Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-14-03622/USCOURTS-ca7-14-03622-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
United States of America
Appellee
Alfredo Vasquez-Hernandez
Appellant

Document Text:

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 14-3622

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

ALFREDO VASQUEZ-HERNANDEZ,

Defendant-Appellant.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 09 CR 383 — Rubén Castillo, Chief Judge.

____________________

ARGUED JANUARY 11, 2016 — DECIDED AUGUST 25, 2016

____________________

Before EASTERBROOK, WILLIAMS, and SYKES, Circuit Judges.

EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge. Alfredo Vasquez-Hernandez 

pleaded guilty to a drug conspiracy. 21 U.S.C. §846. He admitted transporting 200 kilograms of cocaine, worth some $5 

million, on behalf of the notorious Sinaloa Cartel, and to receiving a further 76 kilograms to be sold on consignment for 

about $2 million. The district court calculated a Guidelines

range of 188 to 235 months’ imprisonment and sentenced 

Case: 14-3622 Document: 46 Filed: 08/25/2016 Pages: 12
2 No. 14-3622

Vasquez-Hernandez to 264 months, about 21⁄2 years more 

than the high end of the range. Although VasquezHernandez conceded being an agent of others, the district 

judge concluded that he also had a supervisory role—that, 

indeed, anyone entrusted with $7 million of someone else’s 

cocaine must have high status in the organization. VasquezHernandez contends on appeal that these were one-off 

transactions, that he supervised no one, that the range therefore should have been 135 to 168 months, and that his sentence should be within that range.

The principal appellate contest revolves around the three 

offense levels that the district judge added under U.S.S.G.

§3B1.1(b), which applies when the defendant was “a manager or supervisor (but not an organizer or leader) and the 

criminal activity involved five or more participants or was 

otherwise extensive”. The district court found that the Sinaloa Cartel is substantially larger than five participants, and 

that Vasquez-Hernandez had criminal contact with at least 

that many persons. If an organization has five members (or 

is otherwise extensive), supervising any one of them supports the enhancement. See United States v. Figueroa, 682 F.3d 

694, 696–97 (7th Cir. 2012). The judge’s findings are not clearly erroneous.

Vasquez-Hernandez makes much of the district judge’s 

failure to name the persons he managed or supervised. Yet 

the language of §3B1.1(b) does not require naming names, 

nor does our case law. See United States v. Mansoori, 304 F.3d 

635, 668–69 (7th Cir. 2002); United States v. Richards, 198 F.3d 

1029, 1031, 1034 (7th Cir. 2000). This leaves only VasquezHernandez’s argument that he just didn’t supervise anyone.

Case: 14-3622 Document: 46 Filed: 08/25/2016 Pages: 12
No. 14-3622 3

One problem with this argument is the sheer quantity of 

cocaine to which he admitted. No one can carry 276 kilograms of cocaine on his back or hide it in the glove compartment of a car. Moving any substance of this weight and 

bulk requires the assistance of multiple people. And the district judge inferred from the fact that the Sinaloa Cartel was 

willing to trust Vasquez-Hernandez with $7 million worth of 

cocaine that he had a high status in the organization and was 

in a position to tell at least some other people what to do, 

rather than being at the bottom of the totem pole. That inference is not clearly erroneous.

More: Vasquez-Hernandez effectively admitted supervising some others. “Individual A” (whose name has been concealed for his safety) fronted the 76 kilograms to VasquezHernandez. As part of his plea, Vasquez-Hernandez stated 

that he “utilized Individual A’s connections to arrange for 

the transportation of the cocaine”. This strongly implies that 

he told Individual A’s associates (his “connections”) what to 

do. It may be that Vasquez-Hernandez and Individual A 

were on the same level of the organization, neither giving 

instructions to the other, but that can’t be said about the 

“connections” through whom Vasquez-Hernandez made essential arrangements.

The district court did not make any findings of fact on 

this subject (beyond saying that Vasquez-Hernandez must 

have had some “subordinates” to move the drugs) and did 

not need to. Disputes must be resolved by findings; undisputed matters may be taken as established. The district court 

did remark that 276 kilograms of cocaine can’t be moved by 

one person, and that the quantity alone prevents treating 

Vasquez-Hernandez as a low-level mule. This means that 

Case: 14-3622 Document: 46 Filed: 08/25/2016 Pages: 12
4 No. 14-3622

Vasquez-Hernandez had authority over at least one person—and, since that person need not be identified, the application of an enhancement under §3B1.1(b) was not an 

abuse of discretion.

