Opinion ID: 169729
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Sentence Enhancem ent

Text: Trujillo next argues the district court erred in calculating his sentence based on facts not admitted in his plea agreement or found by a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. He argues that by engaging in judicial factfinding to determine both the applicable base offense level and the sentence enhancements, the district court violated his Sixth Amendment rights, as set forth in Booker and -9- Cunningham v. California, 127 S. Ct. 856 (2007). As a general matter, this argument merits little response. This court has repeatedly explained that in calculating a defendant’s sentence under the Guidelines, “a district court is not precluded from relying on judge-found facts so long as the G uidelines are considered as advisory rather than mandatory.” Townley, 472 F.3d at 1276; see also United States v. Rodriguez-Felix, 450 F.3d 1117, 1131 (10th Cir. 2006); United States v. M agallanez, 408 F.3d 672, 685 (10th Cir. 2005). Because there was no indication the district court erroneously treated the Guidelines as mandatory, it was fully appropriate for the court to base its application of the Guidelines on facts found by the judge by a preponderance of the evidence. Contrary to Trujillo’s suggestion, this well-established precedent is unaffected by the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Cunningham. In Cunningham, the Court invalidated a California statutory sentencing scheme that required the sentencing court to impose a “middle term” sentence unless the judge found additional aggravating facts. 127 S. Ct. at 860, 871. The Court explained this system violated the Sixth Amendment because the judge was granted the sole authority to find facts which were a prerequisite to the imposition of an “upper term” sentence. Id. at 870-71. In doing so, however, the Court specifically distinguished the determinate sentencing law at issue in Cunningham from the now-advisory Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which allow judges to impose any reasonable sentence within the statutory range, with or without additional -10- findings. Id. at 870. The Court reemphasized that in Booker, all justices agreed judicial factfinding would be constitutionally permissible under an advisory sentencing system. Id. at 866. Thus, C unningham does nothing more than reaffirm the holding of Booker as it relates to a mandatory sentencing scheme. It does nothing to undermine this court’s post-Booker jurisprudence or to preclude a sentencing court from engaging in judicial factfinding under the now-advisory Guidelines. See Rita v. United States, 127 S. Ct. 2456, 2465-66 (2007) (explaining judicial factfinding only violates the Sixth Amendment if the judge is forbidden from increasing a defendant’s sentence in the absence of the judge-found facts).