UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 08-4777
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff – Appellee,
v.
FURMAN BENJAMIN QUATTLEBAUM,
Defendant – Appellant,
and
RANDY MARTIN; LUTHER BRYAN; ALISIA H. AKBAR; LACARIA BROWN;
GEORGEAN MCCONNELL; GUSSIE D. NOLLKAMPER; FLORENCE
NOLLKAMPER; CHRISTOPHER M. MORRIS; LAVACA COUNTY TEXAS;
JOSEPH E. MCCONNELL; JOHN M. WARTHER; WELLS FARGO HOME
MORTGAGE, INCORPORATED; CHERYL L. AMAKER; DONNA C. ADKINS;
CHASE MANHATTAN MORTGAGE CORPORATION,
Parties-in-Interest.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
South Carolina, at Columbia. Cameron McGowan Currie, District
Judge. (3:02-cr-00548-CMC-17)
Submitted: April 6, 2011 Decided: April 12, 2011
Before NIEMEYER and DUNCAN, Circuit Judges, and John Preston
BAILEY, Chief United States District Judge for the Northern
District of West Virginia, sitting by designation.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
James A. Brown, Jr., LAW OFFICES OF JIM BROWN, Beaufort, South
Carolina, for Appellant. William N. Nettles, United States
Attorney, Jane B. Taylor, Assistant United States Attorney,
Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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PER CURIAM:
Furman Benjamin Quattlebaum was convicted by a jury of
conspiracy to distribute five kilograms or more of cocaine and
fifty grams or more of cocaine base, in violation of 21 U.S.C.
§§ 841(a)(1), 846 (2006), and was sentenced to life in prison.
Quattlebaum appealed, challenging his conviction and sentence.
We affirmed Quattlebaum’s conviction and rejected claims
relating to his sentence, but because he was sentenced under the
then-mandatory Sentencing Guidelines, vacated and remanded for
resentencing under United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005).
See United States v. Davis, 270 F. App’x 236 (4th Cir.
March 17, 2008) (unpublished) (“Davis I”).
On remand, the district court imposed a 300-month
variant sentence and Quattlebaum timely appealed. Quattlebaum
asserts that the district court erred when it calculated his
Guidelines range on remand because, according to Quattlebaum,
the district court was required to apply the 2007 Amendments to
U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual § 2D1.1 cmt. 10(D) (2008)
(setting forth method for determining base offense level in
offenses involving cocaine base and other controlled
substances). Quattlebaum also asserts that defense counsel
rendered ineffective assistance when he failed to object to the
district court’s allegedly improper Guidelines range calculation
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on remand. Finding no error, we affirm the district court’s
judgment.
We find that any arguments pertaining to the
calculation of Quattlebaum’s Guidelines range are barred from
this court’s consideration under the mandate rule; Quattlebaum
either previously raised his objections at his original
sentencing and on his first appeal, or could have raised them
but did not. See Volvo Trademark Holding Aktiebolaget v. Clark
Mach. Co., 510 F.3d 474, 481 (4th Cir. 2007) (“[A] remand
proceeding is not the occasion for raising new arguments or
legal theories.”); United States v. Bell, 5 F.3d 64, 66 (4th
Cir. 1993) (stating that the mandate rule “forecloses
relitigation of issues expressly or impliedly decided by the
appellate court[,]” as well as “issues decided by the district
court but foregone on appeal”).
Moreover, “the doctrine [of the law of the case]
posits that when a court decides upon a rule of law, that
decision should continue to govern the same issues in subsequent
stages in the same case.” United States v. Aramony, 166 F.3d
655, 661 (4th Cir. 1999) (internal citation and quotation marks
omitted)). The law of the case must be applied:
in all subsequent proceedings in the same case in the
trial court or on a later appeal . . . unless: (1) a
subsequent trial produces substantially different
evidence, (2) controlling authority has since made a
contrary decision of law applicable to the issue, or
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(3) the prior decision was clearly erroneous and would
work manifest injustice.
Id. (internal citation and quotation marks omitted); see Doe v.
Chao, 511 F.3d 461, 464-66 (4th Cir. 2007) (discussing mandate
rule and its exceptions).
This court’s mandate in Davis I directed the district
court to resentence Quattlebaum under a non-mandatory Guidelines
regime, taking into consideration the 2007 crack cocaine
Amendments to the Sentencing Guidelines, if applicable. See
Davis, 270 F. App’x at 248, 256 & n.16. Because Quattlebaum
raises no claims that fall within any of the exceptions to the
law of the case doctrine, and since the 2007 Amendments had no
effect on his Guidelines range, Quattlebaum’s challenge to his
Guidelines range calculation is foreclosed by the mandate rule. *
Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s 300-month
variant sentence imposed on remand. 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
*
Although Quattlebaum also asserts that defense counsel was
ineffective for failing to object to the district court’s
Guidelines range calculation on remand, given the lack of merit
of such an objection, the record does not conclusively establish
ineffective assistance. See United States v. Richardson, 195
F.3d 192, 198 (4th Cir. 1999).
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