FILED
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
February 12, 2008
PUBLISH Elisabeth A. Shumaker
Clerk of Court
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
TENTH CIRCUIT
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellant,
v. No. 06-6334
JARED LEE TODD,
Defendant - Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Western District of Oklahoma
(D.C. No. 04-CR-221-01-L)
Richard A. Friedman, Appellate Section, Criminal Division, United States
Department of Justice, Washington, D.C. (John C. Richter, United States
Attorney, and Edward J. Kumiega, Assistant United States Attorney, Western
District of Oklahoma, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, with him on the briefs), for
Plaintiff-Appellant.
Joseph L. Wells, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, for Defendant-Appellee.
Before LUCERO, BALDOCK, and GORSUCH, Circuit Judges.
GORSUCH, Circuit Judge.
On two separate occasions, police apprehended Jared Lee Todd and
recovered from him small vials that contained, in total, approximately 37 grams
of methamphetamine. In conversations with police, Mr. Todd admitted that his
drug dealings went much further, and that he had purchased for redistribution at
least two ounces of methamphetamine every month over the last year (680.4
grams in total). Other facts presented to the district court tended to confirm Mr.
Todd’s admission. After a jury convicted Mr. Todd of two counts of possessing
methamphetamine with intent to distribute, the district court, in calculating the
total attributable drug quantity for purposes of the United States Sentencing
Guidelines, used only the 37 grams of methamphetamine actually confiscated
from Mr. Todd. The court then proceeded to expressly rely on the recommended
sentencing Guidelines range for that amount in assigning a sentence to Mr. Todd.
While the Supreme Court’s recent opinion in Gall v. United States, 128 S.
Ct. 586 (2007), underscores the discretion district courts are properly due in
sentencing, it also reiterates that courts must begin their analysis by calculating
correctly the applicable Guidelines sentencing range. Though a district court may
choose ultimately to depart or vary from the Guidelines, a properly calculated
Guidelines range is, the Court explained, “the starting point and the initial
benchmark” in any sentencing decision. Id. at 596. In this case, all of the
evidence on record, including testimony of Mr. Todd’s own admission, indicated
that he possessed with the intent to distribute quantities of methamphetamine far
in excess of 37 grams. In light of this overwhelming evidentiary imbalance, we
are obliged to hold that the district court’s use of that drug quantity when
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calculating the advisory Guidelines range was clearly erroneous, and, given its
reliance on the Guidelines when passing sentence, we cannot say the court’s error
was harmless.
I
A
In the fall of 2004, the Oklahoma City Police Department learned from two
separate sources that Mr. Todd was selling methamphetamine.
First, in September 2004, Detective Kenneth Russell Park interviewed
Christopher Spindler in connection with a shooting involving members of the
Universal Aryan Brotherhood, a white supremacist group. During the interview,
Mr. Spindler revealed, among other things, that he had obtained
methamphetamine from Mr. Todd, that he had observed Mr. Todd sell
methamphetamine “countless times,” and that Mr. Todd’s principal supplier was
Greg Minard. Months earlier, in March 2004, Detective Park himself had
inspected a methamphetamine laboratory operated by Mr. Minard.
Second, a little over a month after the interview with Mr. Spindler, an
anonymous caller informed Detective Park that Mr. Todd was selling drugs from
the trailer in which Mr. Todd lived, and that he had recently seen Mr. Todd with a
gun. Detective Park asked the caller to contact him again at a time when the
caller could confirm that Mr. Todd had drugs at his trailer. The informant did so
approximately one week later, on November 8, 2004.
