Case ID: f-appx_9/html/0582-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "PER CURIAM.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Angel LOMAS-FLORES, Appellant.
    No. 00-3760.
    United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.
    Submitted May 18, 2001.
    Filed May 24, 2001.
    Before LOKEN, ROSS, and FAGG, Circuit Judges.
   PER CURIAM.

Angel Lomas-Flores pleaded guilty to illegally reentering the United States after deportation in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a). Generally, the statutory maximum sentence for this offense is two years. See id. If the alien was deported following a conviction for an aggravated felony, however, the statutory maximum sentence is twenty years. See id. § 1326(b)(2). Because Lomas-Flores had been deported after his conviction for an aggravated felony, the district court sentenced him to seventy months in prison. Relying on Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000), Lomas-Flores contends his felony conviction must be charged in the indictment because the conviction increases the statutory maximum penalty from two to twenty years. This contention is foreclosed by our decision in United States v. Raya-Ramirez, 244 F.3d 976, 977 (8th Cir. 2001). In Rayar-Ramirez, we held Apprendi did not overrule Almendarez-Torres v. United States, 523 U.S. 224, 226, 118 S.Ct. 1219, 140 L.Ed.2d 350 (1998) (§ 1326(b)(2) enhancement properly applied to defendant who pleaded guilty to violating § 1326(a), even though the indictment did not allege the defendant’s earlier aggravated felony convictions or mention § 1326(b)(2)). The district court thus properly applied the enhancement in Lo-mas-Flores’s case, and we affirm his sentence. 
      
       The Honorable Paul A. Magnuson, United States District Judge for the District of Minnesota.