Vasquez-Hernandez maintains that the judge should not 

have imposed a sentence longer than 235 months, the top of 

the range as the court calculated it. His sentence was 29 

months higher, which does not require elaborate justification. The quantity table in U.S.S.G. §2D1.1 assigns 150 to 450 

kilograms of cocaine to offense level 36. Vasquez-Hernandez

was responsible for at least 276 kilograms of cocaine, almost 

double what is necessary to produce that level. The judge 

also suspected that Vasquez-Hernandez was lying when he 

said that these 276 kilos represent the only drugs for which 

he is responsible, and that he is just the proprietor of a 

struggling auto-repair shop who accepted help in the form 

of 276 kilos of cocaine from friends who wanted to assist his 

family financially. The judge stated: “I cannot sit here, as a 

judge who’s been on the bench for 20 years and who’s been 

involved in the drug war for a good portion of my life, and 

think for one second, nor do I think any other Chicagoan 

could think for one second that this was the first time that 

you just happened to do this, that you ... got up out of bed 

and said, well, let me do a 276-kilogram transaction to Chicago today.”

The prosecutor produced statements from other confessed participants in the Sinaloa Cartel that attributed substantial quantities to Vasquez-Hernandez. These conspirators asserted that they, working together with VasquezHernandez, had imported at least ten tons of cocaine—

mostly by aircraft but some by trains and submarines—and 

Case: 14-3622 Document: 46 Filed: 08/25/2016 Pages: 12
No. 14-3622 5

smuggled the proceeds back to Mexico. The district court 

decided to take the approach most favorable to VasquezHernandez and disregard this evidence, although at one 

point the judge mused that it called into question the wisdom of giving Vasquez-Hernandez a three-level reduction 

for acceptance of responsibility. (If the evidence had been 

credited, Vasquez-Hernandez not only would have lost this 

reduction but also would have been exposed to a two-level 

addition for obstructing justice by falsely denying relevant 

conduct.) The district court’s overall approach cannot be 

deemed unreasonably unfavorable to Vasquez-Hernandez.

Indeed, we wonder whether the district judge’s decision 

to exceed the top of the Guidelines range does not show that 

details such as the §3B1.1 enhancement were irrelevant. Multiple potential additions and subtractions were in play. 

We’ve mentioned three—supervision, acceptance of responsibility, and obstruction of justice—and there were more. If it 

was a mistake to decide the supervision issue adversely to 

Vasquez-Hernandez, it may equally have been a mistake to 

rule in his favor on acceptance of responsibility and the 

quantity of cocaine for which he is accountable.

We have urged district judges to let us know whether 

they would have imposed the same sentence even if they 

had also ruled differently on one of the many subsidiary issues that the Guidelines pose. See, e.g., United States v. Hawkins, 777 F.3d 880, 885 (7th Cir. 2015); United States v. Lopez, 

634 F.3d 948, 953–54 (7th Cir. 2011); United States v. Sanner, 

565 F.3d 400, 405–06 (7th Cir. 2009). The district judge’s 

statements at sentencing strongly imply that three levels one 

way or the other (either for supervision or acceptance of responsibility) just did not affect the sentence. He said several 

Case: 14-3622 Document: 46 Filed: 08/25/2016 Pages: 12
6 No. 14-3622

times that 25 years (less credit for time Vasquez-Hernandez 

had spent in Mexican confinement) was the only sensible 

sentence. But the judge did not say expressly that he would 

have held to this view had the Guidelines range been as low 

as 135 to 168 months, as Vasquez-Hernandez contends it 

should have been. It would help both litigants and the court 

of appeals for judges to say when every last level matters, 

and when it does not.

AFFIRMED

Case: 14-3622 Document: 46 Filed: 08/25/2016 Pages: 12
No. 14-3622 7

WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge, dissenting. For drug-distribution 

offenses, the Guidelines recommend lengthier sentences for 

larger distributions. For example, before applying enhancements or reductions, the 2013 Guidelines that were used in 

this case recommend a sentence of between 235 and 293 

months for an offender with no prior criminal history who 

distributes 276 kilograms of cocaine. U.S.S.G. 

§ 2D1.1(a)(5)(c)(1); § 5A. If the same offender distributed between 500 grams and 2 kilograms, his range would be only 

63 to 78 months. Id. § 2D1.1(a)(5)(c)(7); § 5A. So drug quantity matters—a lot. There is nothing inappropriate about that.

