United States v. Tharps , 321 F. App'x 759 ( 2009 )

FILED
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
April 13, 2009
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
Elisabeth A. Shumaker
TENTH CIRCUIT Clerk of Court
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee, No. 08-5121
v. (N.D. Oklahoma)
LAMONT DESHUN THARPS, (D.C. No. 4:08-CR-0030-CVE-1)
Defendant - Appellant.
ORDER AND JUDGMENT *
Before HARTZ, HOLLOWAY, and MCCONNELL, Circuit Judges.
Lamont D. Tharps was convicted by a jury in the United States District
Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma of possessing crack cocaine, see
21 U.S.C. § 844(a), and being a felon in possession of a firearm, see 18 U.S.C.
§§ 922(g)(1), 924(a)(2). His sole issue on appeal relates to his sentence. He
argues that he was entitled to a reduction in his offense level under USSG
§ 3E1.1(a) for acceptance of responsibility. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.
§ 1291 and affirm.
*
This order and judgment is not binding precedent except under the
doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. It may be cited,
however, for its persuasive value consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th
Cir. R. 32.1.
I. BACKGROUND
After being stopped by the police for motor-vehicle infractions on
January 3, 2008, Mr. Tharps was told to exit his car and was placed in handcuffs.
When asked whether “he had anything illegal on him,” he said, “yes, I got
something in my sleeve.” R. Vol. 2, Doc. 64 at 42–43. An officer then recovered
from his right sleeve a clear plastic bag containing crack cocaine. A search of the
glove compartment of his car revealed a loaded semiautomatic handgun and a box
of hollow-point ammunition. At the police station the officers discovered
“between [Mr. Tharps’s] butt cheeks” a clear plastic bag containing several
individually packaged lumps of crack cocaine, id. at 46, and $870 in cash hidden
beneath his ankle brace.
Mr. Tharps was indicted on three counts: (1) possession of crack cocaine
with intent to distribute, see 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), 841(b)(1)(C); (2) possession
of a firearm in furtherance of a drug-trafficking crime, see 18 U.S.C.
§ 924(c)(1)(A)(i); (3) and being a felon in possession of a firearm, see id.§§ 922(g)(1), 924(a)(2). The government called as witnesses the two officers who
arrested him and seized the drugs, money, firearm, and ammunition, and a third
officer who testified that the amount of crack cocaine, the way it was packaged,
the quantity of cash, and the presence of a firearm were all consistent with
planned distribution of the cocaine, not simple possession for personal use.
Because Mr. Tharps did not enter into any evidentiary stipulations, the
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government’s witnesses also included (1) a forensic scientist who testified that
the substance recovered weighed 4.56 grams and was crack cocaine; (2) the case
agent for the prosecution, a police detective, who testified that Mr. Tharps was
the registered owner of the car he was driving; (3) a special agent of the Bureau
of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, who testified that the firearm and
ammunition were manufactured outside of Oklahoma and had traveled in
interstate commerce; (4) a booking officer at the jail where Mr. Tharps was
booked, who identified a card as having Mr. Tharps’s fingerprints; and (5) a
fingerprint analyst, who testified that the fingerprints on the card matched the
prints on a penitentiary packet that established Mr. Tharps’s prior felony
convictions.
Mr. Tharps called two witnesses: First, he called the prosecution’s case
agent, who admitted that he had testified in an unrelated trial that 3.5 grams of
crack cocaine was consistent with personal use, not distribution. Mr. Tharps then
took the stand in his own defense. He acknowledged his past felony convictions,
stated that he was a crack addict who purchased crack every day, and admitted
that he kept a loaded firearm in his car. He denied, however, that he had ever
sold crack cocaine or that he had kept the gun in his car for use in selling cocaine.
The jury convicted him of only the charges he admitted: possession of crack
cocaine and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.
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The presentence report calculated Mr. Tharps’s combined offense level as
20. It made no adjustment for acceptance of responsibility. Mr. Tharps’s
sentencing memorandum, citing his trial testimony, objected that he was entitled
to a two-level reduction for acceptance of responsibility under USSG § 3E1.1.
The district court refused to grant the reduction, finding that Mr. Tharps had
failed to make pretrial statements accepting responsibility and had put the
government to its burden of proof at trial by denying the charges until the
government had rested its case.
With a combined offense level of 20 and a criminal-history category of V,
Mr. Tharps’s guidelines sentencing range was 63 to 78 months. See USSG Ch. 5,
pt. A. The district court sentenced him to 63 months’ imprisonment.
II. DISCUSSION
A two-level reduction in offense level is warranted “[i]f the defendant
clearly demonstrates acceptance of responsibility for his offense . . . .” USSG
§ 3E1.1(a). We review a district court’s factual conclusions regarding acceptance
of responsibility for clear error, see United States v. Martin, 528 F.3d 746, 756
(10th Cir. 2008), bearing in mind that “[t]he sentencing judge is in a unique
position to evaluate a defendant’s acceptance of responsibility” and thus, “the
determination of the sentencing judge is entitled to great deference on review,”
USSG § 3E1.1 cmt. n.5.
