Court Opinion

ID: 9480398
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:47:03.372949+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:47:40.130161
License: Public Domain

WOLLMAN, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
The district court correctly held that it was required under the Guidelines to make its own determination regarding the presence of the gun. We have held time and time again that we will not reverse a district court's finding that the defendant possessed a firearm within the meaning of Guideline § 2Dl.l(b)(l) unless the finding is clearly erroneous. See, e.g., United States v. Luster, 896 F.2d 1122 (8th Cir.1990). Under the majority opinion’s analysis, if the government wants to play Hide-the-Gun the district court is bound by the government’s concession, no matter what the facts reveal. This is a remarkable limitation upon the district court’s authority under the Guidelines, all the more remarkable in view of our willingness to blink the Guidelines’ specific limitations upon the district court’s discretion in departing downward from a guideline-required sentence. See United States v. Big Crow, 898 F.2d 1326 (8th Cir.1990).
We have held that a stipulation on the part of the government that a defendant has accepted responsibility for his offense is not binding upon the district court, the ultimate responsibility for determining whether a defendant is entitled to a sentence reduction for acceptance of responsibility resting upon the sentencing court. See United States v. Cardenas, 896 F.2d 317 (8th Cir.1990); United States v. Nunley, 873 F.2d 182 (8th Cir.1989). I would hold that the corresponding ultimate responsibility for determining whether a firearm was possessed during the commission of an offense is similarly placed with the sentencing court. What the majority opinion has done is to rewrite the Guidelines in the manner in which the majority wishes they had been drafted; that is, to require that the government prove as an element of the offense the collateral facts that bear only upon the sentence. Perhaps this should be the law; but as I read the Guidelines, it is not what is required of the government.
In any event, the sentence should be affirmed on the ground that the district court made it crystal clear (at least to me) that it would have imposed the same sentence had it adopted the offense level suggested by defense counsel. That being the case, a remand for resentencing is both unnecessary and useless.