Opinion ID: 3036321
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: other contentions on appeal

Text: Bad Marriage’s other contentions may be readily disposed of. He contends first that the retroactive application of Booker to increase his sentence for a pre-Booker offense violates the Ex Post Facto clause of the Constitution. We squarely rejected this claim in United States v. Dupas, 419 F.3d 916 (9th Cir. 2005), for three reasons: the Booker opinion specifically makes the advisory Guidelines regime applicable to pending cases; retroactive sentence enhancements, as opposed to retroactive increases in the scope of criminal liability, do not offend the ex post facto prohibition; and although application of Booker could result in an increased sentence, the statutory maximum penalty gave sufficient notice to satisfy due process. Id. at 920-21. [5] Next, Bad Marriage contends that the sentence was unreasonable. He relies on the court’s statement in Bad Marriage I that it found “nothing in the record to suggest that the standard range set by the Sentencing Guidelines would be an inadequate deterrent.” Id. at 1113. That statement is not helpful to Bad Marriage. It referred to the calculation of the appropriate criminal history category. As previously discussed, Bad Marriage I decided that an upward adjustment of the criminal history category was not justified; it did not decide the appropriate sentencing range. The district court followed the proper 3 Several decisions have reached the same conclusion. See, e.g., United States v. Puche, No. 05-10033, 2005 WL 3113463, at  (11th Cir. Nov. 22, 2005) (unpublished); United States v. Butler, 139 F. App’x 510, 512 (4th Cir. 2005) (unpublished). See also United States v. Lang, 405 F.3d 1060, 1064 (10th Cir. 2005) (published) (stating that the Blakely decision might constitute an exceptional circumstance for purposes of the mandate rule). 1908 UNITED STATES v. BAD MARRIAGE procedure in arriving at its sentence, taking into account the Guidelines and considering the § 3553 factors, in particular “the seriousness of the offense,” § 3553(a)(2)(A) (noting the brutality of the assault on a defenseless person), and the need “to protect the public from further crimes of the defendant.” § 3553(a)(2)(C). While we recognize that the sentence is above the advisory Guidelines range, that alone, without a factual showing, is insufficient to make it unreasonable. [6] Finally, Bad Marriage contends that the imposition of the longer sentence following his successful appeal raises a presumption of vindictiveness. He argues that the presumption applies here because the district court in increasing the sentence did not rely on any new or additional evidence. But the presumption applies only when “there is a ‘reasonable likelihood’ that the increase in sentence is the product of actual vindictiveness on the part of the sentencing authority.” Alabama v. Smith, 490 U.S. 794, 799 (1989) (internal citation omitted). It is overcome when “the reasons for [imposition of a more severe sentence] affirmatively appear.” Id. at 798 (quoting North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U.S. 711, 726 (1969)). Those reasons affirmatively appear here. When the district court imposed the original sentence, it was constrained by the mandatory Guidelines. At resentencing, as the court explained, that constraint had been removed freeing it to use its discretion to impose a sentence it deemed appropriate. Its reasons for the particular sentence are fully explained on the record. We conclude that the change in circumstances together with the court’s explanation for its sentence suffice to remove any taint of vindictiveness.