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In light of these events, the police visited Mr. Todd’s trailer that very
evening and found Mr. Todd and two others inside a storage shed next to the
trailer. Detective Park identified himself as a police officer and asked Mr. Todd
if they could talk. Mr. Todd agreed, but, before approaching Detective Park, he
took something from his front pocket and threw it about ten feet away inside the
shed. Police handcuffed Mr. Todd when he emerged from the shed, and they
retrieved the thrown object. Detective Park and Mr. Todd walked to Detective
Park’s car and talked there for approximately 40 minutes, during which time
Detective Park removed Mr. Todd’s handcuffs. While they spoke, other officers
advised Detective Park that the object Mr. Todd had thrown was a packet that
appeared to contain about an ounce of methamphetamine. Mr. Todd subsequently
granted written consent to search his premises and was advised of his Miranda
rights.
During the conversation with Detective Park, Mr. Todd admitted to
distributing methamphetamine. Confirming Mr. Spindler’s account, Mr. Todd
stated that Mr. Minard was his principal supplier and explained that he purchased
from Mr. Minard at least one quarter ounce of methamphetamine at least twice a
week. Additionally, Mr. Todd identified four other individuals who also supplied
him with drugs. All told, Mr. Todd admitted that, over the course of the past
year, he obtained for redistribution at least two ounces of methamphetamine per
month. He stated that he typically sold the methamphetamine in quantities of one
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half ounce or less and that he sold the drugs in order to support his own
methamphetamine habit. In addition to purchasing methamphetamine from Mr.
Minard, Mr. Todd admitted that, on at least two occasions, he supplied Mr.
Minard’s laboratory with precursor chemicals for methamphetamine, including
pseudoephedrine and toluene.
In the same conversation, Mr. Todd told Detective Park that he had recently
possessed a handgun, which he purchased because he feared some of his fellow
members in the Aryan Brotherhood. Mr. Todd further related that he had fired
the gun at Tracy Brunkin, another member of the Brotherhood, during a recent
argument between the two, and he showed Detective Park the bullet hole from
that shot in the sheet-metal fence on the property. Mr. Todd stated that he no
longer had the gun as he had recently sold it to another methamphetamine dealer.
At the conclusion of their conversation, Detective Park formally placed Mr. Todd
under arrest.
Ten days later, after Mr. Todd’s release on bail, police again visited Mr.
Todd’s trailer. Detective Park testified that, as he and other police arrived at the
trailer, Mr. Todd began running away. Police gave chase, and, as they closed in
on him, Mr. Todd grabbed what appeared to be a pill bottle from his front pocket
and threw it over a nearby fence. While other officers apprehended Mr. Todd and
placed him under arrest, Detective Park recovered the pill bottle, which contained
a bag of white powder appearing to be methamphetamine. According to Detective
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Park, when Mr. Todd saw him holding the pill bottle, Mr. Todd stated, “Detective
Park, that’s 18 grams in there, not 20.” Detective Park explained at trial that he
understood Mr. Todd to be referencing the difference, under Oklahoma state law,
between the charge of possession of a controlled dangerous substance and the
charge of trafficking in methamphetamine, the latter of which carries a heavier
penalty but is not applied unless the suspect is found with drugs weighing at least
20 grams. Initial field tests indicated that the bag indeed contained approximately
18 grams of methamphetamine.
One additional person subsequently gave the government information about
Mr. Todd’s dealings with methamphetamine and Mr. Minard. Sharon Patnaude
lived intermittently at Mr. Minard’s house over a period of several months and
assisted him in manufacturing methamphetamine. She informed prosecutors, and
later testified at trial, that, between November 2003 and January 2004, she saw
Mr. Todd at Mr. Minard’s house on two or three occasions. She also testified
that, on at least one such occasion, she saw Mr. Todd visit Mr. Minard in his
bedroom, where Mr. Minard conducted all of his drug transactions, and that Mr.
Todd had an “eight-ball” – or about 3.5 grams – of methamphetamine with him
when he exited Mr. Minard’s room.
B
An indictment filed February 1, 2005, included four charges against Mr.
