Case ID: f-appx_169/html/0410-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "PER CURIAM: \n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Alejandro CARDENAS, Defendant-Appellant.
    No. 04-50945.
    Summary Calendar.
    United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.
    Decided March 1, 2006.
    Joseph H. Gay, Jr., Assistant U.S. Attorney, Margaret M. Embry, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Western District of Texas, San Antonio, TX, for Plaintiff-Appellee.
    Matthew Rex Dekoatz, El Paso, TX, for Defendant-Appellant.
    Before JOLLY, DAVIS, and OWEN, Circuit Judges.
   PER CURIAM:

Alejandro Cardenas appeals his convictions and 80-month sentences for importing marijuana and possessing marijuana with intent to distribute. Cardenas argues that the district court abused its discretion by failing to order sua sponte a hearing to determine whether he was competent to plead guilty. He has not established that the district court had received information creating a bona fide doubt about competency. Pate v. Robinson, 383 U.S. 375, 385, 86 S.Ct. 836, 15 L.Ed.2d 815 (1966); see also United States v. Davis, 61 F.3d 291, 304 (5th Cir.1995).

Cardenas also contends that the district court erred in sentencing him pursuant to the mandatory Guidelines regime held unconstitutional in United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 125 S.Ct. 738, 764-65, 160 L.Ed.2d 621 (2005). The sentencing transcript is devoid of evidence that the district court would have imposed the same sentence under an advisory regime, and, therefore, the Government has not borne its burden of establishing beyond a reasonable doubt that the district court’s error was harmless. See United States v. Walters, 418 F.3d 461, 464 (5th Cir.2005).

CONVICTION AFFIRMED; VACATED AND REMANDED FOR RESEN-TENCING. 
      
       Pursuant to 5th Cir. R. 47.5, the court has determined that this opinion should not be published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5th Cir. R. 47.5.4.