Opinion ID: 201656
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Sentencing Claims.

Text: 42 The defendant launches a two-pronged attack on his sentence. He argues both that his classification as a career offender was erroneous and that his sentence, viewed in light of the Supreme Court's recent decision in United States v. Booker, ___ U.S. ___, 125 S.Ct. 738, 160 L.Ed.2d 621 (2005), was infected by reversible error. We consider each claim separately. 43 1. Career Offender Status. In order to qualify as a career offender, a defendant must have at least two prior felony convictions of either a crime of violence or a controlled substance offense. USSG § 4B1.1(a). Even when a defendant has two prior felony convictions, however, the sentencing court must count them as a single prior felony if they are related. Id. §§ 4A1.2(a)(2), 4B1.2(c)(2). Prior convictions are considered related if they were consolidated for trial or sentencing. Id. § 4A1.2, cmt. n. 3(C). 44 At the time of his conviction in this case, the defendant had prior felony convictions for assault and battery on a police officer and assault with a dangerous weapon (both violent crimes). The underlying offenses occurred several months apart (one on November 2, 2000 and the other on May 29, 2001). The defendant nonetheless strives to convince us that they are related because the same state court judge disposed of both charges on the same day during the same hearing. We are not persuaded. 45 We need not tarry. This question is controlled by our decision in United States v. Correa, 114 F.3d 314 (1st Cir.1997). There, we held that when dealing with 46 offenses that are temporally and factually distinct (that is, offenses which occurred on different dates and which did not arise out of the same course of conduct), charges based thereon should not be regarded as having been consolidated (and, therefore, `related') unless the original sentencing court entered an actual order of consolidation or there is some other persuasive indicium of formal consolidation apparent on the face of the record which is sufficient to indicate that the offenses have some relationship to one another beyond the sheer fortuity that sentence was imposed by the same judge at the same time. 47 Id. at 317. 48 In the district court's view, the defendant's two prior offenses were temporally and factually distinct and the record contained no evidence of formal consolidation. Consequently, the court followed Correa and ruled that the offenses were not related. The defendant assigns error, insisting that the state court record indicates that a functional consolidation had occurred. 49 This harangue is flatly inconsistent with our holding in Correa. There, we held that, for guideline purposes, consolidation requires more than common disposition. Id. at 317. The critical datum, we said, is whether the record of the earlier sentencing(s) shows any indicia of formal consolidation, the existence of which would establish the necessary nexus between the charges. Id. at 317-18. Because the defendant does not identify either a formal order of consolidation or any other persuasive indicium of formal consolidation (such as a docket entry), his attempt to treat these two distinct offenses as one necessarily fails. 50 2. Booker Error. We turn next to the defendant's claim that Booker error tainted his sentence. This claim is cast in two forms. 51 The first iteration need not detain us. The defendant asseverates that the Sixth Amendment, as interpreted by Booker, was violated when a judge and not a jury determined the fact that his prior convictions were not related. Assuming arguendo that relatedness might be a fact that a judge could not determine pursuant to a mandatory guidelines system—a dubious proposition at best—the defendant's asseveration nonetheless must fail. Our holding in United States v. Antonakopoulos, 399 F.3d 68 (1st Cir.2005), is pellucid that the Sixth Amendment is not violated simply because a judge finds sentencing facts under the guidelines; rather, the error is only that the judge did so pursuant to a mandatory guidelines system. Id. at 75 (interpreting Booker ). 52 The second iteration of the defendant's sentencing argument embodies a conventional Booker claim. That such an error occurred cannot be gainsaid; the district court, acting before the Supreme Court decided Booker, understandably treated the guidelines as mandatory. In reviewing this error, the threshold question is whether it was preserved below. 53 The defendant proffers two reasons why we should deem the error preserved: (i) he argued in the lower court that the guideline provision permitting a downward adjustment for acceptance of responsibility, U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1, constituted an unconstitutional burden on his Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial; and (ii) the district court mused, sua sponte, that there were no Apprendi issues involved in the sentencing. See Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000). We explore these proffers. 54 In light of the unexpected nature of Booker's holding that the sentencing guidelines must be treated as advisory, we have been fairly liberal in determining what sorts of arguments sufficed to preserve claims of Booker error in pre- Booker cases. See, e.g., United States v. Heldeman, 402 F.3d 220, 224 (1st Cir.2005); Antonakopoulos, 399 F.3d at 76. We have stated that we typically will regard Booker error as preserved if the defendant below argued that a guideline application transgressed either Apprendi or Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. 296, 124 S.Ct. 2531, 159 L.Ed.2d 403 (2004), or that the Guidelines were unconstitutional. Antonakopoulos, 399 F.3d at 76. The defendant seizes on the quoted language and asserts that his argument that the acceptance of responsibility guideline was unconstitutional suffices to preserve his present (much different) claim of Booker error. We do not agree. 55 Although the language in Antonakopoulos is broad, it cannot be dislodged from its contextual moorings. The cases leading up to Booker dealt with the notion that the Sixth Amendment required jurors to determine facts that were necessary to the imposition of a certain sentence. See Booker, 125 S.Ct. at 748-50 (discussing Apprendi and Blakely ). The sentencing guidelines suffered from this flaw, but the Booker Court opted to cure it by invalidating those provisions of the Sentencing Reform Act that made the guidelines mandatory. See id. at 764-65. 