Todd: (1) conspiracy to manufacture and possess with intent to distribute 50
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grams or more of methamphetamine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 846,
841(b)(1)(A); (2) being a felon in possession of a firearm, in violation of 18
U.S.C. § 922(g)(1); (3) possession with intent to distribute 26 grams of
methamphetamine (the quantity recovered from the first container tossed away by
Mr. Todd), in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(A), (b)(1)(C); and (4) possession
with intent to distribute 18 grams of methamphetamine (the quantity recovered
from the second thrown container), also in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(A),
(b)(1)(C).
After a pretrial hearing, the district court granted Mr. Todd’s motion to
dismiss the firearm count, ruling that Mr. Todd’s admission to Detective Park,
without additional corroboration, was insufficient evidence of Mr. Todd’s gun
possession as a matter of law. The case proceeded to trial on the other three
counts. At the close of the government’s case, the district court sua sponte
granted a judgment of acquittal on the conspiracy count, finding insufficient
evidence to demonstrate Mr. Todd’s participation in Mr. Minard’s
methamphetamine manufacturing and distributing activities. Specifically, the
court found Ms. Patnaude’s testimony insufficient because she had only seen Mr.
Todd with a relatively small amount of methamphetamine (less than the 50 gram
minimum mentioned in Count 1 of the indictment) at Mr. Minard’s house, and had
not seen Mr. Todd assist in producing methamphetamine. In addition, the court
found Detective Park’s testimony regarding Mr. Todd’s admission that he
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provided Mr. Minard with chemicals failed to provide any time reference to match
the admission with the conduct and time period charged in the indictment.
Accordingly, only the two substantive counts of possession with intent to
distribute were submitted to the jury at the close of the trial. The jury convicted
Mr. Todd on both counts.
At sentencing, the probation office’s presentence report (“PSR”)
recommended a base offense level of 32, based on a total of 717.4 grams of
methamphetamine. Although the two containers of methamphetamine found on
Mr. Todd by police amounted, after further testing, to only 37 grams, 1 the PSR
also included an estimate of 680.4 grams based on Mr. Todd’s admission to
Detective Park that he purchased for redistribution at least two ounces per month
over the past year. 2 The PSR further recommended a two-level enhancement for
Mr. Todd’s admission of possessing a firearm, and a two-level enhancement for
unsafe storage of chemicals, which related to Mr. Todd’s admission that he
supplied chemical materials to Mr. Minard’s methamphetamine laboratory. With
1
The actual weight of the methamphetamine recovered from the two
containers (23 grams and 14 grams) differed slightly from the quantities derived
from initial field tests (26 grams and 18 grams), which served as the basis for the
quantities specified in the indictment.
2
One ounce equals approximately 28.35 grams. See Presentence
Investigation Report at 6. Two ounces per month for a year equals 24 ounces, or
680.4 grams.
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a total offense level of 36 and a criminal history category of V, the PSR produced
a recommended sentencing range of 292-365 months imprisonment.
Mr. Todd offered a number of objections to the PSR, including its drug
quantity calculation and its recommended enhancements. After hearing argument
on the objections, the district court stated:
[T]he Court has had the opportunity, both through pretrial hearings and
the trial, to hear all the evidence, and the Court finds that the – there is
not a preponderance of the evidence to support the amount of
methamphetamine to support a base level of 32, but, rather, based upon
both the evidence and the jury’s findings, the Court finds that the
amount of drugs that should be attributable to Mr. Todd are 37 grams,
which would create a base offense level of 22, and that neither the
enhancement in Paragraph 25 [firearm possession] or the enhancement
in 26 [unsafe chemical storage], there’s not a preponderance of the
evidence to support both of those enhancements.
July 8, 2005, Sentencing Tr. at 26-27. Pursuant to the district court’s findings on
the number of grams attributable to Mr. Todd, the recommended Guidelines
sentencing range was 77 to 96 months, and the court imposed a mid-range
sentence of 86 months.
