Opinion ID: 76925
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Amount of Plants Attributable to Alberto Artires

Text: 62 Alberto Artires appeals the district court's factual determination at sentencing that he was responsible for 312 marijuana plants when the jury specifically found in a special interrogatory verdict that he was not responsible for more than 100 marijuana plants. The district court's factual finding was based on evidence presented at trial and proven to the court's satisfaction by a preponderance of the evidence at the sentencing. 63 Alberto Artires has adequately preserved this claim. He clearly raised this Apprendi -type constitutional claim in his objections to the Pre-sentence Investigation Report and at sentencing. He then raised this constitutional claim again in his initial brief, and, in his supplemental brief, he specifically challenged this factual finding by the district court in light of Blakely v. Washington, ___ U.S. ___, 124 S.Ct. 2531, 159 L.Ed.2d 403 (2004). At no point has the government argued that either plain error or harmless error review should apply to this claims. In fact, at oral argument, the government conceded that if the Supreme Court's decision in Booker was consistent with its Blakely decision, then Artires's Apprendi -type constitutional arguments are valid. 64 In United States v. Booker, ___ U.S. ___, 125 S.Ct. 738, 160 L.Ed.2d 621 (2005), the Supreme Court held that the Sixth Amendment as construed in Blakely v. Washington, ___ U.S. ___, 124 S.Ct. 2531, 159 L.Ed.2d 403 (2004), applies to the federal sentencing guidelines, and, consequently, held that the federal sentencing guidelines are effectively advisory. This constitutional holding means that it is no longer possible to maintain the judicial factfinding that Congress thought would underpin the mandatory Guidelines system that it sought to create. Booker, 125 S.Ct. at 757 (Breyer, J.). As in Booker, the district court in this case applied the Guidelines as written and imposed a sentence higher than the maximum authorized solely by the jury's verdict. Booker, 125 S.Ct. at 769 (Breyer, J.). Therefore, like Booker's sentence, Alberto Artires' sentence violates the Sixth Amendment. Consistent with the Supreme Court's remand in Booker, we vacate the judgment of Alberto Artires and remand for resentencing. See, e.g., United States v. Reese, 397 F.3d 1337, 1338 (11th Cir.2005) (remanding a preserved error in light of Booker ).