United States v. Elk

632 F.3d 455, 2011 WL 520843
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
DecidedFebruary 16, 2011
Docket09-2229, 09-2230
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 632 F.3d 455 (United States v. Elk) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eighth 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. Elk, 632 F.3d 455, 2011 WL 520843 (8th Cir. 2011).

Opinion

MURPHY, Circuit Judge.

Colin Spotted Elk and Flint Thomas Red Feather were members of a drug trafficking conspiracy on the Pine Ridge Oglala Sioux reservation in South Dakota. After they appealed their sentences, we *457 reversed in part and remanded for resentencing. United States v. Spotted Elk, 548 F.3d 641 (8th Cir.2008). They now appeal their new sentences. We affirm.

I.

Spotted Elk and Red Feather were members of a drug trafficking network led by Geraldine Blue Bird. Blue Bird’s network sold marijuana and cocaine on the Pine Ridge reservation starting in or before 2003. Spotted Elk exchanged cocaine for firearms. Red Feather sold cocaine, handling approximately fourteen ounces per month. Red Feather stopped selling by February 2005, when he left Pine Ridge and moved in with his girlfriend and child in nearby Oglala. Around that time Blue Bird’s network increased its volume of sales, trafficking a kilogram of cocaine every three to four weeks until a series of arrests destroyed the network in late 2005.

The government charged sixteen people with drug trafficking and firearms offenses. A jury found all defendants guilty of all charges. Five defendants, including Spotted Elk and Red Feather, appealed their convictions and sentences on various grounds. We affirmed in part as to Spotted Elk and Red Feather but reversed and remanded their cases for resentencing. Id.

In his first appeal Spotted Elk challenged the sufficiency of the evidence supporting his conviction for using a firearm in a drug trafficking crime. 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1). The district court jury instruction had permitted the jury to find Spotted Elk guilty of violating § 924(c)(1) for receiving a firearm in exchange for drugs. While his appeal was pending, the Supreme Court ruled that § 924(c) does not apply in such circumstances. Watson v. United States, 552 U.S. 74, 83, 128 S.Ct. 579, 169 L.Ed.2d 472 (2007). The government confessed reversible plain error, and we vacated Spotted Elk’s firearm conviction and remanded for resentencing on the remaining counts. Spotted Elk, 548 F.3d at 665. On remand the district court applied the dangerous weapon enhancement under U.S.S.G. § 2D1.1(b)(1), which Spotted Elk now challenges as procedural error.

Red Feather meanwhile challenged the district court’s determination of his relevant conduct under U.S.S.G. § 1B1.3, holding him responsible for over sixteen kilograms of cocaine, the entire amount handled by the conspiracy. Red Feather argued that he had ceased participating in the conspiracy by early 2005 and could not be punished for drug sales beyond that time. The district court decided that Red Feather was liable for the entire amount unless he had withdrawn from the conspiracy “in the particular manner required by conspiracy law.” Spotted Elk, 548 F.3d at 673. On his appeal we concluded that the district court had erred by conflating relevant conduct with criminal liability in a drug conspiracy. Id. We vacated Red Feather’s sentence and instructed the district court to make the relevant findings under U.S.S.G. § 1B1.3. Id. at 680.

At resentencing the district court found that “kilo sales had not yet started” by early 2005 when Red Feather says he left the conspiracy. He admitted that he was responsible for trafficking 3 kilograms and 14 ounces of cocaine before that time, but the government argued that the court was bound by the jury’s finding that the conspiracy involved over fifteen kilograms.

After a recess to allow briefing, the district court concluded that it was bound by the jury’s cocaine quantity determination. It also found independently that it was foreseeable that Red Feather’s monthly fourteen ounce sales would continue regardless of his absence from the reserva *458 tion in 2005. That amount added to the quantity for which he admitted responsibility led to the court’s finding him responsible for between 5 and 15 kilograms of cocaine. The district judge sentenced him to 151 months at the low end of the guideline range, a substantial reduction from his original 200 month sentence. Red Feather now argues that the district court committed procedural error in his resentencing.

II.

We review sentences under a deferential abuse of discretion standard, reviewing the district court’s factual findings for clear error and its application of the guidelines de novo. United States v. Moore, 565 F.3d 435, 436 (8th Cir.2009). A district court commits procedural error by “failing to calculate (or improperly calculating) the Guidelines range,” “selecting a sentence based on clearly erroneous facts, or failing to adequately explain the chosen sentence.” Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 51, 128 S.Ct. 586, 169 L.Ed.2d 445 (2007).

A. Spotted Elk

The sentencing guidelines provide for a two level enhancement if a defendant possessed a dangerous weapon while involved in drug trafficking, U.S.S.G. § 2D1.1(b)(1), but that enhancement cannot be used if the defendant was convicted of using a weapon in his drug trafficking offense. See § 924(c)(1); U.S.S.G. § 2K2.4 cmt. n. 4. Since Spotted Elk’s § 924 conviction was vacated and his case was remanded for “resentenc[ing] on the remaining counts,” Spotted Elk, 548 F.3d at 665, Spotted Elk argues that the district court lacked authority to apply the dangerous weapon enhancement on remand or otherwise alter his sentence. We rejected such an argument in Gardiner v. United States, 114 F.3d 734 (8th Cir.1997), where we concluded that the district court could apply the guideline enhancement to a drug trafficking sentence after a § 924 conviction had been vacated. In these circumstances, “vacating the § 924(c) convictions without allowing for resentencing on the drug convictions would result in [sentences] based on an erroneous application of the Sentencing Guidelines.” Id. at 736.

In Spotted Elk’s first appeal we clearly directed the district court to consider the effect of the vacatur on Spotted Elk’s sentence and to resentence him on the remaining counts. 548 F.3d at 668. Spotted Elk argues that the government did not request the weapon enhancement in its letter confessing plain error. Since he had not appealed his original drug sentence, the government was not obliged to counter arguments not raised. The district court did not err in applying the weapon enhancement in resentencing under § 2D1.1(b)(1).

On remand the district court varied eight months below the 360 month bottom of Spotted Elk’s new guideline range, imposing the same 352 month sentence it stated it would have imposed without the weapon enhancement.

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Bluebook (online)
632 F.3d 455, 2011 WL 520843, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-elk-ca8-2011.