Prior to sentencing, but after the trial and conviction, the government filed
an appeal of the district court’s dismissal of the firearm charge, and after
sentencing, the government also appealed the 86-month sentence. This court
consolidated those appeals and issued an opinion in United States v. Todd, 446
F.3d 1062 (10th Cir. 2006). On the firearms charge, we reversed the district
court’s dismissal and remanded for reinstatement of that count. Specifically, we
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held that, even if the government’s only evidence on the charge was Mr. Todd’s
admission to Detective Park that he had possessed a gun, that admission was more
than sufficient to avoid dismissal. See id. at 1067-69. As for the sentencing
appeal, we held that, because the government filed a notice of appeal on the
firearms charge dismissal prior to sentencing, the district court had been divested
of its jurisdiction and should not have held a sentencing hearing or entered any
judgment until the appeal was resolved. See id. at 1069. As such, we vacated Mr.
Todd’s sentence and remanded for resentencing. See id.
C
On remand, the district court, at the government’s request, dismissed the
reinstated gun charge without prejudice so that the court could proceed
immediately to resentencing on the drug charges. At the resentencing hearing, the
government did not argue for either of the enhancements it had previously
recommended, but did renew its argument that the “admitted” quantity of
methamphetamine (680.4 grams) be included in calculating the base offense level,
which would have produced a recommended sentencing range of 188-235 months.
The district court, however, once again included only the 37 grams of recovered
methamphetamine in its base offense level calculation, stating that it was “going
to adopt its rulings that it made in the original sentencing hearing as it relates to
the presentence report, the objections made, and the arguments made based upon
the evidence that the Court ha[d] heard in all these hearings.” Oct. 4, 2006,
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Sentencing Tr. at 7. Additionally, the court stated that it was “aware of the
various sentences that persons related, Mr. Sumrall, Mr. Minard, Mr. Spindler,
and Mr. Lynch, received in this matter, . . . [and] the Court feels that the
appropriate sentence and reasonable sentence in this matter can be determined
from all of these factors.” Id. at 8. The district court then reimposed the 86
month sentence.
The government now appeals the sentence once again, arguing in principal
that the district court erred by not including the 680.4 grams in calculating Mr.
Todd’s base offense level under the advisory Guidelines.
II
In United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 261 (2005), the Supreme Court
suggested that appellate courts may review sentencing determinations for
“reasonableness,” a standard the Court recently explained translates into review
for abuse of discretion. See Rita v. United States, 127 S. Ct. 2456, 2465 (2007);
Gall v. United States, 128 S. Ct. 586, 594 (2007); see also United States v.
McComb, ___ F.3d ____, 2007 WL 4393142 (07-5003) (10th Cir. 2007). 3 The
3
“That is to say, we recognize that in many cases there will be a range of
possible outcomes the facts and law at issue can fairly support; rather than pick
and choose among them ourselves, we will defer to the district court’s judgment
so long as it falls within the realm of these rationally available choices. And
there are perhaps few arenas where the range of rationally permissible choices is
as large as it is in sentencing, a task calling on a district court’s unique familiarity
with the facts and circumstances of a case and its judgment in balancing a host of
incommensurate and disparate considerations, ranging from the degree of the
(continued...)
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Court in Gall also stressed that this abuse of discretion standard applies equally
whether the district court imposes a sentence within or outside of the Guidelines-
recommended range. See id. at 594-98. 4 But whatever sentence the district court
ultimately chooses, Gall emphasized that, as a matter of procedural regularity, the
“starting point and the initial benchmark” for any sentencing decision must be a
correctly calculated Guidelines sentencing range. See id. To that end, Gall
indicated that, on appellate review, our first task remains to “ensure that the
district court committed no significant procedural error, such as failing to
calculate (or improperly calculating) the Guidelines range . . . [or] selecting a
sentence based on clearly erroneous facts.” Id. 597; see also United States v.
