Akins

*712 MEMORANDUM **

Reginald Akins was convicted of two counts of bank robbery and two counts of using a firearm during the robberies. He challenges the additional two years he received based on the court’s finding that a firearm was brandished, which increased the mandatory minimum sentence from five years to seven years.

Akins’s challenges to his sentence are controlled by our opinion in United States v. Dare, 425 F.3d 634 (9th Cir.2005). There we upheld the continued use of mandatory minimum sentences based on judicial factfinding as allowed by the Supreme Court’s opinion in Harris v. United States, 536 U.S. 545, 568 , 122 S.Ct. 2406 , 153 L.Ed.2d 524 (2002), despite the Supreme Court’s subsequent decisions in Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. 296 , 124 S.Ct. 2531 , 159 L.Ed.2d 403 (2004) and United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 , 125 S.Ct. 738 , 160 L.Ed.2d 621 (2005). Dare, 425 F.3d at 641 ; see also United States v. Cardenas, 405 F.3d 1046, 1048 (9th Cir.2005) (noting: “Booker does not bear on mandatory mínimums”). Thus, the jury’s verdict did not preclude the court from determining for the purpose of sentencing Akins within the statutory range that Akins had brandished a…