US v Williams upholds a sentence, finding that there was no plain Booker error and no plain error in denial of a downward adjustment for acceptance of responsibility.
As to the Booker issue, his sentence was unconstitutionally enhanced by a non-jury finding (re use of firearm) but his plain error argument fails at the third step of the now-familiar test. No reasonable probability, says the Court, that the sentencing court would have given him a lower sentence had it known the guidelines were advisory. The sentencing court used some discretion in ways that helped him (e.g., making sentences run concurrently rather than consecutively), but sentenced him at the top end of the applicable guidelines range (and refused a downward departure) because he testified falsely and because he had a long record of violent crime. Basically, the Circuit sees this as a case where the sentencing court fully aired its discretion already and decided to sentence at the top of the guidelines range -- so no reason to suspect that it might now go lower after Booker. The Court reemphasizes that the sentencing court could impose the same use-of-firearm enhancement post-Booker, since Booker's remedy was to make the guidelines advisory, not to bar the use of enhancements based on non-jury findings.
The second point is easy: the District Court didn't plainly err in denying him the downward adjustment for acceptance of responsibility, because even though he entered a guilty plea he falsely (says the District Court, upheld by the Circuit) denied having used a firearm. No acceptance of responsiblity there.
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