But the enhancements under § 3B1.1 require more than 

just a lot of drugs. These enhancements are aimed at the offender’s “relative role” in the offense. United States v. Schuh, 

289 F.3d 968, 972 (7th Cir. 2002) (citing United States v. 

Mustread, 42 F.3d 1097, 1103 (7th Cir. 1994)). If ten offenders 

worked together to move 276 kilograms of cocaine, but one 

of them was the mastermind, two were intermediate supervisors, and the rest were foot soldiers, § 3B1.1 recommends 

punishing the mastermind more harshly than the supervisors, and the supervisors more harshly than the foot soldiers. 

That is so even though, in the determination of their base offense levels, they may all be held accountable for the full 276 

kilograms. 

The key dispute in this case is whether the evidence justified punishing Vasquez-Hernandez for being a “manager or 

supervisor.” Because I disagree with my colleagues on this 

point, I respectfully dissent. The majority’s holding rests on 

two pillars: the quantity of drugs, and the wording in a document submitted on Vasquez-Hernandez’s behalf. Both are 

addressed below; neither withstands scrutiny.

Case: 14-3622 Document: 46 Filed: 08/25/2016 Pages: 12
8 No. 14-3622

A. Drug Quantity

Vasquez-Hernandez was entrusted with an enormous 

amount of cocaine. The majority writes that the district judge 

“inferred” from that “trust” that Vasquez-Hernandez managed or supervised “at least some people.” The majority 

concludes that such an inference was not clearly erroneous. 

But as the majority acknowledges,1 the district judge did not 

explicitly find that Vasquez-Hernandez managed or supervised anyone. So the judge said nothing about the inference 

that the majority credits him with having made. We should 

not guess at a judge’s inferences and then decide whether 

they were clearly erroneous.

In any event, the inference, if it was made, was clearly erroneous. As we have held, trust does not imply management 

or supervision. United States v. Pagan, 196 F.3d 884, 893 (7th 

Cir. 1999) (“The fact that Pagan may have ‘trusted’ HerreraRuiz more than the other street-level dealers in his operation, standing alone, does not support the enhancement.”). 

We very recently reaffirmed that logic in a different context, 

holding that “trust” does not prove that a buyer and seller of 

drugs are co-conspirators. United States v. Musgraves, --- F.3d 

----, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 13690, at *19–20 (7th Cir. July 27, 

2016). And because “trust” does not imply management or 

supervision, we have repeatedly rejected the specific argument accepted today—that a § 3B1.1 enhancement is appropriate simply because the defendant was entrusted with a 

 1 The majority writes that the district judge “did not make any findings of fact on this subject (beyond stating that Vasquez-Hernandez must 

have had some ‘subordinates’ to move the drugs) ... .” In fact, the judge 

found that Vasquez-Hernandez’s co-defendants had subordinates, not 

that anyone was subordinate to Vasquez-Hernandez.

Case: 14-3622 Document: 46 Filed: 08/25/2016 Pages: 12
No. 14-3622 9

large quantity of drugs. E.g., Pagan, 196 F.3d at 892 (“The fact 

that a defendant was a distributor in a drug conspiracy, even 

a large distributor, is not enough to support a § 3B1.1 offense 

level increase. Instead, the government must show that the 

defendant exercised some control over others involved in the 

commission of the offense.”) (internal citation and quotation 

marks omitted); United States v. Brown, 944 F.2d 1377, 1381–

82 (7th Cir. 1991) (“The government showed that William 

processed large quantities of marijuana, but we have previously rejected the notion that the size of a drug deal is determinative of eligibility for an enhancement under 

§ 3B1.1.”); see also United States v. Herrera, 878 F.2d 997, 1001 

(7th Cir. 1989) (“[W]hile we have no doubt that a large quantity of drugs permissibly may be used to infer that a large 

organization exists, that does not address the defendant’s 

relative role in that large organization—the issue under 

Guidelines 3B1.1.”). The majority does not grapple with, or 

even mention, Pagan, Herrera, or Brown.