Kristl, 437 F.3d 1050, 1054-55 (10th Cir. 2006). When a district court does err in
calculating the applicable Guidelines range, we must remand for resentencing,
3
(...continued)
defendant’s cooperation and remorse to the need for deterring potential future
offenders. Nonetheless, we will not hesitate to find abuse where a decision is
either based on a clearly erroneous finding of fact or an erroneous conclusion of
law or manifests a clear error of judgment.” McComb, at *3 (internal citations
and quotation marks omitted).
4
Thus, while we are still permitted on appellate review to afford within-
Guidelines sentences a presumption of reasonableness, see id. at 597, given the
applicability of abuse of discretion review to sentences both within and outside of
the Guidelines, it is unclear what such a presumption entails. Happily, we need
not confront that puzzle today because the question we face in this case – whether
a district court correctly calculated the recommended sentencing range under the
Guidelines – is antecedent to the question whether the sentence itself is
substantively reasonable. See id. at 596.
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whether or not the district court’s chosen sentence is substantively reasonable,
unless we are able to ascertain that the court’s calculation error was harmless.
See Kristl, 437 F.3d at 1054-55.
In determining whether the district court correctly calculated the
recommended Guidelines range, we review de novo the district court’s legal
conclusions pertaining to the Guidelines and review its factual findings, including
its determination of the quantity of drugs for which the defendant is held
accountable under the Guidelines for clear error. See id. at 1055; United States v.
Ortiz, 993 F.2d 204, 207 (10th Cir. 1993). Drug quantities employed by the
district court to calculate the applicable Guidelines range may be said to be
clearly erroneous only when “the district court’s finding was without factual
support in the record or we are left with the definite and firm conviction that a
mistake has been made.” United States v. Dalton, 409 F.3d 1247, 1251 (10th Cir.
2005); see also United States v. Cardenas-Alatorre, 485 F.3d 1111, 1119 (10th
Cir. 2007) (holding that, for a finding to be clearly erroneous, the “finding must
be more than possibly or even probably wrong; the error must be pellucid to any
objective observer”).
The government contends that the district court’s Guidelines calculation in
this case was premised on just such a clear factual error. Specifically, the
government contests the district court’s finding that Mr. Todd was only proven to
have possessed and distributed 37 grams of methamphetamine, asserting that such
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a finding has no factual support in the record before us, which includes the
uncontroverted testimony of Mr. Todd’s admission of possessing at least two
ounces per month. We are constrained to agree.
A
The balance of facts in this case could not be more one-sided. Detective
Park testified that Mr. Todd admitted purchasing for redistribution at least two
ounces of methamphetamine per month over the course of the year, or 680.4
grams in total. Mr. Todd has not challenged, contested, or contradicted that
testimony in any way, and we have specifically held that a defendant’s admissions
can in these circumstances serve as a proper basis of a court’s drug quantity
calculation under the Guidelines. See United States v. Wacker, 72 F.3d 1453,
1478 (10th Cir. 1995) (“A district court may base its estimate of drug quantity
upon a defendant’s own statements and admissions.”); see also Fed. R. Evid.
804(b)(3) (statement against interest is admissible evidence). As such, Mr.
Todd’s admission, absent any reason to discredit it, would tilt the evidentiary
balance heavily in the government’s favor even if standing alone. 5
5
That the district court may not have fully appreciated the evidentiary
value of Mr. Todd’s admissions is suggested by its pretrial dismissal of the
firearms charge, which we subsequently held to be an abuse of discretion in light
of Mr. Todd’s statement to Detective Park that he had indeed possessed a firearm.
See Todd, 446 F.3d at 1069. We of course recognize that, as an appeal from a
pretrial dismissal, the evidentiary standards and standards of review in that appeal
differed from those of the present. But the general principle that a defendant’s
admissions cannot simply be disregarded applies with equal force here.
