Opinion ID: 699628
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The District Court Permissibly Considered Drug-Related Evidence

Text: 24 Although we hold that a conviction is not required for a section 2T1.3 enhancement, Karterman's sentence enhancement clearly may not be based on conduct of which he has been acquitted, or on facts necessarily rejected by [the jury's] acquittal. See United States v. Pinkney, 15 F.3d 825, 829 (9th Cir.1994); United States v. Brady, 928 F.2d 844, 851-52 (9th Cir.1991). 25 On count 4, Karterman was acquitted of conspiring to distribute cocaine from a date unknown, but no later than January, 1987 and continuing until July 12, 1988. On count 5, he was acquitted of distributing cocaine to Roxanne Martin on or about June 8, 1988. Karterman argues that these acquittals mean that the jury necessarily rejected his involvement in any drug distribution. As his counsel clarified at oral argument, Karterman asks us to hold that a jury's acquittal on a conspiracy charge means that the jury necessarily rejected the substantive conduct underlying the charge during the life of the conspiracy. In Karterman's case, this would mean that the jury necessarily rejected all evidence of Karterman's drug distribution activities because Karterman was acquitted on a conspiracy charge with an unspecified beginning date. 26 Karterman is arguing for a much broader definition of necessarily rejected facts than the definition established by prior cases. In Pinkney, for example, we vacated a sentence where the lower court had enhanced Pinkney's sentence based on his possession of a firearm, even though the jury had acquitted Pinkney of armed robbery and had convicted him only of robbery. 15 F.3d at 826, 828-29. Similarly, in Brady, we reversed where the lower court had increased Brady's sentence based on his intent to kill his victims, even though the jury had acquitted Brady of murder (which required proof of his intent) and had convicted him of voluntary manslaughter (which did not). 928 F.2d at 850-52. 27 In those prior cases, the jury's acquittal on one charge, and conviction on the lesser included charge, allowed us to conclude with certainty that the jury had necessarily rejected the additional element upon which the sentencing judge later enhanced the defendant's sentence. Here, by contrast, we cannot tell what facts or evidence the jury rejected when it acquitted Karterman on counts 4 and 5. The jury could have reached its verdicts (convicting on the false tax return counts and acquitting on the drug conspiracy count) for a variety of reasons. For example, the jury might have accepted all the evidence of Karterman's drug distribution activity but acquitted him of conspiracy because it rejected the evidence that Karterman had an agreement with another. See United States v. Garza, 980 F.2d 546, 552 (9th Cir.1992) (one element of conspiracy is an agreement to accomplish an illegal objective). Or, the jury might have believed that a conspiracy to distribute drugs existed prior to 1987 but acquitted Karterman because the government did not show that the conspiracy continued into the time frame charged (January 1987 to July 12, 1988). These various possibilities demonstrate that the jury did not necessarily reject Karterman's involvement in the substantive conduct underlying the conspiracy charge--i.e., drug trafficking. 28 Thus, Karterman's case does not fit within the narrow definition of necessarily rejected facts established by Brady and subsequent cases. For the following reasons, we decline Karterman's invitation to read Brady's necessarily rejected language more broadly. First, that language was written narrowly, precluding consideration only of necessarily rejected facts, 928 F.2d at 851, not facts that were possibly rejected or even probably rejected. 29 Second, a narrow interpretation is most consistent with the policy goals of the Guidelines, as described by the Brady court. In Brady, we acknowledged that the Guidelines generally permit a sentencing judge to consider evidence of conduct that was not proven beyond a reasonable doubt at trial. 928 F.2d at 851 (citing U.S.S.G. Sec. 1B1.3(a)). This court has explained elsewhere that allowing consideration, for sentencing purposes, of conduct that was not charged or was not proven at trial is consistent with the Guidelines' overall sentencing scheme and purpose. See, e.g., Restrepo I, 903 F.2d at 653 (allowing sentencing court to add amounts of drugs involved in counts for which defendant was not charged reflects the balance struck by the Sentencing Commission between a 'real offense' sentencing system--one that takes into account the defendant's real conduct, rather than simply the conduct for which he or she is charged--and a 'charge offense' system, under which only the conduct of which the defendant is charged may be taken into account at sentencing). 30 We recognized in Brady, however, that if we interpreted the Guidelines to mean that sentencing courts could consider, without restriction, any facts not proven at trial, we would undermine the Guidelines in a different way, because we would allow judges to circumvent the Guidelines' sentencing grid. That is why, in that case, we refused to allow a sentencing court to sentence defendants for offenses or based on facts that the jury had already rejected: 31 The Guidelines recognize that voluntary manslaughter is to be punished less severely than murder by setting a lower base offense level for voluntary manslaughter than for murder. A sentencing court should not be allowed to circumvent this statutory directive by making a finding of fact--under any standard of proof--that the jury has necessarily rejected by its judgment of acquittal [on the murder charge]. 32 928 F.2d at 851. Thus, we recognized in Brady that under certain circumstances, we would have to impinge upon the Guidelines' general policy of allowing a sentencing court the discretion to consider conduct not proven at trial, in order to protect a second policy of the Guidelines, i.e., ensuring adherence to a uniform sentencing framework. 33 In this case, however, we are not presented with the same clear conflict between two of the Guidelines' policies. Where, as here, the jury's verdict does not clearly indicate its rejection of the facts underlying the sentencing judge's enhancement, the enhancement is not a circumvention of the Guidelines' sentencing grid. Accordingly, the Guidelines' policy of generally allowing sentencing judges to consider evidence not charged or proven at trial is implicated more strongly than the policy of ensuring adherence to the sentencing grid, and the former policy should prevail. Interpreting Brady's necessarily rejected language narrowly ensures that sentencing judges generally retain the discretion, as authorized by the Guidelines, to consider conduct not proven at trial, except in those situations where the exercise of such discretion would circumvent the Guidelines. 34