B. Vasquez-Hernandez’s Admissions

The majority writes that Vasquez-Hernandez “effectively 

admitted supervising some others.” That is a remarkable 

way to interpret the relevant document, which was submitted by Vasquez-Hernandez to explicitly object to the § 3B1.1 

enhancement. A few paragraphs before the snippet relied on 

by the majority, the document states: “Mr. VasquezHernandez never managed or supervised anyone in connection with the drug conspiracy.” The document contains similar denials throughout. Nonetheless, the majority concludes 

that Vasquez-Hernandez’s admission that he “utilized Individual A’s connections to arrange for the transportation of 

the cocaine” “strongly implies that he told Individual A’s asCase: 14-3622 Document: 46 Filed: 08/25/2016 Pages: 12
10 No. 14-3622

sociates (his ‘connections’) what to do.” The government 

made a similar argument—that the word “arranged” is “an 

acknowledgement by [Vasquez-Hernandez] that he necessarily acted in a managerial or supervisory role with respect 

to those participants who actually transported the narcotics.” Neither the majority nor the government cited anything 

in support of its reasoning—not even a dictionary. And at 

oral argument, the government conceded that “arranged” 

does not imply management or supervision. (For example, 

one can “arrange” to have Federal Express ship an enormous 

quantity of just about anything, across the country, without 

managing or supervising anyone involved.)

The reasoning employed by the majority and the government has been appropriately rejected by one of our sister 

circuits (in another case that the majority fails to mention). In 

United States v. Martinez, 584 F.3d 1022 (11th Cir. 2009), the 

Eleventh Circuit reversed a § 3B1.1 enhancement, even 

though the defendant had admitted to “orchestrat[ing]” 

drug shipments and to “us[ing] others to assist in the drug 

shipments.” Noting that “orchestrate” means “to arrange, 

develop, organize, or combine so as to achieve a desired or 

maximum effect,” id. at 1028 (citing Webster’s Third New 

International Dictionary (2002)) (emphasis added), the court 

held that the word “orchestrate” did not prove that the defendant “exercised any position of leadership or authority 

over his co-conspirators.” Id. Our case is not meaningfully 

different.

“Arranging” a shipment by “utilizing” “connections” 

might be part of managing or supervising, or it might be 

merely cooperating. But only the former counts because a 

§ 3B1.1 “enhancement requires ongoing supervision, not a 

Case: 14-3622 Document: 46 Filed: 08/25/2016 Pages: 12
No. 14-3622 11

one-off request from one equal to another during the course 

of the criminal activity.” United States v. Weaver, 716 F.3d 439, 

444 (7th Cir. 2013); see also United States v. Figueroa, 682 F.3d 

694, 697–98 (7th Cir. 2012) (“Because to be a ‘manager’ or 

‘supervisor’ is to occupy a role—to have a status—cases distinguish between ongoing supervision and merely asking a 

coconspirator on one occasion to do something.”) (citations

omitted). Simply put, Vasquez-Hernandez did not admit to 

managing or supervising another criminal participant.

C. Speculation Not Sufficient

I am not saying that Vasquez-Hernandez was not a manager or supervisor. But the facts in the record—that he “arranged” a very large drug shipment by “utilizing” someone 

else’s “connections”—do not support the required conclusion that he managed or supervised another criminal participant. A sentencing enhancement cannot be based on mere 

speculation. E.g., United States v. Clinton, --- F.3d ----, 2016 

U.S. App. LEXIS 10885, at *6 (7th Cir. June 16, 2016) (reversing enhancement and rejecting as speculation the conclusion 

that a gun was paid for with drugs merely because it was 

sold by a drug addict to a drug dealer); United States v. Bradley, 628 F.3d 394, 400 (7th Cir. 2010) (due process requires 

that sentencing determinations be based on reliable evidence 

rather than speculation or unfounded allegations). Indeed, 

we have rejected speculation-based enhancements in the 

specific context of § 3B1.1. In Schuh, the defendant owned a 

tavern that he let drug dealers use to make sales, and they 

showed their appreciation by giving him free cocaine. 289 

F.3d at 971. The district judge applied a § 3B1.1 enhancement, based in part on his conclusion that the tavern owner 

could have demanded more cocaine from the dealers. Id. at 

Case: 14-3622 Document: 46 Filed: 08/25/2016 Pages: 12
12 No. 14-3622

972. Finding that to be “mere speculation,” we rejected the 

enhancement. Id. at 972–73. 

Imagine a district judge applied a § 3B1.1 enhancement to 

an offender based on (1) the fact that the offender had been 

dealing drugs for five years, and (2) the judge’s guess that 

nobody lasts in the drug trade for five years without moving 

up the ladder. Recognizing that “common sense assumptions about the drug trade only go so far,” United States v. 

Block, 705 F.3d 755, 764 (7th Cir. 2013), I believe we would 

reject the enhancement. But as best as I can tell, the majority 

affirms Vasquez-Hernandez’s enhancement based on very 

similar speculation. I respectfully dissent.

Case: 14-3622 Document: 46 Filed: 08/25/2016 Pages: 12