Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca5-14-40667/USCOURTS-ca5-14-40667-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Nino Rodriguez
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

No. 14-40667

Summary Calendar

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee

v.

NINO RODRIGUEZ, also known as Nino Ruben Rodriguez, also known as 

Ruben Rodriguez-Nino, also known as Ruben Rodriguez,

Defendant-Appellant

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of Texas

USDC No. 5:14-CR-191-1

Before REAVLEY, DENNIS, and SOUTHWICK, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:*

In 2003, in Texas state court, Defendant-Appellant Nino Rodriguez 

pleaded guilty to aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, a second degree 

felony under Texas law, see TEX. PENAL CODE § 22.02, and was placed on

deferred adjudication community supervision. His deferred adjudication was 

revoked in 2004 and he was deported in 2006. In 2014, in federal district 

court, Rodriguez pleaded guilty to illegal reentry subsequent to deportation. 

See 8 U.S.C. ' 1326(b). The district court sentenced him to forty-six months 

* 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.

United States Court of Appeals

Fifth Circuit

FILED

March 18, 2015

Lyle W. Cayce

Clerk

 

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in prison and three years of supervised release. Rodriguez then filed a timely 

notice of appeal.

Counsel appointed to represent Rodriguez on appeal has moved for leave 

to withdraw and has filed a brief in accordance with Anders v. California, 386 

U.S. 738 (1967), and United States v. Flores, 632 F.3d 229 (5th Cir. 2011). We 

have reviewed counsel=s brief and the relevant record reflected therein. 

Although we concur with the counsel=s assessment that the appeal presents no 

non-frivolous issue for appellate review with regard to most of the issues 

directly addressed in the Anders brief, the brief fails to adequately address two 

issues: (1) whether Rodriguez was properly convicted and sentenced under '

1326(b)(2), which carries a maximum twenty-year prison term, rather than 

under ' 1326(b)(1), which carries a maximum ten-year prison term; and (2) 

whether the district court erred in calculating Rodriguez’s criminal history 

score under U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual (U.S.S.G.) ' 4A1.2(k), which 

resulted in a criminal history score of three, rather than under ' 4A1.2(f), 

which would have resulted in a criminal history score of one. 

First, counsel’s Anders brief fails to adequately address whether the 

district court erred when it sentenced Rodriguez under ' 1326(b)(2). The 

presentence report (PSR) stated that under ' 1326(b)(2) Rodriguez was subject 

to a twenty-year maximum sentence for reentry of a removed alien whose 

removal was subsequent to a conviction of an “aggravated felony.” The final 

judgment also cites ' 1326(b)(2) as the sentencing statute. Unlawful reentry 

of a removed alien whose removal was subsequent to a conviction of a felony, 

as opposed to an aggravated felony, is sentenced under ' 1326(b)(1), which 

carries a ten-year maximum sentence, as opposed to the twenty-year maximum 

sentence of ' 1326(b)(2). See United States v. Mondragon-Santiago, 564 F.3d 

357, 369 (5th Cir. 2009). For Rodriguez’s Texas conviction to qualify as a 

conviction of an “aggravated felony” under ' 1326(b)(2), it must have resulted

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in a term of imprisonment of at least one year. See 8 U.S.C. ' 1101(a)(43)(F)

(defining “aggravated felony” for purposes of, inter alia, ' 1326). We have 

held that because “[d]eferred adjudication probation in Texas does not impose

a sentence of imprisonment, and thus does not involve a ‘term of 

imprisonment,’” deferred adjudication cannot be considered a conviction of an

aggravated felony under ' 1326(b)(2). Mondragon-Santiago, 564 F.3d at 368-

69; United States v. Arias, 481 F. App=x 234, 235 (5th Cir. 2012) (unpublished) 

(applying Mondragon-Santiago and reasoning that revocation of a deferred 

adjudication is irrelevant for purposes of ' 1326(b)(1)). 

Counsel’s Anders brief fails to analyze whether the district court 

properly applied ' 1326(b)(2) instead of ' 1326(b)(1). Instead, counsel 

suggests that an appeal of the issue would be frivolous because, even if the 

district court should have applied ' 1326(b)(1), the sentencing statute had no 

impact on the sentence the district court ultimately imposed. 1 But, if 

Rodriguez was improperly convicted under a statute with double the 

sentencing exposure of the properly applicable statute, it may call into question

the voluntariness of Rodriguez’s guilty plea and the corresponding validity of 

Rodriquez’s waiver of his right to appeal his guilty plea. 2 See Dunlap v. 

