Opinion ID: 794656
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Were Coleman's Sixth Amendment Rights Violated?

Text: 18 We next turn to Coleman's argument that, because his prior convictions for drug offenses and a violent crime increased the statutory minimum penalty for his firearm offenses pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 924(e), those offenses should have been charged in the indictment and proved to the jury beyond a reasonable doubt. He contends that the Government's failure to do so violates the Sixth Amendment. 19 First, we note that the Government did charge Coleman's prior offenses in the indictment. In a Notice of Prior Convictions attached to the indictment, the grand jury further charge[d] that Coleman committed his firearm offenses after having been convicted of serious drug offenses and a violent felony in . . . Pennsylvania. The Notice then listed the five prior convictions. This does not completely dispose of Coleman's argument, however, because the Government did not prove the prior convictions to the jury beyond a reasonable doubt. As we explain below, the Government is not required to do so (indeed, it is not required to charge them in the indictment) under current Supreme Court precedent. 20 This issue is controlled by Almendarez-Torres v. United States, 523 U.S. 224, 118 S.Ct. 1219, 140 L.Ed.2d 350 (1998), which held that prior convictions that increase the statutory maximum for an offense are not elements of the offense and thus may be determined by the District Court by a preponderance of the evidence. See id. at 243, 118 S.Ct. 1219 ([R]ecidivism . . . is a traditional, if not the most traditional, basis for a sentencing court's increasing an offender's sentence.). 4 This holding was preserved in Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 490, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000) ( Other 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. (emphasis added)), and Booker, 543 U.S. at 244, 125 S.Ct. 738 (same). Moreover, we have held expressly that the Almendarez-Torres exception survived Booker and its antecedents. See United States v. Ordaz, 398 F.3d 236, 241 (3d Cir.2005) (noting a tension between the spirit of Blakely [v. Washington, 542 U.S. 296, 124 S.Ct. 2531, 159 L.Ed.2d 403 (2004),] and Booker that all facts that increase the sentence should be found by a jury and the Court's decision in Almendarez-Torres, which upholds sentences based on facts found by judges rather than juries, but concluding that [t]he holding in Almendarez-Torres remains binding law, and nothing in Blakely or Booker holds otherwise). 21 Coleman contends, however, that the Supreme Court's decision in Shepard v. United States, 544 U.S. 13, 125 S.Ct. 1254, 161 L.Ed.2d 205 (2005), decided two weeks after our decision in Ordaz, calls into question the continuing validity of Almendarez-Torres, and he urges us to rely on Shepard as authority to limit Almendarez-Torres to its facts and deem it inapplicable to his Sixth Amendment challenge. We rejected precisely this argument in a nonprecedential opinion earlier this term. See United States v. Francisco, 165 Fed.Appx. 144 (3d Cir.2006). We have reviewed the reasoning in Francisco and find it persuasive, and thus adopt it here. 22 As we noted in Francisco, Shepard concerned whether a prior burglary conviction was a violent felony that triggered the enhanced statutory minimum under 18 U.S.C. § 924(e). The Supreme Court held that, in determining whether the burglary was a violent felony, the sentencing court had to rely on charging documents, elements of offenses, plea colloquies, and express findings by the trial judge, and could not look to police reports or complaint applications. Shepard, 544 U.S. at 16, 25-26, 125 S.Ct. 1254. A plurality of the Court held that, in a state where the statutory definition of burglary is limited to the elements of generic burglary, 4 a judicial finding of a disputed prior conviction is made on the authority of Almendarez-Torres. Id. at 25, 125 S.Ct. 1254. The plurality contrasted this to states where the statutory definition of burglary encompasses more than the generic offense. In these situations, considering sources like police reports or complaints to determine whether the burglary at issue is nonetheless generic would be too far removed from the conclusive significance of a prior judicial record, and too much like the findings subject to Jones[ v. United States, 526 U.S. 227, 119 S.Ct. 1215, 143 L.Ed.2d 311 (1999)] 5 and Apprendi, to say that Almendarez-Torres clearly authorizes a judge to resolve the dispute. Id. 23 In dissent, Justice O'Connor, joined by Justices Kennedy and Breyer, worried that today's decision reads Apprendi to cast a shadow possibly implicating recidivism determinations, which until now had been safe from such formalism. Id. at 37, 125 S.Ct. 1254 (O'Connor, J., dissenting). Justice Thomas, who criticized the Almendarez-Torres exception in his concurring opinion in Apprendi, see 530 U.S. at 520-21, 120 S.Ct. 2348 (Thomas, J., concurring), repeated his view that  Almendarez-Torres . . . has been eroded by this Court's subsequent Sixth Amendment jurisprudence, and a majority of the Court now recognizes that Almendarez-Torres was wrongly decided. The parties do not request it here, but in an appropriate case, this Court should consider Almendarez-Torres' continuing viability. Shepard, 544 U.S. at 27-28, 125 S.Ct. 1254 (Thomas, J., concurring) (citations omitted). The plurality simply stated that [i]t is up to the future to show whether the dissent is good prophesy with regard to the continuing viability of Almendarez-Torres. Id. at 26 n. 5, 125 S.Ct. 1254. Our observation in Francisco is apt: 24 The various opinions in Shepard appear to agree on one thing: the door is open for the Court one day to limit or overrule Almendarez-Torres. But that day has not yet come, and we are well aware of the Supreme Court's admonition that `[i]f a precedent of [the Supreme] Court has direct application in a case, yet appears to rest on reasons rejected in some other line of decisions, the Court of Appeals should follow the case which directly controls, leaving to [the Supreme] Court the prerogative of overruling its own decisions.' 25 Francisco, 165 Fed.Appx. at 148 (quoting Agostini v. Felton, 521 U.S. 203, 237, 117 S.Ct. 1997, 138 L.Ed.2d 391 (1997)). Therefore, we hold that Shepard did not affect the continuing validity of Almendarez-Torres, and we join the other Circuit Courts that have held likewise. See, e.g., United States v. Childs, 403 F.3d 970, 972 (8th Cir.2005); United States v. Schlifer, 403 F.3d 849, 852 (7th Cir.2005); United States v. Moore, 401 F.3d 1220, 1224 (10th Cir.2005). 26