United States v. Kutz

702 F. App'x 661
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
DecidedJune 28, 2017
Docket16-6266
StatusUnpublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 702 F. App'x 661 (United States v. Kutz) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Tenth 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. Kutz, 702 F. App'x 661 (10th Cir. 2017).

Opinion

ORDER AND JUDGMENT *

Mary Beck Briscoe, Circuit Judge

The sole issue raised by Eric Stanton Kutz, following his resentencing, is whether the district 'court's determination that he is a “career offender” under § 4B1.1 of the United States Sentencing Guidelines (hereinafter, “Guidelines” or “USSG”) is proeedurally unreasonable. Also pending before us is the Government’s Motion to Supplement the Record or, Alternatively, Motion to Take Judicial Notice (hereinafter, “Motion to Supplement”) 1 of Mr. Kutz’s Plea Agreement and the transcript of the change-of-plea hearing. Exercising jurisdiction pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3742(a) and 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we grant the Government’s Motion to Supplement and conclude Mr. Kutz’s appeal falls within the waiver set forth in the Plea Agreement. Accordingly, we dismiss the appeal without reaching the merits.

I

In October 2010, Mr. Kutz pled guilty to having been a felon in possession of a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. *663 § 922(g)(1), and having knowingly and intentionally possessed with intent to distribute fifty grams or more of a substance containing methamphetamine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). In May 2011, he was convicted of these offenses. As relevant here, the district court determined .that Mr. Kutz was a “career offender,” under USSG § 4B1.1 (2011), and also determined that Mr. Kutz’s prior convictions required that his § 922(g)(1) sentence be enhanced pursuant to the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(1). Mr. Kutz appealed to challenge the ACCA enhancement. We applied the ACCA’s “residual clause,” see id. § 924(e)(2)(B)(ii), and affirmed. United States v. Kutz, 439 Fed.Appx. 751, 753 (10th Cir. 2011) (unpublished). However, following the Supreme Court’s decision in Johnson v. United States, — U.S. -, 135 S.Ct. 2551, 2563, 192 L.Ed.2d 569 (2015), Mr. Kutz moved to vacate his ACCA-enhanced sentence, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255. The district court granted Mr. Kutz relief.

In late August 2016, the district court resentenced Mr. Kutz without the ACCA enhancement. See United States v. McGaughy, 670 F.3d 1149, 1153 (10th Cir. 2012). More specifically, as relevant here, the district court conducted “de novo re-sentencing” and entered a new judgment commensurate with those proceedings. United States v. West, 646 F.3d 745, 750 (10th Cir. 2011) (explaining “the default in this circuit is de novo resentencing”); see Magwood v. Patterson, 561 U.S. 320, 338-39, 130 S.Ct. 2788, 177 L.Ed.2d 592 (2010) (“[T]he existence of a new judgment is dispositive. ... This is Magwood’s first application challenging that intervening judgment. The errors he alleges are new. An error made a second time is still a new error.”). In light of this new judgment, we agree with the parties that the claims and arguments Mr. Kutz raised or failed to raise regarding his old sentences—and the district court’s and our prior determinations with respect to them—are irrelevant here. See Magwood, 561 U.S. at 338-39, 130 S.Ct. 2788. That is to say, as regards the new sentences, we look only to the resentencing proceedings.

At resentencing, the maximum sentence Mr. Kutz could have received for his § 922(g)(1) conviction was 120 months’ imprisonment because he is not subject to the ACCA enhancement. And the maximum sentence he could have received for his § 841(a)(1) conviction remained 480 months’ imprisonment. Based on these offenses, Mr. Kutz’s criminal history category of VI, and his acceptance of responsibility, his advisory sentencing range would have been 110 to 137 months’ imprisonment.

However, a presentence investigation report (PSR) stated that, at the time Mr. Kutz committed these federal offenses, he had at least two prior convictions of a “crime of violence,” as defined by USSG § 4B1.2 (2015). 2 More specifically, adopting that PSR over Mr. Kutz’s objection, the district court determined that Mr. Kutz had two qualifying prior convictions: (1) assault with a dangerous weapon, in violation of Okla. Stat. tit. 21, § 645; and (2) pointing a firearm at another person, in violation of Okla. Stat. tit. 21, § 1289.16. On this basis, the district court determined that Mr. Kutz was a “career offender” to whom a correspondingly higher “offense *664 level” applies, as enumerated in USSG § 4B1.1 (2015).

The district court calculated that Mr. Kutz’s advisory sentencing range was 188 to 235 months’ imprisonment, the same range the court determined applied at the first sentencing proceeding in 2011. Impressed by Mr. Kutz’s record of rehabilitation while incarcerated, the district court varied downward from the range it had calculated. The court sentenced Mr. Kutz to concurrent terms of 120 months’ imprisonment for the § 922(g)(1) offense (the statutory maximum) and 150 months’ imprisonment for the § 841(a)(1) offense (well below the 480-month maximum). 3

The sole issue raised by Mr. Kutz is that his sentences are procedurally unreasonable because the district court erred in calculating his Guidelines range. In particular, Mr. Kutz contends that he is not a “career offender” under USSG § 4B1.1 because, he argues, neither of his prior convictions qualifies as a “crime of violence” as that term is defined in USSG § 4B1.2. He points to precedents that, in his view, support his claims with respect to both convictions and notes that his challenge to the predicate status of either offense would entitle him to relief.

In response to Mr. Kutz’s sentencing issue, the Government argues that the appeal waiver in Mr. Kutz’s Plea Agreement forecloses our consideration of his claim that the district court erred in calculating his advisory sentencing range. To that end, the Government filed the Motion to Supplement, seeking to “supplement the record on appeal” with two documents. Id. at 1. The first document is a copy of the Plea Agreement that Mr. Kutz entered into with the Government on October 6, 2010, pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(c)(1)(B), and which was filed under seal in the district court. Plea Agreement, United States v. Kutz, No. 5:10-CR-00217-F (W.D. Okla. Oct. 14, 2010), ECF 40.

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Bluebook (online)
702 F. App'x 661, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-kutz-ca10-2017.