Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-99-03033/USCOURTS-caDC-99-03033-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
United States of America
Appellee
Santos D. Vizcaino
Appellant

Document Text:

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued January 10, 2000 Decided February 15, 2000

No. 99-3033

United States of America,

Appellee

v.

Santos D. Vizcaino,

Appellant

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 97cr00259-01)

Lisa B. Wright, Assistant Federal Public Defender, argued

the cause for appellant. With her on the briefs was A. J.

Kramer, Federal Public Defender.

Alex J. Bourelly, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the cause

for appellee. With him on the brief were Wilma A. Lewis,

U.S. Attorney, and Darrell C. Valdez, John R. Fisher and

Mary-Patrice Brown, Assistant U.S.Attorneys.

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Before: Silberman, Williams and Tatel, Circuit Judges.

Tatel, Circuit Judge: Sentenced for possessing with intent

to distribute both powder and crack cocaine, appellant argues

that the district court erred by failing to recognize its authority to depart downward pursuant to section 5K2.0 of the

United States Sentencing Guidelines on the ground that the

crack affected his sentence so significantly as to take it

outside of the Guidelines' "heartland." Because appellant

failed to request such a downward departure in the district

court, and because the district court did not plainly err by

failing to grant it sua sponte, we affirm.

I

A grand jury indicted appellant Santos Vizcaino for possessing with intent to distribute fifty grams or more of crack

cocaine and for possessing with intent to distribute powder

cocaine. Pleading guilty to the powder cocaine count, Vizcaino avoided the ten-year statutory mandatory minimum sentence that would have applied had a jury convicted him on the

crack cocaine charge. As a condition of dropping the crack

cocaine charge, the government required Vizcaino to accept

responsibility for approximately 185 grams of crack cocaine.

Under the relevant Sentencing Guideline, a criminal defendant's sentence turns not only on the quantity of drugs

involved in the offense of conviction, but also on "all acts and

omissions ... that were part of the same course of conduct

or common scheme or plan as the offense of conviction."

United States Sentencing Guidelines s 1B1.3(a)(2). Because

the Guidelines treat offenses involving crack more severely

than those involving only powder cocaine, Vizcaino's acceptance of responsibility for crack dramatically affected his

potential sentence. Had his sentence been determined only

by the amount of powder cocaine to which he pled guilty, the

Guideline range would have been 27-33 months. With the

crack, his Guideline range increased to 121-151 months.

Recognizing the crack's impact on the potential sentence, the

district court informed Vizcaino at the plea colloquy that his

"lawyer and the government's lawyer have agreed that the

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Guideline range which is going to control the sentence that I

impose on you is, at bottom, 121 months and at top, 151

months." Asked if he understood, Vizcaino answered, "Yes."

The district court accepted Vizcaino's plea.

At sentencing, Vizcaino's counsel asked the district court to

depart below the 121-151 month Guideline range, explaining

only that "Mr. Santos Vizcaino has some material he wishes

to share ... which we think may take it below the Guidelines." Vizcaino then told the court this: "I want to explain

to you a few months ago I did sign a plea agreement to accept

responsibility for powder cocaine. And based on this, I think

that I should be sentenced for powder cocaine, which would

change the category within the guidelines that were approved

by the Congress...." Vizcaino spoke at length (for five or

six transcript pages) about his children, his wife, his drug use,

and the impact that his imprisonment was having on his

children. The district court, apparently responding to Vizcaino's earlier statement that he had accepted responsibility for

powder cocaine, then pointed out: "In your plea agreement,

in paragraph 3, you not only acknowledge responsibility for

the powder cocaine that formed the basis of the charge to

which you entered a plea of guilty, but you also acknowledged

that you were accountable for 185 grams of cocaine base, or

crack cocaine. And the government's evidence would have

shown that that represented relevant conduct." Vizcaino

responded: "Your Honor, I believe my lawyer has a copy of

the plea agreement in which I said that I was held accountable for, I think, 200 grams of cocaine powder. And over

here...." The district court interrupted: "You were accountable for 223 grams of cocaine powder and 185 grams of

crack. In any event, the Guidelines leave me no choice

whatsoever, Mr. Vizcaino." Vizcaino explained that he had

entered into the plea in order to avoid the statutory mandatory minimum sentence for crack cocaine, to which the district

court replied: "There is not only the mandatory minimum

under the statute, but there are the Guidelines, which I must

follow, and the Guidelines are, for my purposes, also mandatory. I cannot depart from the Guidelines unless there is a

reason for doing so."

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Concluding that "there is nothing in this record which,

under the law, as it has been interpreted by our court of

appeals, entitles me to depart from the Guideline range," the

district court sentenced Vizcaino to 121 months imprisonment, the lowest sentence in the Guideline range. "Now let

me tell you this," the district court added:

This is one of those cases in which, in my judgment, the

Guidelines operate to produce an unjust result. Were I

at liberty, I would sentence you to a somewhat lesser

term of imprisonment, but I do not have that option....

