UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 04-5094
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
versus
JOHN ASTRIN MATTHEWS,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
South Carolina, at Florence. Terry L. Wooten, District Judge.
(CR-04-143)
Submitted: October 12, 2005 Decided: January 30, 2006
Before NIEMEYER and MOTZ, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior
Circuit Judge.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Michael A. Meetze, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Florence,
South Carolina, for Appellant. Jonathan S. Gasser, Acting United
States Attorney, Rose Mary Parham, Assistant United States
Attorney, Florence, South Carolina, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
See Local Rule 36(c).
PER CURIAM:
John Astrin Matthews appeals his 186-month sentence
entered pursuant to his guilty plea to possession of a firearm by
a convicted felon. Matthews contends that his sentence is
erroneous in light of United States v. Booker, 125 S. Ct. 738
(2005). We affirm.
Matthews first argues that his enhancement for possession
of a stolen firearm and his classification as an armed career
criminal violated the Sixth Amendment. Because he raised this
claim below, review is de novo. See United States v. Mackins, 315
F.3d 399, 405 (4th Cir. 2003). When a defendant preserves a Sixth
Amendment error, this court “must reverse unless [it] find[s] this
constitutional error harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, with the
Government bearing the burden of proving harmlessness.” Id.
In Booker, the Supreme Court held that the mandatory
manner in which the federal sentencing guidelines required courts
to impose sentencing enhancements based on facts found by the court
by a preponderance of the evidence violated the Sixth Amendment.
125 S. Ct. at 746, 750. The Court remedied the constitutional
violation by severing two statutory provisions, thereby making the
guidelines advisory. Id. at 756-67. In the wake of Booker, we
have held that, for prisoners sentenced pre-Booker under the
mandatory guidelines scheme, it is error to impose a sentence
exceeding the maximum allowed based only on the facts admitted or
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found by a jury. United States v. Hughes, 401 F.3d 540, 547 (4th
Cir. 2005). This holding is subject to an exception for prior
convictions, which need not be either admitted or proven beyond a
reasonable doubt in order to be used to enhance a sentence. See
Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 490 (2000).
With regard to his treatment as an armed career criminal,
Matthews asserts that, even in the face of Apprendi, the district
court made an unconstitutional factual finding that his prior
convictions were either violent felonies or controlled substance
offenses. He relies, in part, on Shepard v. United States, 125 S.
Ct. 1254, 1262-63 (2005), in which the Supreme Court held that
Sixth Amendment protections apply to disputed facts about a prior
conviction that are not evident from “the conclusive significance
of a prior judicial record.”
However, the facts relied upon by the district court here
are facts of, not about, Matthews’s prior convictions. A court may
look to “the statutory definitions of the prior offenses” to
determine whether a defendant has been convicted of “a violent
felony or a serious drug offense” under 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(1).
Taylor v. United States, 495 U.S. 575, 600 (1990). Matthews has
convictions for aggravated assault with a weapon, threatening the
life of a public official, possession of cocaine with intent to
deliver, and second degree burglary, which South Carolina law
defines as “enter[ing] a dwelling without consent and with intent
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to commit a crime therein.” S.C. Code Ann. § 16-11-312. The
“statutory definitions” of Matthews’s “prior offenses” thus clearly
qualify him as an armed career criminal.
Matthews also asserts that the district court violated
the Sixth Amendment by enhancing his sentence for possession of a
stolen firearm. However, even if the district court’s finding that
Matthews possessed a stolen firearm constituted improper judicial
fact-finding for Booker purposes, this enhancement did not affect
Matthews’s sentence, as his armed career criminal status alone
determined his offense level. See U.S. Sentencing Guidelines
Manual § 4B1.4(b)(3) (2003). Thus, any Sixth Amendment error was
harmless.
Finally, Matthews contends that the district court erred
by treating the guidelines as mandatory, rather than advisory, as
Booker requires. Sentencing under a mandatory regime is “a
separate class of error . . . distinct from the Sixth Amendment
claim that gave rise to the decision in Booker.” Hughes, 401 F.3d
at 553. In United States v. White, 405 F.3d 208, 217-22 (4th Cir.
2005), we held that, although treating the guidelines as mandatory
was plain error, prejudice could not be presumed. Here, while the
district court clearly erred in sentencing Matthews under the
mandatory guidelines scheme, we hold for the following reasons that
the Government demonstrated that any error was harmless. See
United States v. Stokes, 261 F.3d 496, 499 (4th Cir. 2001) (during
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harmless error review, Government must show that the error did not
actually affect the outcome of the proceedings).
First, the district court did not sentence Matthews to
the lowest end of the guideline range. While the court could have
given Matthews a lower sentence, even under the mandatory
guidelines scheme, it chose not to. Second, the district court
explicitly noted that, even if the guidelines were advisory, it
would impose the same sentence in accordance with 18 U.S.C.A.
§ 3553 (West 2000 & Supp. 2005). Thus, the Government has shown
beyond a reasonable doubt that Matthews would not receive a shorter
sentence under an advisory guideline system.
Based on the foregoing, we affirm Matthews’s sentence.
We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal
contentions are adequately presented in the materials before the
court and argument would not aid the decisional process.
AFFIRMED
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