United States v. Bowers

220 F. App'x 402
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedMarch 19, 2007
Docket05-6780
StatusUnpublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 220 F. App'x 402 (United States v. Bowers) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Bowers, 220 F. App'x 402 (6th Cir. 2007).

Opinion

PER CURIAM.

After the Supreme Court granted Vance Bowers a limited remand for the purpose of resentencing him in light of United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 125 S.Ct. 738, 160 L.Ed.2d 621 (2005), the district court imposed a 156-month sentence (55 months lower than his original pre-Booker sentence). In this appeal, Bowers does not challenge the 156-month sentence (either as a matter of procedure or substance) but rather challenges two features of his underlying conviction — the admission of certain evidence during his trial in violation of the Confrontation Clause and the failure to sever his trial from the trial of his co-defendants in violation of the Due Process Clause. Because this court rejected these arguments in hearing Bowers’ initial appeal and because the Supreme Court granted only a limited remand, we reinstate our earlier opinion as to the conviction and therefore affirm.

I.

On December 20, 2002, a jury found Bowers guilty of conspiring to distribute methamphetamine, see 21 U.S.C. §§ 846, 841(b)(1)(C), of kidnaping three individuals, see 18 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(1), and of possessing a firearm during, and in relation to, a crime of violence, see id. § 924(c). On March 24, 2003, the district court sentenced Bowers to 211 months’ imprisonment.

*404 Bowers appealed, arguing among other things that the district court (1) violated his Confrontation Clause rights by admitting into evidence a recorded telephone conversation between a non-testifying co-defendant and a victim, see Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 124 S.Ct. 1354, 158 L.Ed.2d 177 (2004), and (2) violated his Due Process rights by refusing to sever his trial from the trial of his co-defendants, see Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 20 L.Ed.2d 476 (1968). We rejected each claim (as well as several other claims) and affirmed Bowers’ conviction and sentence. See United States v. Simpson, 116 Fed.Appx. 736, 741-45 (6th Cir.2004).

In his certiorari petition, Bowers raised his Crawford and Bruton claims and challenged his sentence in light of the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 125 S.Ct. 738, 160 L.Ed.2d 621 (2005). The Supreme Court “GVRed” the petition, which is to say it granted review, vacated our judgment and remanded the case “for further consideration in light of United States v. Booker.” Bowers v. United States, 544 U.S. 995, 995, 125 S.Ct. 1951, 161 L.Ed.2d 766 (2005) (citation omitted). Bowers filed a petition for rehearing, urging the Court to consider his Crawford and Bruton claims. The Court denied the petition for rehearing. See Bowers v. United States, 545 U.S. 1124, 125 S.Ct. 2902, 162 L.Ed.2d 313 (2005).

In accordance with the Court’s order, we remanded the case to the district court “solely for resentencing in accordance with the decision in Booker.” Order at 1, United States v. Bowers, No. 03-5429 (6th Cir. July 21, 2005) (Doc. 258). During the re-sentencing proceeding, Bowers raised a series of arguments about why his sentence should be less than 211 months (the term of his original sentence) and did not challenge his underlying conviction, though he did say (in his sentencing memorandum) that “Vance continues to preserve the Crawford issues raised on direct appeal which were not addressed by the Supreme Court when granting review by remanding the case to the Sixth Circuit for reconsideration in light of Booker.” JA 173. The district court imposed a 156-month prison sentence on remand and, consistent with the limited nature of the remand order, said nothing about Bowers’ underlying convictions.

II.

On this, his second appeal, Bowers does not challenge any aspect of his new sentence. Having conceded the reasonableness of the 156-month sentence, Bowers claims that he wishes only to challenge our court’s prior resolution of his Crawford and Bruton claims or at least “to preserve” them for further “review before the Supreme Court.” Br. at 15. We have no authority to help him. We may not revisit our prior panel decision, and it is not for us, but for the Supreme Court, to determine whether he still may seek review of his Crawford and Bruton claims at this stage in the case.

Appellate courts may issue general or limited remands. See 28 U.S.C. § 2106; United States v. Orlando, 363 F.3d 596, 601 (6th Cir.2004). A general remand commands lower courts to “begin anew.” United States v. Hebeka, 89 F.3d 279, 285 (6th Cir.1996). A limited remand constrains lower courts to address only “the issue or issues remanded.” Orlando, 363 F.3d at 601 (internal quotation marks omitted).

This was a limited remand. Rather than telling the lower courts to “begin anew” in considering the validity of Bowers’ conviction and sentence, the Supreme Court remanded Bowers’ case for the ex- *405 elusive purpose of resentencing him — as the Court made clear when it said that it was remanding “for further consideration in light of United States v. Booker.” Bowers, 544 U.S. 995, 125 S.Ct. 1951. When Bowers sought to broaden the scope of the remand through his petition for rehearing, the Court rebuffed him. See Bowers, 545 U.S. 1124, 125 S.Ct. 2902. When we sent the case back to the district court, we made clear the limited scope of the remand when we said that we were remanding “solely for resentencing in accordance with the decision in Booker.” Order at 1, United States v. Bowers, No. 03-5429. And when the district court handled the case a second time, it acted consistently with this limited remand by addressing only the sentencing arguments raised by the parties.

Under these circumstances, we lack authority to offer Bowers any relief regarding his underlying convictions. The case comes to us as a resentencing decision following a limited remand for resentencing purposes only, a point that Bowers ultimately concedes in his reply brief. See Reply Br. at 5 (“Mr.

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Bluebook (online)
220 F. App'x 402, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-bowers-ca6-2007.