56 The Antonakopoulos formulation for the preservation of claims of Booker error must be read against this background. See Antonakopoulos, 399 F.3d at 75-76. It follows that the sort of constitutional challenges sufficient to preserve claims of Booker error in pre- Booker cases must fall at least arguably within the encincture of the constitutional concerns raised in Apprendi, Blakely, and Booker. The defendant's challenge below, which posited that the acceptance of responsibility guideline impermissibly punished him for going to trial and, thus, was an unconstitutional infringement of his Sixth Amendment rights, bears no relation to the concerns raised by Apprendi, Blakely, and Booker. It follows inexorably that this challenge did not preserve the defendant's nascent Booker claim. 57 The defendant's alternate proffer fares no better. He cites United States v. Paradis, 351 F.3d 21 (1st Cir.2003), for the proposition that a party's failure to advance an issue in the district court may be excused (and, thus, the error may be deemed preserved) if the district court raises the issue on its own. See id. at 28-29. The Paradis opinion will not bear the weight that the defendant loads upon it. 58 In that case, the government failed to argue explicitly that a police officer's warrantless search was justified by the protective sweep doctrine. Id. at 28. The government had, however, cited a case in its brief that discussed the doctrine. Id. at 28 n. 6. We explained that, ordinarily, a bare citation would be insufficient to preserve an issue for appellate review but deemed the error preserved nonetheless because the district court had pounced on the citation and incorporated the cited case's discussion of the protective sweep doctrine into its ruling. Id. at 28-29 & n. 6. Paradis thus stands for the proposition that an issue suggested by a party but insufficiently developed is nonetheless preserved for appeal when the trial court, on its own initiative, seizes the issue and makes an express ruling on its merits. 59 Paradis is plainly inapposite here. During the sentencing hearing, the district judge made a prescient observation about the applicability of Apprendi to determinate sentencing schemes, but noted that his concern had no application to the case at hand. That rumination formed no part of the court's rulings or holdings, and it would blink reality were we to allow the defendant to piggyback upon the court's off-hand comment, promoted by neither party, and use it as a means of preserving his claim of Booker error. We conclude, therefore, that the defendant's claim of Booker error was not preserved. 60 Forfeited Booker errors engender plain-error review. See United States v. Vega Molina, 407 F.3d 511, 533 (1st Cir.2005); United States v. González-Mercado, 402 F.3d 294, 302 (1st Cir.2005). Consequently, the defendant must show (1) that an error occurred (2) which was clear or obvious and which not only (3) affected the defendant's substantial rights, but also (4) seriously impaired the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings. United States v. Duarte, 246 F.3d 56, 60 (1st Cir.2001). Here, the defendant has successfully negotiated the first two steps of this pavane. See Antonakopoulos, 399 F.3d at 77 (holding that the court commits a clear and obvious error whenever it sentences a defendant pursuant to a mandatory guidelines regime). He stumbles, however, at the third step. 61 In order to prove that a Booker error affected a defendant's substantial rights, the defendant must show a reasonable probability that he would have received a more lenient sentence under an advisory guidelines regime. González-Mercado, 402 F.3d at 303; Antonakopoulos, 399 F.3d at 78-79. To clear this hurdle, the defendant in this case relies upon the fact that the sentencing court, pursuant to the mandatory guidelines, was either forbidden or discouraged from taking into account several characteristics (e.g., his age and family circumstances). 62 We find the defendant's reliance misplaced. Nearly all the factors to which he alludes were limned in the PSI Report, yet the district court chose not to speak to them at sentencing. The inference is that the court was unimpressed. See United States v. Figuereo, 404 F.3d 537, 542 (1st Cir.2005). 63 The only new information proffered at the appellate level—an affidavit recounting the alleged sexual abuse of two of the defendant's siblings by another family member—seems to be in direct contradiction of his statement to the probation officer that there was no history of abuse in the family. Even in the roiled wake of Booker, we are reluctant to allow a party to profit by a calculated repudiation of a prior version of events solemnly given to a probation officer and submitted to the district court. 64 By way of explanation, the defendant's able appellate counsel makes a plausible argument that this chapter in the defendant's past was shameful to him and, thus, he did not express it given the apparent uselessness of such information for sentencing purposes. But even were we to assume arguendo that this new information is properly before us, other circumstances would stymie the defendant's efforts to justify resentencing on this basis. The district court found the defendant eligible for a downward departure based on the fact that his criminal history score substantially overstated the seriousness of his prior criminality. Yet the court declined to depart, stating: 65 [T]he record ... is that of a young man who is deeply, deeply engaged both in dealing illicit drugs, in a variety of thefts, which it appears have a significant relationship to gaining, possessing, or the threat of using firearms. And so I think you're very dangerous. And for that reason, though your prior convictions... would allow me to depart downward, the most that I think is just is to go [to the bottom of the guideline sentencing range]. 66 This passage makes clear that, despite its grave concern about the fairness of the sentencing guidelines in general—a concern that pops up repeatedly throughout the transcript of the disposition hearing— the court deemed a 210-month sentence just. Given this frank evaluation of the sentence, we do not believe there is a reasonable probability that the court would have imposed a lesser sentence had it been operating under an advisory guideline system. Cf. Antonakopoulos, 399 F.3d at 81 (stating that if the district judge has said at sentencing that he would have reached the same result regardless of the mandatory nature of the Guidelines, that is a powerful argument against remand). Accordingly, we reject the defendant's importuning that the Booker error in this case requires resentencing.