Opinion ID: 745414
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Charles T. Howland, Jr.

Text: 14 Howland pled guilty to conspiracy to distribute marijuana, to attempt to possess with intent to distribute marijuana, to possession with intent to distribute marijuana and to using and carrying a firearm during and in relation to a drug trafficking crime. Before he was sentenced, Howland made a motion to withdraw his guilty plea on the firearm count, in response to Bailey, --- U.S. ----, 116 S.Ct. 501, 133 L.Ed.2d 472. Howland now appeals the district court's denial of that motion as well as the district court's calculation of his relevant conduct for sentencing and his status as a career offender.
15 Howland pled guilty on July 20, 1995. On December 6, 1995 the Supreme Court issued Bailey, --- U.S. ----, 116 S.Ct. 501, 133 L.Ed.2d 472, which defined the term use in 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) narrowly. On December 13, Howland requested leave to withdraw his guilty plea on the firearm count. The district court denied his motion, finding that he admitted facts which support an 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) conviction even after Bailey. In our review of a denial of a motion to withdraw a guilty plea, we rely on Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 32(d), which provides that a court may permit withdrawal of a guilty plea before sentencing upon a showing by the defendant of any fair and just reason. Fed.R.Crim.P. 32(d). The decision of whether to permit a plea withdrawal rests within the [court's] ... discretion ... and we will reverse ... only upon a showing of an abuse of that discretion. United States v. Messino, 55 F.3d 1241, 1247 (7th Cir.1995). By pleading, Howland waived any challenge to the facts to which he pled. See United States v. Walton, 36 F.3d 32, 34 (7th Cir.1994). What Howland now argues is that after Bailey the facts to which he pled no longer support a conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c). The district court disagreed. Since our review of the plea hearing does not indicate an abuse of discretion, we affirm. 16 Under Bailey, the term use in 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) requires active employment of a firearm. Active employment includes, among other things, displaying a gun, brandishing a gun, bartering a gun for drugs, firing a gun or striking someone with it or referring to a gun during a drug transaction. Possession alone cannot satisfy the use requirement under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c). Thus, if Howland admitted to facts which constitute use after Bailey, there was no abuse of discretion in denying his motion to withdraw his plea even though the legal requirements had changed. The district court found that at the plea hearing the government had proffered, as the factual basis of the plea, evidence constituting an 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) violation under Bailey. The court reviewed the factual basis of the plea indicating that: 17 the evidence would show that during the course of Mr. Poe's transactions in marijuana he was usually armed with a Derringer, over and under Derringer, a loaded Derringer, and that on one occasion with some [other] individuals who had brought marijuana to a location ... where the marijuana was broken up and stored and paid for, that as Mr. Poe and the [others] sat around and ... that ... Hector Solares, Junior, complained that he was the only one who didn't have a gun. Mr. Poe tossed him his Derringer and [Solares] proceeded to fire the Derringer. 18 Transcript, April 29, 1996, at 14-15. Thus, despite the interim change in the law, the factual basis for the plea supports the conviction. While Howland himself may not have used a weapon, other members of the conspiracy did, and that use was foreseeable to Howland. It was not error for the district court to refuse to allow Howland to withdraw his guilty plea.
19 While determining the appropriate sentence for Howland, the district court found him to be a career offender under the Guidelines because he had been at least twice previously convicted of felonies. Howland was convicted of three related burglaries at the age of seventeen. Howland believes that under U.S.S.G. § 4A1.2, commentary n. 7, only the third conviction can count toward career offender status. The district court found that both the second and the third convictions count. In this connection, note 7 reads: 20 Offenses Committed Prior to Age Eighteen....[F]or offenses committed prior to age eighteen, only those that resulted in adult sentences of imprisonment exceeding one year and one month, or resulted in imposition of an adult or juvenile sentence or release from confinement on that sentence within five years of the defendant's commencement of the instant offense are counted. 21 Howland believes that possible good time reductions in his sentences should be used to calculate his earliest possible release date. His first conviction carried a sentence of three years which could have been served in as few as 15 months. His second conviction, with a sentence of five years, could have been served in 27 months. These early, theoretical release dates would have been more than five years before the present activity. Howland reads the commentary to say that such offenses do not count towards career offender status. (He does not dispute the applicability of his third conviction.) 22 Whatever the merits of Howland's argument, his theoretical release dates were just that, since he served the full terms of his sentences. Finally, Howland fails to recognize the importance of the or in note seven. All of Howland's juvenile convictions resulted in adult sentences of imprisonment exceeding one year and one month. U.S.S.G. § 4A1.2, commentary n. 7. Thus, all of Howland's convictions should be counted. Because the convictions count, Howland must look to the language of the guideline itself, which states that any sentence of imprisonment exceeding one year and one month imposed within fifteen years of the defendant's commencement of the instant offense is counted. U.S.S.G. § 4A1.2. On the other hand, the five year term in note seven refers only to juvenile sentences of less than one year and one month which were imposed or which were completely served within five years of commencement of the subsequent crime. Therefore the district court correctly applied career offender status to Howland.
23 Finally, Howland argues that the relevant conduct attributed to him by the district court is erroneous because he was not allowed to cross-examine any of the witnesses against him. Howland pled guilty without a plea agreement. After his coconspirators were tried and convicted, Howland was sentenced using the amounts of marijuana the government proved at trial. While Howland would like to limit his relevant conduct to those amounts he admitted to, he did not strike such a bargain with the prosecution and, as we have repeatedly declared, a conspirator is responsible for the amount of drugs with which co-conspirators have trafficked, provided this quantity is reasonably foreseeable to him. The marijuana his coconspirators dealt in was reasonably foreseeable to Howland. The district court made a conservative estimate of those amounts and attributed them to Howland. This was not clearly erroneous. 24