United States v. Orrington Gardner, No. 09-3973 (8th Cir. 2010)
Annotate this CaseCourt Description: Criminal case - criminal law and sentencing. Anders case. Evidence was sufficient to support defendant's firearms conviction; district court did not err in imposing an enhancement under Guidelines Sec. 2K2.1(b)(6) for possessing the firearm in connection with another felony.
Download PDF
United States Court of Appeals FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT ___________ No. 09-3973 ___________ United States of America, Appellee, v. Orrington Gardner, Appellant. * * * * Appeal from the United States * District Court for the * Northern District of Iowa. * * [UNPUBLISHED] * ___________ Submitted: July 15, 2010 Filed: July 20, 2010 ___________ Before WOLLMAN, MELLOY, and GRUENDER, Circuit Judges. ___________ PER CURIAM. Orrington Gardner appeals his felon-in-possession conviction and the 120month sentence imposed by the district court1 following a jury trial. His counsel has moved to withdraw, and has filed a brief under Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738 (1967), arguing that (1) the conviction was not supported by the evidence, and (2) the district court erred in imposing a sentencing enhancement. 1 The Honorable Linda R. Reade, Chief Judge, United States District Court for the Northern District of Iowa. Viewing the evidence in a light most favorable to the jury s verdict and accepting all reasonable inferences that support the verdict, we conclude that the evidence was sufficient to support Gardner s conviction for being a felon in possession of a firearm. See United States v. Coleman, 584 F.3d 1121, 1125 (8th Cir. 2009) (standard of review). Gardner stipulated to the prior-felony-conviction and interstate-commerce elements of the offense; and there was sufficient circumstantial evidence that he possessed a gun because police officers testified that they found a gun that appeared to have been recently dropped in the direct path of Gardner s 50yard flight from police, and only the police and Gardner were present at the scene. See United States v. Lofton, 557 F.3d 594, 596 (8th Cir. 2009) (elements of offense); United States v. Light, 406 F.3d 995, 997-98 (8th Cir. 2005) (knowing possession of firearm may be based on circumstantial evidence). We also conclude that the district court did not err in imposing a 4-level sentencing enhancement for possessing a firearm in connection with another felony offense under U.S.S.G. ยง 2K2.1(b)(6). In any event, we conclude that any error was harmless because, after calculating the respective Guidelines ranges with and without the enhancement, the court expressly stated that it would have imposed the same 120month sentence in either case. See United States v. Icaza, 492 F.3d 967, 971 (8th Cir. 2007) (where sentencing court pronounces identical alternative sentence, error in calculating Guidelines range is harmless if it is clear that alternative sentence is based on identifiable, correctly calculated Guidelines range). Finally, after reviewing the record independently under Penson v. Ohio, 488 U.S. 75 (1988), we have found no nonfrivolous issues for appeal. Accordingly, we grant counsel s motion to withdraw, and we affirm the district court s judgment. _____________________________ -2-
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