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Mr. Todd’s uncontested admission, however, does not stand alone, but is
joined by numerous other facts suggesting his possession of drugs in quantities
much higher than 37 grams. For example, the quantities of methamphetamine
confiscated from Mr. Todd themselves lend credence to his admission that he
regularly purchased for redistribution at least half an ounce a week (or at least
one quarter ounce twice a week). On the first encounter with police, Mr. Todd
had with him about 0.8 ounces (23 grams). Ten days later – after his initial arrest
and release on bail – Mr. Todd was again found with about half an ounce (14
grams). In other words, Mr. Todd followed precisely the drug-purchasing routine
that he had described to Detective Park, purchasing about half an ounce in the
week or so after his release.
Further, Ms. Patnaude testified that she had seen Mr. Todd in Mr. Minard’s
methamphetamine laboratory on multiple occasions and had witnessed Mr. Todd
in possession of methamphetamine. Mr. Spindler, in his interview with Detective
Park, stated that he witnessed Mr. Todd selling methamphetamine to him and
others “countless times.” The anonymous informant who correctly indicated to
police when and where Mr. Todd possessed methamphetamine also stated to
police that Mr. Todd sold methamphetamine regularly. All of this evidence tends
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to corroborate and confirm the quantity of drugs to which Mr. Todd himself
admitted possessing and redistributing. 6
B
In the face of the government’s substantial factual showing, Mr. Todd
makes no effort to point us to any countervailing facts tending to support the
district court’s finding that he possessed only 37 grams of methamphetamine.
Instead, Mr. Todd advances a pair of purely legal arguments seeking to suggest
that the district court was legally obliged to disregard the drug quantities
specified in Mr. Todd’s admission to Detective Park. Both such arguments,
however, are foreclosed by our precedent.
1
Mr. Todd first argues that the two ounces of methamphetamine per month
that he admitted possessing in his conversation with Detective Park cannot be
considered because those quantities were not included in the charges on which
Mr. Todd was convicted. The Guidelines themselves, however, require that the
6
To the extent Mr. Spindler’s statement and that of the informant
constitutes hearsay, “sentencing courts may consider hearsay evidence provided
that the evidence has sufficient indicia of reliability.” United States v. Dazey,
403 F.3d 1147, 1177 (10th Cir. 2005); Ortiz, 993 F.2d at 207 (same holding with
respect to anonymous police informants). The district court never indicated any
reason to doubt the veracity of these statements, and neither do we perceive any
such reason, particularly in light of the statements’ conformity with Mr. Todd’s
uncontested admission, the fact that Mr. Todd was twice caught with drug
quantities consistent with his admission, Ms. Patnaude’s live testimony at trial, as
well as the fact that other aspects of the informant’s tip proved to be true.
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calculation of the base offense level for the drug charges against Mr. Todd take
into account “all acts . . . that were part of the same course of conduct or common
scheme or plan as the offense of conviction.” U.S.S.G. § 1B1.3(a)(2); see also id.
§ 2D1.1, cmt. 12 (“Types and quantities of drugs not specified in the count of
conviction may be considered in determining the offense level.”).
Accordingly, we have held that district courts must “aggregate the
quantities of drugs that were part of the same course of conduct” when
determining a base offense level under the Guidelines. United States v. Ross, 920
F.2d 1530, 1538 (10th Cir. 1990) (internal quotations omitted). We have further
specified that quantities of drugs that satisfy this criteria but for which the
defendant was not convicted or even indicted should still be included in the
aggregate calculation under the Guidelines. See id. We reiterated this principle
in United States v. Washington, and in numerous cases since, explaining that
“[t]he guidelines require that all relevant conduct be considered at sentencing.
Drug quantities associated with illegal conduct for which a defendant was not
convicted are to be accounted for in sentencing, if they are part of the same
conduct for which the defendant was convicted.” 11 F.3d 1510, 1516 (10th Cir.
1993); see also, e.g., United States v. Rios, 22 F.3d 1024, 1027 (10th Cir. 1994);
United States v. Mendez-Zamora, 296 F.3d 1013, 1020 (10th Cir. 2002); United
States v. Hauk, 412 F.3d 1179, 1195 (10th Cir. 2005).