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“[A] defendant’s decision to exercise his constitutional right to trial will
commonly render him ineligible for a § 3E1.1 reduction.” United States v. Tom,
494 F.3d 1277, 1280 (10th Cir. 2007). This conclusion follows from application
note 2 of USSG § 3E1.1, which explicitly addresses this situation:
This adjustment is not intended to apply to a defendant who puts the
government to its burden of proof at trial by denying the essential
factual elements of guilt, is convicted, and only then admits guilt and
expresses remorse. Conviction by trial, however, does not
automatically preclude a defendant from consideration for such a
reduction. In rare situations a defendant may clearly demonstrate an
acceptance of responsibility for his criminal conduct even though he
exercises his constitutional right to trial. This may occur, for
example, where a defendant goes to trial to assert and preserve issues
that do not relate to factual guilt (e.g., to make a constitutional
challenge to a statute or a challenge to the applicability of a statute to
his conduct). In each such instance, however, a determination that a
defendant has accepted responsibility will be based primarily upon
pre-trial statements and conduct.
USSG § 3E1.1 cmt. n.2.
Mr. Tharps argues that he accepted responsibility because at trial he
admitted to both offenses of which he was convicted. He points out that one of
those offenses (simple possession of cocaine) would not even have gone to the
jury if he had not requested a lesser-included-offense instruction with respect to
the charge of possession with intent to distribute; in other words, he says, he
would not have been convicted of any drug offense if the government had
proceeded as it wished. He contends that he failed to admit the offenses sooner
because he was having difficulty getting along with his original attorneys (his
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counsel at trial had been appointed only a week earlier), and that he had
demonstrated his acceptance of responsibility from the outset, when he told the
officers who stopped him that he had “something in [his] sleeve.” R. Vol. 2,
Doc. 64 at 42–43.
We are not persuaded that the district court erred. We agree with
Mr. Tharps that a court could not properly hold against him that he failed to admit
the charges on which he was acquitted. But the district court did not do so in this
case. It refused to find that Mr. Tharps had accepted responsibility because (1) it
was “unaware of [Mr. Tharps] making a pretrial statement accepting
responsibility for the criminal conduct charged in the indictment,” id., Doc. 63 at
7; and (2) he had required the government to prove its case even on the offenses
that he later admitted during his testimony.
With respect to the first basis of the district court’s decision, Mr. Tharps
argues on appeal that the court made a factual error. He suggests that his
informing the officers of the cocaine in his sleeve constituted an acceptance of
responsibility. But at sentencing he did not dispute the court’s finding regarding
pretrial statements, even though immediately after its ruling the court asked
Mr. Tharps’s counsel whether he “kn[e]w of any legal or factual issues i[n]
dispute.” Id. at 8. In any event, we are aware of no evidence that Mr. Tharps
admitted before trial that he possessed a firearm or was a convicted felon.
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As for the second basis of the district court’s decision, the court was
correct to rely on Mr. Tharps’s requiring the government to prove its case. The
trial judge need not construe self-incriminatory testimony as an acceptance of
responsibility. As we stated in a similar case in which the defendant admitted at
trial the offenses of which he was convicted, “the district court could reasonably
have concluded that [the defendant’s] . . . admissions at trial were strategic, rather
than evidence of true acceptance of responsibility.” United States v. Collins, 511
F.3d 1276, 1280 (10th Cir. 2008). Mr. Tharps required the government to go
through every technical hoop to establish his guilt, forcing the government to call
multiple witnesses to prove that the substance found was cocaine, that the firearm
traveled in interstate commerce, and that his fingerprints matched those of a
previously convicted felon. It would not be unreasonable to infer that he decided
to admit simple possession only because (1) he saw that the government had not
slipped up in its case in chief and (2) he thought that his denial of possession with
intent to distribute would be more persuasive if he admitted simple possession.
See United States v. Herron, 432 F.3d 1127, 1138–39 (10th Cir. 2005) (defendant
who failed to stipulate to jurisdictional elements was properly denied adjustment
for acceptance of responsibility). The court was not required to believe Mr.
Tharps’s assertion that he would have pleaded guilty if he had gotten along better
with his attorneys. And his request for a lesser-included-offense instruction need
not be viewed as a gift from him to the prosecution; the request could readily
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have derived from a fear that if the jury were presented with an all-or-nothing
choice (guilty of possession with intent to distribute or not guilty), it would have
selected guilt. See Beck v. Alabama, 447 U.S. 625, 633–38 (1980) (defendant in
capital case is entitled to lesser-included-offense instruction).
In sum, the district court did not commit clear error in finding that
Mr. Tharps failed to accept responsibility.
III. CONCLUSION
We AFFIRM Mr. Tharps’s sentence.
ENTERED FOR THE COURT
Harris L Hartz
Circuit Judge
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