing Facts

Text: Mr. Cole argues that the District Court erred in applying the enhancement because the Government did not prove that he possessed the gun in connection with the felony offense of aggravated assault. Specifically, Mr. Cole contends that the court erred in finding that he did not act in self-defense. But based on our review of the record, the District Court did not engage in any fact-finding. Rather, the court correctly applied the enhancement based solely on facts Mr. Cole admitted. As noted above, in his first appeal to this Court, Mr. Cole argued that the District Court had committed a non-constitutional Booker error by applying the Guidelines in a mandatory, rather than advisory, fashion. A court commits a non-constitutional Booker error “by applying the Guidelines in a mandatory fashion . . . even though the resulting sentence was calculated solely upon facts that were admitted by the defendant, found by the jury, or based upon the fact of a prior conviction.” United States v. Gonzalez-Huerta, 403 F.3d 727, 731 (10th Cir. 2005). In contrast, a sentencing court commits a constitutional Booker error “by relying upon judge-found facts, other than those of prior convictions, to enhance a defendant’s sentence mandatorily.” Id. By arguing that the court committed only a non-constitutional error, Mr. Cole tacitly acknowledged that the enhancement was authorized by facts he admitted. See, e.g., United States v. Labastida-Segura, 396 F.3d 1140, 1142 (10th Cir. 2005) (noting that the district court did not commit a constitutional Booker error because “all operative sentencing facts were admitted”). That is, Mr. Cole argued that because the court viewed the Guidelines as -5- mandatory, it did not consider whether to deviate from the applicable Guidelines range by choosing—as a matter of discretion—not to apply the enhancement authorized by admitted facts. This Court agreed that the District Court had committed a nonconstitutional error and remanded for resentencing.2 We did not, however, limit the scope of our remand to the court’s discretionary determination of whether to deviate from the applicable Guidelines range. The District Court was therefore free to reconsider whether the facts admitted by Mr. Cole authorized the enhancement under § 2K2.1(b)(5). See United States v. Keifer, 198 F.3d 798, 801 (10th Cir. 1999) (holding that, unless we limit the remand, resentencing is de novo and the district court “has the discretion to entertain evidence that could have been presented at the original sentencing even on issues that were not the specific subject of the remand”). But during his second sentencing hearing, Mr. Cole did not introduce any new facts or evidence regarding the aggravated assault or his self-defense claim. Instead, during the hearing, Mr. Cole’s attorney appealed to the court’s discretion, urging the court to consider self-defense as a mitigating factor. In addition, his attorney admitted that Mr. Cole’s actions in response to the perceived threat were “more than necessary,” thereby acknowledging that his conduct did not meet Kansas’s statutory definition of self- 2 We held that the District Court’s non-constitutional error was not harmless because the court imposed the “lowest possible sentence under what it considered to be mandatory guidelines.” Cole, 158 Fed. App’x at 133. When a district court mandatorily imposes a sentence at the bottom of the Guidelines range, the error is not harmless because we cannot determine whether and how the lower court would have exercised its discretion under advisory Guidelines. Labastida-Segura, 396 F.3d at 1143. -6- defense.3 See United States v. Buonocore, 416 F.3d 1124, 1134 (10th Cir. 2005) (treating admissions of defense counsel at sentencing as admissions of the defendant). Furthermore, in addition to admitting that he shot the gun in the vicinity of two individuals, Mr. Cole admitted that he intended to scare people when he fired the gun. That is, he admitted facts establishing the elements of an aggravated assault.4 Hence, the District Court did not err in concluding that the facts as admitted by Mr. Cole establish that he used the firearm in connection with the felony offense of aggravated assault.