U.S. v. Watts

Decision Date06 January 1997
Docket Number951906
Citation519 U.S. 148,136 L.Ed.2d 554,117 S.Ct. 633
PartiesUNITED STATES v. Vernon WATTS. UNITED STATES v. Cheryl PUTRA
CourtU.S. Supreme Court

PER CURIAM.

In these two cases, two panels of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that sentencing courts could not consider conduct of the defendants underlying charges of which they had been acquitted. United States v. Watts, 67 F.3d 790 (C.A.9 1995) (''Watts ''); United States v. Putra, 78 F.3d 1386 (C.A.9 1996) (''Putra ''). Every other Court of Appeals has held that a sentencing court may do so, if the Government establishes that conduct by a preponderance of the evidence. 1 The Government filed a single petition for certiorari seeking review of both cases, pursuant to this Court's Rule 12.4, to resolve this split. Because the panels' holdings conflict with the clear implications of 18 U.S.C. § 3661, the Sentencing Guidelines, and this Court's decisions, particularly Witte v. United States, 515 U.S. ----, 115 S.Ct. 2199, 132 L.Ed.2d 351 (1995), we grant the petition and reverse in both cases.

In Watts, police discovered cocaine base in a kitchen cabinet and two loaded guns and ammunition hidden in a bedroom closet of Watts' house. A jury convicted Watts of possessing cocaine base with intent to distribute, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), but acquitted him of using a firearm in relation to a drug offense, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c). Despite Watts' acquittal on the firearms count, the District Court found by a preponderance of the evidence that Watts had possessed the guns in connection with the drug offense. In calculating Watts' sentence, the court therefore added two points to his base offense level under United States Sentencing Commission, Guidelines Manual § 2D1.1(b)(1) (Nov.1995) (USSG). The Court of Appeals vacated the sentence, holding that ''a sentencing judge may not, 'under any standard of proof,' rely on facts of which the defendant was acquitted.'' 67 F.3d, at 797 (quoting United States v. Brady, 928 F.2d 844, 851, and n. 12 (C.A.9 1991), abrogated on other grounds, Nichols v. United States, 511 U.S. 738, 114 S.Ct. 1921, 128 L.Ed.2d 745 (1994)) (emphasis added in Watts ). The Government argued that the District Court could have enhanced Watts' sentence without considering facts ''necessarily rejected'' by the jury's acquittal on the § 924(c) charge because the sentencing enhancement did not require a connection between the firearm and the predicate offense, whereas § 924(c) did. The court rejected this argument, stated that both the enhancement and § 924(c) involved such a connection, and held that the District Court had impermissibly ''reconsider[ed] facts that the jury necessarily rejected by its acquittal of the defendant on another count.'' 67 F.3d, at 796.

In Putra, authorities had videotaped two transactions in which Putra and a codefendant (a major drug dealer) sold cocaine to a government informant. The indictment charged Putra with, among other things, one count of aiding and abetting possession with intent to distribute one ounce of cocaine on May 8, 1992; and a second count of aiding and abetting possession with intent to distribute five ounces of cocaine on May 9, 1992, both in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) and 18 U.S.C. § 2. The jury convicted Putra on the first count but acquitted her on the second. At sentencing, however, the District Court found by a preponderance of the evidence that Putra had indeed been involved in the May 9 transaction. The District Court explained that the second sale was relevant conduct under USSG § 1B1.3, and it therefore calculated Putra's base offense level under the Guidelines by aggregating the amounts of both sales. As in Watts, the Court of Appeals vacated and remanded for resentencing. Reasoning that the jury's verdict of acquittal manifested an ''explicit rejection'' of Putra's involvement in the May 9 transaction, the Court of Appeals held that ''allowing an increase in Putra's sentence would be effectively punishing her for an offense for which she has been acquitted.'' 78 F.3d, at 1389. The panel explained that it was imposing ''a judicial limitation on the facts the district court may consider at sentencing, beyond any limitation imposed by the Guidelines.'' Ibid. Then-Chief Judge Wallace dissented, arguing that the panel's ''sweeping language contradicts the Guidelines, our practice prior to enactment of the Guidelines, decisions of other circuits, and recent Supreme Court authority.'' Id., at 1390.

We begin our analysis with 18 U.S.C. § 3661, which codifies the longstanding principle that sentencing courts have broad discretion to consider various kinds of information. The statute states:

''No limitation shall be placed on the information concerning the background, character, and conduct of a person convicted of an offense which a court of the United States may receive and consider for the purpose of imposing an appropriate sentence.''

