Case ID: f-appx_101/html/0544-01.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. Jose Angel CORTEZ-VASQUEZ, Defendant-Appellant.
    No. 04-40023.
    Conference Calendar.
    United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.
    June 23, 2004.
    James Lee Turner, Assistant U.S. Attorney, Julia Bowen Stern, Assistant U.S. Attorney, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Houston, TX, for Plaintiff-Appellee.
    Roland E Dahlin, II, Federal Public Defender, Richard Bruce Gould, Sarny K Khalil, Federal Public Defender’s Office, Houston, TX, for Defendant-Appellant.
    Before BARKSDALE, DeMOSS, and CLEMENT, Circuit Judges.
   PER CURIAM:

Jose Angel Cortez-Vasquez appeals his guilty plea conviction for importation of more than 5 kilograms of cocaine. Cortez-Vasquez argues that the Government was obliged to, but did not, establish as a factual basis for his guilty plea that he knowingly possessed the particular type of controlled substance at issue in this case. He concedes that this argument is foreclosed by our opinion in United States v. Gamez-Gonzalez, 319 F.3d 695, 700 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 538 U.S. 1068, 123 S.Ct. 2241, 155 L.Ed.2d 1126 (2003), which held that knowledge of the drug type and quantity is not an element of the offense. Cortez-Vasquez also argues that 21 U.S.C. §§ 952 and 960 were rendered facially unconstitutional by Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 490, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000). He concedes that this argument is foreclosed by our opinion in United States v. Slaughter, 238 F.3d 580, 581-82 (5th Cir.2000), which rejected a broad Apprendi-based attack on the constitutionality of 21 U.S.C. § 841. He raises these issues only to preserve them for Supreme Court review.

A panel of this court cannot overrule a prior panel’s decision in the absence of an intervening contrary or superseding decision by this court sitting en banc or by the United States Supreme Court. Burge v. Parish of St. Tammany, 187 F.3d 452, 466 (5th Cir.1999). No such decision overruling Gamez-Gonzalez and Slaughter exist. Accordingly, Cortez-Vasquez’s arguments are indeed foreclosed. The judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.

The Government has moved for a summary affirmance in lieu of filing an appellee’s brief. In its motion, the Government asks that an appellee’s brief not be required. The motion is GRANTED.

AFFIRMED; MOTION GRANTED. 
      
       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.