Court Opinion

ID: 9614246
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:23:45.5337+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:03:34.550218
License: Public Domain

Justice HUDSON
concurring in part and concurring in result in part.
I agree with the majority’s analysis of the sufficiency of the evidence issue and with its conclusion that the trial court has discretion to weigh each aggravator separately against the mitigating factors. However, I do not believe that defense counsel’s stipulation that defendant was on pretrial release at the time of the offense was an adequate admission under Blakely. However, because of the stipulation, I conclude that the Blakely error is harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Thus, I concur in the result on this issue.
The State concedes Blakely error as to three of the four sentencing factors. The State argues that as to the fourth, that defendant was on pretrial release at the time of these offenses, defendant “admitted” the facts. The majority agrees and affirms defendant’s sentence on that basis.
It is undisputed that the trial court found all of the aggravating factors without submitting them to a jury. The State argued before the Court of Appeals, as it does here, that defendant is not entitled to relief under Blakely because defendant admitted the underlying facts supporting the aggravating factor. The State points for support to the following colloquy:
[Defense Counsel]: I just want you to know that in considering— the other charges, Your Honor, were pending at the time. He was on pre-trial release at the time—
*660[Assistant District Attorney]: So you stipulate that he was out on bond on those five charges?
[Defense Counsel]: Yes.
The trial court found as an aggravating factor that defendant committed the offense while on pretrial release on another charge. The Court of Appeals held that defendant did not effectively admit or stipulate to this aggravating factor so as to except it from the Sixth Amendment protection of Blakely.
I am not persuaded that any federal court, Fourth Circuit or elsewhere, has held that defense counsel’s stipulation to a fact, in the absence of any indication of defendant’s personal agreement or even awareness of same, qualifies as an admission for Blakely or Booker purposes. See United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 160 L. Ed. 2d 621 (2005) (applying. Blakely to federal sentencing guidelines). Indeed, my research has found no casé in which any federal court has so held when, as here, defendant neither pleaded guilty, personally addressed the court, nor conferred with counsel about the stipulated fact. In United States v. Revels, the Fourth Circuit recently described the analysis it applied in order to decide if facts were “admitted” by the defendant:
In assessing whether a defendant has made an admission for Booker purposes, verbalizations necessarily fall along a spectrum. On one end of the spectrum are statements such as “I admit,” or the functional equivalent thereof. These are clearly admissions under Booker. See, e.g., United States v. Morrisette, 429 F.3d 318, 323 (1st Cir. 2005) (defendant admitted facts where, inter alia, he and his counsel “both conceded the accuracy of the prosecution’s recitation of the facts relevant to the offense”); Devono, 413 F.3d at 805 (defendant admitted facts where, inter alia, defense counsel stated “ ‘we believe[] that the facts [in the PSR] are true’ ”). On the other end of the spectrum is silence. In United States v. Milam, 443 F.3d 382, 2006 U.S. App. LEXIS 8310, *13, No. 04-4224, slip op. at 8 (4th Cir. Apr. 6, 2006), we held that a defendant’s failure to object to facts in his PSR did not constitute a Booker admission. In Milam, the defendant “stood silent when the court adopted the finding” that enhanced his sentence, and we explained that “to presume, infer, or deem a fact admitted because the defendant has remained silent... is contrary to the Sixth Amendment.” Id.
*661455 F.3d 448, 450-51 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, -U.S. —, 127 S. Ct. 299, 166 L. Ed. 2d 226 (2006). The majority here refers to the “complete silence of both defendant and defense counsel mentioned in Revels” as supporting the application of that case. My reading of Revels does not reveal silence by defendant or counsel. To the contrary, in its opinion, the Fourth Circuit noted that “Revels testified that he had read the PSR [pre-sentencing report] and discussed it with his lawyer.” Id. at 449. Thereafter, the judge asked defendant directly if he had objections to anything contained in or left out of the report, and he responded, “No, sir.” Id. at 450. Even so, the court in Revels found Sixth Amendment error, but ultimately deemed it harmless. The Fourth Circuit recently reaffirmed the importance of assessing admissions on the Revels spectrum for Booker (and thus Blakely) purposes. United States v. Britt, 216 F. App’x 317, 321 (4th Cir. 2007) (unpublished) (holding that the statement of defense counsel that all objections to a pre-sentencing report had been “resolved” was not an admission for Booker purposes because it requires the court to draw inferences about “facts admitted by the defendant”).
On the Revels spectrum, this case appears closer to Milam than to Morrisette in that here, the defendant personally said nothing, and the record does not show that he discussed the aggravating factor with his attorney. The court in Revels noted that “ ‘to presume, infer, or deem a fact admitted because the defendant has remained silent... is contrary to the Sixth Amendment.’ ” 455 F.3d at 451 (quoting United States v. Milam, 443 F.3d at 387). Thus, I conclude that as in Milam and Revels, there was Sixth Amendment error.
Nor is the majority’s conclusion here compelled by this Court’s recent decision in State v. Hurt, 361 N.C. 325, 643 S.E.2d 915 (2007). In Hurt, we held that comments by counsel in his argument during defendant’s sentencing hearing were not binding on the defendant as an admission of an aggravating factor for Blakely purposes. Id. at 330, 643 S.E.2d at 918. There, we acknowledged that admissions through counsel can have binding effect in certain circumstances. Although there may be circumstances in which counsel may bind the defendant to a stipulated fact as an admission for Blakely purposes, this record is not clear enough for me to agree that it does so here.
As noted above, the State concedes Blakely error on three of the four aggravating factors. Because I do not agree that on this record counsel’s stipulation coupled with defendant’s silence constituted an admission of the fourth factor, I would find Blakely error on all four *662aggravating factors. However, because the stipulation establishes a' basis for the aggravating factor at issue here, I conclude that the error is harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Thus, I would affirm defendant’s convictions and his sentence.