We reiterated this principle in Williams v. New York, 337 U.S. 241, 69 S.Ct. 1079, 93 L.Ed. 1337 (1949), in which a defendant convicted of murder and sentenced to death challenged the sentencing court's reliance on information that the defendant had been involved in 30 burglaries of which he had not been convicted. We contrasted the different limitations on presentation of evidence at trial and at sentencing: ''Highly relevant-if not essential-to [the judge's] selection of an appropriate sentence is the possession of the fullest information possible concerning the defendant's life and characteristics.'' Id., at 247, 69 S.Ct., at 1083 (footnote omitted); see Nichols, supra, at 747, 114 S.Ct., at 1928 (noting that sentencing courts have traditionally and constitutionally ''considered a defendant's past criminal behavior, even if no conviction resulted from that behavior'') (citing Williams, supra ); BMW of North America, Inc. v. Gore, 517 U.S. ----, ---- n. 19, 116 S.Ct. 1589, 1597 n. 19, 134 L.Ed.2d 809 (1996) (''A sentencing judge may even consider past criminal behavior which did not result in a conviction'') (citing Williams, supra ). Neither the broad language of § 3661 nor our holding in Williams suggests any basis for the courts to invent a blanket prohibition against considering certain types of evidence at sentencing. Indeed, under the pre-Guidelines sentencing regime, it was ''well established that a sentencing judge may take into account facts introduced at trial relating to other charges, even ones of which the defendant has been acquitted.'' United States v. Donelson, 695 F.2d 583, 590 (C.A.D.C.1982) (Scalia, J.).

The Guidelines did not alter this aspect of the sentencing court's discretion. '' '[V]ery roughly speaking, [relevant conduct] corresponds to those actions and circumstances that courts typically took into account when sentencing prior to the Guidelines' enactment.' '' Witte, supra, at ----, 115 S.Ct., at 2207 (quoting United States v. Wright, 873 F.2d 437, 441 (C.A.1 1989) (Breyer, J.)). Section 1B1.4 of the Guidelines reflects the policy set forth in 18 U.S.C. § 3661:

''In determining the sentence to impose within the guideline range, or whether a departure from the guidelines is warranted, the court may consider, without limitation, any information concerning the background, character and conduct of the defendant, unless otherwise prohibited by law. See 18 U.S.C. § 3661.''

Section 1B1.3, in turn, describes in sweeping language the conduct that a sentencing court may consider in determining the applicable guideline range. The commentary to that section states: ''Conduct that is not formally charged or is not an element of the offense of conviction may enter into the determination of the applicable guideline sentencing range.'' USSG § 1B1.3 comment., backg'd. With respect to certain offenses, such as Putra's drug conviction, USSG § 1B1.3(a)(2) requires the sentencing court to consider ''all acts and omissions . . . that were part of the same course of conduct or common scheme or plan as the offense of conviction.'' Application Note 3 explains that ''[a]pplication of this provision does not require the defendant, in fact, to have been convicted of multiple counts.'' The Note also gives the following example:

''[W]here the defendant engaged in three drug sales of 10, 15, and 20 grams of cocaine, as part of the same course of conduct or common scheme or plan, subsection (a)(2) provides that the total quantity of cocaine involved (45 grams) is to be used to determine the offense level even if the defendant is convicted of a single count charging only one of the sales.''

Accordingly, the Guidelines conclude that ''[r]elying on the entire range of conduct, regardless of the number of counts that are alleged or on which a conviction is obtained, appears to be the most reasonable approach to writing workable guidelines for these offenses.'' USSG § 1B1.3 comment., backg'd (emphasis added).

Although the dissent concedes that a district court may properly consider ''evidence adduced in a trial that resulted in an acquittal'' when choosing a particular sentence within a guideline range, it argues that the court must close its eyes to acquitted conduct at earlier stages of the sentencing process because the ''broadly inclusive language of § 3661'' is incorporated only into § 1B1.4 of the Guidelines. This argument ignores § 1B1.3 which, as we have noted, directs sentencing courts to consider all other related conduct, whether or not it resulted in a conviction. The dissent also contends that because Congress instructed the Sentencing Commission, in 28 U.S.C. § 994(l ), to ensure that the Guidelines provide incremental punishment for a defendant who is convicted of multiple offenses, it could not have meant for the Guidelines to increase a sentence based on offenses of which a defendant has been acquitted. Post, at __. The statute is not, however, ''cast in restrictive or exclusive...

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