1 Counsel’s Anders brief does adequately address the district court’s decision not to 

apply the more lenient § 1326(a), which carries a two-year maximum sentence. In a single 

sentence at the conclusion of that analysis, counsel notes that “there is no indication in the 

record that Mr. Rodriguez’s alleged status as an ‘aggravated felon’ had any impact at all on 

his sentence, and his forty-six-month prison sentence is well below the ten-year statutory 

maximum even for an offense under 8 U.S.C. § 1326(b)(1).” This one-sentence conclusion is 

inadequate to allow for meaningful review of this issue. See Anders, 386 U.S. at 742-43; 

United States v. Garland, 632 F.3d 877, 880 (5th Cir. 2011).

2 Counsel’s Anders brief pretermits discussion of Rodriguez=s guilty plea in light of 

Rodriguez=s written confirmation in the record that he wishes only to appeal his sentence and 

not his conviction. See Garcia v. United States, 483 F.3d 289, 291 (5th Cir. 2007) (holding 

that counsel may only pretermit analysis of a guilty plea in an Anders brief with documented 

confirmation that the defendant decided to forgo a challenge to the plea). Whether 

Rodriguez knowingly and voluntarily waived his right to appeal his plea, notwithstanding

the documentation of Rodriguez=s waiver, may depend on whether the district court 

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United States, 462 F.2d 163, 164 (5th Cir. 1972) (A[I]n the event a defendant 

enters his guilty plea without full knowledge of the maximum consequences 

thereof, his plea is invalid and must be set aside.@). The PSR available to 

Rodriguez when he entered his guilty plea may have employed an incorrect 

sentencing statute, and if so, Rodriguez may not have been aware of the 

maximum consequences of that guilty plea. Therefore, there may be a nonfrivolous argument on appeal that Rodriguez did not knowingly and 

voluntarily plead guilty or waive his right to appeal his plea. See Baty, 980 

F.2d at 979-80; Dunlap, 462 F.2d at 164.

Second, counsel=s Anders brief fails to address whether the district court 

applied the proper U.S.S.G. provision when it calculated Rodriguez=s criminal 

history score. The court applied ' 4A1.2(k), entitled ARevocations of 

Probation, Parole, Mandatory Release, or Supervised Release.@ Applying 

' 4A1.2(k), the district court Aadd[ed] the original term of 

imprisonment”―which it set as zero years for the deferred adjudication 

community supervision―“to any term of imprisonment imposed upon 

revocation@ to calculate the total term of imprisonment, yielding a criminal 

history score of three. See ' 4A1.2(k)(1). Arguably, a plain reading of the 

guidelines suggests that deferred adjudications should be treated under 

' 4A1.2(f), which is entitled ADiversionary Dispositions@ and covers diversions 

of the judiciary process such as deferred adjudications, rather than under 

' 4A1.2(k), which expressly contemplates an “original term of imprisonment” 

that is not present in a deferred adjudication. Had the court applied 

' 4A1.2(f) rather than ' 4A1.2(k), the guidelines would have yielded a criminal 

erroneously sentenced Rodriguez under a subsection of the statute that carries a higher 

maximum sentence than Rodriguez should actually have been exposed to. See, e.g., United 

States v. Baty, 980 F.2d 977, 979-80 (5th Cir. 1992) (“[The defendant] did not effectively waive 

her right to appeal because she did not understand the consequences of the waiver when she 

pled guilty.”).

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history score of one. Although our precedent does not dictate which one of 

these two subsections applies here and plain error review sets a high bar for 

the appellant to overcome, counsel seeking to withdraw under Anders must 

provide some basis in the Anders brief for this court to review whether a nonfrivolous issue exists with respect to how the district court calculated the 

guideline range. See Garland, 632 F.3d at 880. Counsel has failed to meet 

that minimum standard here because the Anders brief omits any discussion of 

this issue. See id.

In sum, after review of the relevant portions of the record, we find that 

there may be non-frivolous issues on appeal that counsel failed to adequately 

brief. We do not decide today whether Rodriguez will be able to establish, 

under plain error review, that the district court’s sentencing errors were clear 

or obvious and affected Rodriguez=s substantial rights, Puckett v. United 

States, 556 U.S. 129, 135 (2009), or that Rodriguez’s guilty plea was not 

knowing and voluntary. However, when considering counsel=s motion to 

withdraw under Anders, “the question before us is not whether [the defendant] 

is likely to prevail . . . , but instead only whether there is a non-frivolous 

[]argument that even can be offered.” See, e.g., United States v. Davis, 291 

F. App’x 563, 567 (5th Cir. 2008) (unpublished).

Accordingly, counsel is directed to file supplemental briefing under 

Anders to address these issues or, in the alternative, file a merits brief. 

Counsel’s motion for leave to withdraw is DENIED, subject to our 

reconsideration of counsel=s supplemental briefing consistent with this opinion.

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