In U.S. v. Williams, 2005 WL 1058931 (May 6, 2005), the Court (Birch, Black, Pryor) held that the defendant failed to establish Booker plain error in the sentence enhancement for brandishing or possessing a firearm during robberies.
The Court noted that, after the hearing the testimony of witnesses, the district court concluded that the defendant did possess a gun during his robberies, and that the defendant was lying when he denied having possessed a firearm during these crimes. The Court concluded that it was "obvious" from the sentencing transcript that if the case were sent back down, the district court would impose the enhancemnents "again." Similarly, the district court made clear that it would not grant a sentence reduction for acceptance of responsibility, and, again, it was clear that a remand on this issue would be pointless. The defendant, therefore, failed to satisfy the third prong of the Eleventh Circuit’s Booker plain error analysis, i.e., showing that a lower sentence would have resulted had the district court known that the Guidelines were not mandatory.
