The 8th Circuit remands!!

In what I believe is the first consequential Booker circuit court ruling, the Eighth Circuit remanded a case for resentencing on Blakely/Booker grounds today in US v. Coffey, No. 04-2176 (8th Cir. Jan. 21, 2004) (available here).  The brief discussion of Blakely/Booker in the Coffey opinion is a bit decaffeinated, but the decision is still important for suggesting that, at least in the Eighth Circuit, all preserved Blakely errors result in remands for resentencing.  Here’s the key passage (with the citations trimmed):

Finally, Coffey claims that he was sentenced in violation of his Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial, as recognized in Blakely.  He argues that the district court impermissibly held him responsible for a higher drug quantity than the amount the jury attributed to him.  Prior to sentencing, Coffey asserted that there was insufficient evidence to calculate any drug quantity against him.  The district court overruled his objection and sentenced Coffey using an offense level applicable to 2.7 kilograms of crack, despite no jury finding in support of this amount.

Whether or not Blakely applied to the United States Sentencing Guidelines is no longer an open question: the Supreme Court has now held that it does. Booker holds the mandatory guidelines scheme employed by federal courts is unconstitutional. Instead, the Guidelines are now “effectively advisory,” and defendants such as Coffey who have preserved the issue are entitled to new sentencing proceedings.[FN 5]  We thus remand for resentencing in accordance with Booker.

[FN 5] We express no opinion on whether a sentence handed down under the mandatory Guidelines system is plainly erroneous, nor do we consider the outer limits of precisely what will preserve the issue.