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There can be no doubt that Mr. Todd’s alleged purchase for redistribution
of at least two ounces of methamphetamine per month over the course of the year
prior to his arrest is precisely the course of conduct that led to his arrest and
conviction. Indeed, the quantities that police recovered from Mr. Todd on two
separate occasions seem to confirm and reflect the pattern of purchasing and
distributing that Mr. Todd conveyed in his interview with Detective Park and that
other witnesses described. Importantly, at no time has Mr. Todd denied that the
drugs confiscated from him by police were products of the same course of
conduct that he described to Detective Park, nor has he offered any evidence to
demonstrate that those drugs were the product of some other course of conduct.
As such, under our case law the sentencing court was required to consider for
sentencing purposes the aggregate estimated amount of the drugs Mr. Todd
admitted to possessing, and not just the amounts that police actually seized from
him.
2
Mr. Todd separately argues that the district court could not have considered
the “admitted” drug quantities because it essentially acquitted Mr. Todd of
possessing those quantities when it dismissed the conspiracy charge, and because
the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005),
renders improper any consideration by a sentencing court of conduct for which
the defendant was acquitted.
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This argument is also precluded by our precedents. The Supreme Court and
this circuit have both expressly held that acquitted conduct can be considered for
purposes of sentencing. In United States v. Watts, 519 U.S. 148 (1997), the
Supreme Court held that, because different evidentiary standards apply to a jury’s
verdict (reasonable doubt) than to a court’s determination of facts for sentencing
(preponderance of the evidence), and because 18 U.S.C. § 3661 specifies that no
limitation should be placed on the “information concerning the background,
character, and conduct” of a defendant that a district court may consider in
sentencing, a sentencing court should not be precluded from considering conduct
for which the jury acquitted the defendant but for which there is still a
preponderance of the evidence.
Mr. Todd contends that Watts is no longer good law after Booker. But,
although Watts was decided before Booker, we have expressly held that
“[n]othing in Booker changes [Watts’] analysis.” United States v. Magallanez,
408 F.3d 672, 684 (10th Cir. 2005). It was the difference between the jury’s
standard of proof in convicting a defendant and a judge’s standard of proof in
sentencing, as well as the mandate in 18 U.S.C. § 3661, that justified the holding
in Watts. The difference in those standards existed before the installment of the
Guidelines, was not altered in any way by the Guidelines, and therefore, along
with the enduring force of 18 U.S.C. § 3661, continues to justify Watts’ holding
even after Booker’s partial invalidation of the Guidelines. See id.
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Were we somehow able to overlook the fact that Watts forecloses Mr.
Todd’s argument, it would still fail on its own terms because Mr. Todd was never
acquitted of the allegation that he possessed at least two ounces of
methamphetamine per month over the last year. It is of course true that the
district court granted Mr. Todd an acquittal on the conspiracy charge. But Mr.
Todd has failed to demonstrate how that acquittal was in any way a repudiation of
his alleged possession of at least two ounces of methamphetamine per month over
the last year. In granting the acquittal, the district court based its decision on the
lack of evidence relating to Mr. Todd’s involvement in helping Mr. Minard
manufacture methamphetamine. See Trial Tr. at 349-53. Specifically, the district
court found a lack of evidence matching Mr. Todd’s admission of supplying Mr.
Minard with chemicals to the time period specified in the indictment. It also
found Ms. Patnaude’s testimony insufficient to prove any such activity during the
relevant time period because Ms. Patnaude did not witness Mr. Todd assisting in
the manufacturing but rather only saw Mr. Todd with around 3 or 4 grams of
methamphetamine – an amount far less than the 50 grams specified in the
conspiracy charge. See id. The district court, however, made no factual finding
as to Mr. Todd’s possession and distribution of methamphetamine in general, and,
as such, its judgment of acquittal on the conspiracy charge did not foreclose an
eventual finding that Mr. Todd indeed possessed with intent to distribute at least
two ounces per month over the course of the year.
