Opinion ID: 169729
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Calculation of Crim inal H istory Category

Text: Trujillo first argues the district court erred in calculating his criminal history category. He contends the assessment of six criminal history points and a criminal history category of III was improper. Specifically, he asserts the assignment of any criminal history category other than I w as a violation of both Shepard v. United States, 544 U.S. 13 (2005), and United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005). W hile Trujillo does little to develop this argument, this court construes it as a challenge to the district court’s use of documents other than those explicitly approved in Shepard to establish the existence of Trujillo’s prior convictions for purposes of calculating his advisory guideline range. -7- Alternatively, it may be construed as an argument that the existence of prior convictions must be admitted by a defendant or found by a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. Each of these arguments is foreclosed by circuit precedent. In Shepard, the Supreme Court explained that in determining whether a prior conviction may be characterized as a violent felony for purposes of the Armed Career Criminal Act, a court may consider only “the statutory definition, charging document, written plea agreement, transcript of plea colloquy, and any explicit factual finding by the trial judge to which the defendant assented.” 544 U.S. at 16. This court, however, has twice held that this same limitation does not apply when determining “the fact of a prior conviction” for purposes of calculating a defendant’s criminal history category. United States v. Townley, 472 F.3d 1267, 1277 (10th Cir. 2007) (quotation omitted); United States v. Zuniga-Chavez, 464 F.3d 1199, 1204 (10th Cir. 2006). Rather, in this context, the court may consider any relevant information, “provided that the information has sufficient indicia of reliability to support its probable accuracy.” Zuniga-Chavez, 464 F.3d at 1203 (quoting USSG § 6A1.3(a)). Because Trujillo did not dispute the reliability of the electronic records relied on by the district court, the district court did not err in using these records to establish Trujillo’s prior convictions. See Townley, 472 F.3d at 1277 (concluding records from the National Crime Information Center Database were sufficient to establish the existence of the prior convictions where appellant did not present any contradictory evidence). -8- Nor can Trujillo prevail on an argument that Shepard and Booker preclude a sentencing court from calculating a defendant’s criminal history score based on its own judicial factfinding as to the defendant’s prior convictions. In addition to the more general precedent discussed below, which permits a judge to find sentencing facts by a preponderance of the evidence, this court has recently reiterated that the fact of a prior conviction need not be charged in an indictment or found by a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. United States v. M oore, 401 F.3d 1220, 1224 (10th Cir. 2005); see also Almendarez-Torres v. United States, 523 U.S. 224, 226-27 (1998). This court has repeatedly emphasized that nothing in Booker or Shepard has disturbed this well-settled rule. United States v. William s, 403 F.3d 1188, 1198 (10th Cir. 2005); M oore, 401 F.3d at 1223-24. Although these cases each addressed prior convictions for purposes of the Armed Career Criminal Act, their rationale applies with equal, if not greater, force in the context of the Sentencing Guidelines, where the prior convictions are not used to increase a sentence beyond the otherwise applicable statutory maximum.