United States v. Dawson , 207 F. App'x 778 ( 2006 )

MEMORANDUM ^**

In these consolidated appeals, Timothy Kana Dawson appeals from the sentence imposed following his guilty pleas to bank robbery, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2113(a); possession of a firearm in connection with a crime of violence, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A); and escape, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 751(a).

Dawson contends that his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights were violated when the district court sentenced him as a career offender under U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1 based on prior convictions that were neither alleged in the indictment nor admitted nor proved to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. He further argues that the avoidance-of-constitutional-doubt doctrine requires that Almendarez-Torres v. United States, 523 U.S. 224, 118 S.Ct. 1219, 140 L.Ed.2d 350 (1998), be limited to the holding that a prior conviction that increases the maximum penalty need not be alleged in the indictment when the prior conviction, unlike here, is admitted as part of a guilty plea.

These contentions are foreclosed. See United States v. Brown, 417 F.3d 1077, 1078-79 (9th Cir.2005) (holding that for a career-offender enhancement the fact of defendant’s prior convictions need not be proved to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt); United States v. Beng-Salazar, 452 F.3d 1088, 1091 (9th Cir.2006) (rejecting as foreclosed the contention that recent decisions of the Supreme Court limit Almendarez-Torres’s holding to cases where a defendant has admitted his prior convictions during a guilty plea); United States v. Velasquez-Reyes, 427 F.3d 1227, 1229 (9th Cir.2005) (rejecting contention that the government is required to plead prior convictions in the indictment and prove them to a jury unless the defendant admits the prior convictions); United States v. Weiland, 420 F.3d 1062, 1079 n. 16 (9th Cir.2005), cert. denied, — U.S. —, 126 S.Ct. 1911, 164 L.Ed.2d 667 (2006) (noting that we are bound by the Supreme Court’s holding in AlmendarezTorres that a district court may enhance a sentence on the basis of prior convictions, even if the fact of those convictions was not found by a jury beyond a reasonable doubt).

AFFIRMED.

** This disposition is not appropriate for publication and may not be cited to or by the courts of this circuit except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.