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C
Without a viable argument why the district court, as a matter of law, had to
disregard the drug quantities that he admitted to possessing and that others tended
to confirm, Mr. Todd attempts to rationalize the district court’s calculation by
suggesting that the court may have determined that some or all of the
government’s evidence was unreliable or otherwise not credible, and that we must
defer to such determinations. We readily concede that district courts are owed
great deference when it comes to determining the credibility of witnesses
appearing before them. See, e.g., United States v. Browning, 252 F.3d 1153, 1157
(10th Cir. 2001) (“The credibility of witnesses, the weight to be given evidence,
and the reasonable inferences drawn from the evidence fall within the province of
the district court.”). But the district court made no credibility determinations at
Mr. Todd’s sentencing, and the record before us does not offer any readily
apparent basis to suppose that Mr. Todd’s uncontested admission or the remainder
of the government’s evidence was unreliable or not credible. We are not able to
defer to hypothesized credibility determinations that the district court may or may
not have had in mind but did not make and which are not readily apparent from a
review of the record. Accordingly, and in light of the overwhelming imbalance of
the evidence indicating Mr. Todd’s possession of much more than 37 grams of
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methamphetamine, we are constrained to find the district court’s calculation
clearly erroneous. 7
III
We may affirm a sentence resulting from an incorrect Guidelines
calculation only if we are able to say that the error was harmless. In this case, we
cannot fairly come to such a conclusion. The district court’s use of 37 instead of
680.4 grams as the appropriate drug quantity yielded a suggested Guidelines
sentencing range of 77-96 months rather than 188-235 months, and, rather than
seek to depart or vary from the Guidelines in some way, the district court
expressly relied upon the lesser Guidelines range when passing sentence. Under
such circumstances, we cannot say the district court’s erroneous calculation was
immaterial, and, accordingly, our precedents require us to remand for
resentencing. See Kristl, 437 F.3d at 1055, 1059; 18 U.S.C. § 3742(f)(1);
Williams v. United States, 503 U.S. 193, 203 (1992); see also United States v.
Galloway, 509 F.3d 1246, 1252-53 (10th Cir. 2007) (remanding for resentencing
7
Along similar lines, Mr. Todd argued at sentencing, but not on appeal,
that the 680.4 grams should not be attributed to him for sentencing purposes
because some of the methamphetamine he obtained each month was for personal
consumption rather than distribution. Even if a court could deduct specific
quantities that were intended for personal consumption, cf. United States v. Asch,
207 F.3d 1238, 1244 n.6 (10th Cir. 2000) (noting we have not yet decided this
question), the argument would support only an exclusion of whatever portion of
the 680.4 grams was intended for personal consumption.
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because a clearly erroneous factual finding resulted in an incorrect application of
the Guidelines).
To observe, as we must, that a procedural fault occurred in Mr. Todd’s
initial sentencing hearing is not, however, to suggest necessarily what result his
resentencing hearing should yield. On remand, resentencing proceeds de novo.
Accordingly, the district court is free to receive any relevant evidence that it
could have heard at the first sentencing hearing. It is free to make new findings
of fact, credibility determinations, and conclusions of law based on that evidence.
See United States v. Keifer, 198 F.3d 798, 801 (10th Cir. 1999); United States v.
Ortiz, 25 F.3d 934, 935 (10th Cir. 1994). And it may impose any reasonable
sentence, within or without the Guidelines, consistent with the considerable range
of discretion afforded to it. See supra note 3. 8
Reversed and remanded.
8
The government appealed the sentence in this case on a second ground,
arguing that, in sentencing Mr. Todd, the district court impermissibly considered
the sentences received by other defendants in a related case. Because we remand
for other reasons, we need not address this issue.
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United States v. Todd
Court: Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
Date filed: 2008-02-12
Citations: 515 F.3d 1128
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