I have several highly complimentary letters having to do

with Mr. Vizcaino, and they would, in the ordinary circumstances, be highly persuasive, were I at liberty to

impose a lesser sentence than I am. I am going to direct

that these be filed and made part of the record in this

case so that the court of appeals will have them available

to them when they determine whether or not I am

correct in my determination that there is no basis for a

departure from the guidelines in this case.

Vizcaino now appeals from the 121-month sentence.

II

This appeal requires us to return to an oft-litigated issue:

the scope of a district court's authority to depart downward

under section 5K2.0 of the United States Sentencing Guidelines. Section 5K2.0 provides: "[T]he sentencing court may

impose a sentence outside the range established by the

applicable guidelines, if the court finds 'that there exists an

aggravating or mitigating circumstance of a kind, or to a

degree, not adequately taken into consideration by the Sentencing Commission in formulating the guidelines that should

result in a sentence different from that described.' " United

States Sentencing Guidelines s 5K2.0 (quoting 18 U.S.C.

s 3553(b)). The Supreme Court has explained that district

courts may depart under section 5K2.0 on the basis of a

particular factor not specifically mentioned in the Guidelines

if, "considering the structure and theory of both relevant

individual guidelines and the Guidelines taken as a whole ...

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it is sufficient to take the case out of the Guideline's heartland." Koon v. United States, 518 U.S. 81, 96 (1996) (internal

citation and quotation marks omitted).

Citing cases from other circuits, Vizcaino maintains that the

district court erred by failing to recognize that where consideration of relevant conduct, i.e., conduct different from but

related to an offense of conviction, drastically affects a sentence, a district court has authority to depart downward.

See, e.g., United States v. Lombard, 72 F.3d 170, 183-87 (1st

Cir. 1995) (holding that trial court had authority to depart

under section 5K2.0 where consideration of relevant conduct

raised defendant's sentence from 262 months to mandatory

life imprisonment); United States v. Concepcion, 983 F.2d

369, 385-89 (2d Cir. 1992) (remanding to trial court to consider whether impact of relevant conduct, which increased defendant's sentence from 24-30 months to 262-327 months, warranted downward departure under section 5K2.0). Although

this circuit has never considered whether district courts have

authority to depart on this ground, Vizcaino argues that his

sentence presents a compelling case for such a departure.

His 121-month sentence was well over four times the low end

of the 27-33 month range that would have been applicable

had he been sentenced only for the powder cocaine included

in his plea agreement. As Vizcaino observes, moreover, the

Guidelines offense level and resulting sentencing range were

determined exclusively by the 185 grams of crack; the cocaine powder that Vizcaino possessed with intent to distribute

and that formed the basis of the offense to which he pled

guilty had absolutely no impact on his sentence. Because of

this, and given the district court's clearly expressed concern

about the length of Vizcaino's sentence, the district court

might have considered departing downward had Vizcaino

made a section 5K2.0 argument. But see United States v.

Lombard, 72 F.3d at 186-87 (noting that authority to depart

downward would not necessarily exist where case involved

only "sizable sentence increases based on an uncharged quantity of drugs").

As the government points out, however, neither Vizcaino

nor his lawyer requested such a departure. Not only did his

lawyer fail to make any argument at all, but the closest

Vizcaino came to raising the issue was this: "I think that I

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should be sentenced for powder cocaine, which would change

the category within the guidelines that were approved by the

Congress." At most, this statement asked the district court

to exclude crack cocaine from its sentencing consideration.

Because Vizcaino had accepted responsibility for the crack

and had not disputed that it was relevant conduct for purposes of the Guidelines, however, the district court had no

choice but to include crack in its sentencing calculations

unless the Guidelines provided some basis for not considering

it. Vizcaino offered the district court no such basis. To be

sure, Vizcaino was not required to state the issue as clearly as

appellate counsel has, or, for that matter, even to cite to

section 5K2.0 in order to preserve the issue for appeal. But

absent any statement that the district court could have reasonably interpreted as arguing that crack so distorted the

sentence as to take it out of the Guidelines' heartland, we

cannot conclude that Vizcaino preserved the issue.

Citing United States v. Beckham, 968 F.2d 47 (D.C. Cir.

1992), Vizcaino contends that he need not precisely articulate

the basis for his downward departure request in order to

preserve the issue for appeal. In Beckham, we remanded for

resentencing on the basis of a "refined" argument on appeal

even though in the district court the defendant, like Vizcaino,

only "complained about the harshness of his sentence in

general terms." Id. at 53. This case differs from Beckham

in a critical respect. In Beckham, the government did not

argue that the defendant had waived his departure argument

by failing to ask for it in the district court. Id. at 54 n.5

("Although [the defendant's] refinement of the disproportionality argument was not raised below, the government failed to

object to it, or even to comment upon it, in its brief, thus

waiving any waiver argument it may have had."). Far from

waiving the waiver issue in this case, the government has

argued it strenuously.

Because Vizcaino failed to preserve the argument for appeal, we review the district court's failure to depart sua

sponte at most for plain error. See United States v. Albritton, 75 F.3d 709, 712 (D.C. Cir. 1996) ("assuming, without

deciding, that we conduct plain error review" where defenUSCA Case #99-3033 Document #496525 Filed: 02/15/2000 Page 6 of 7
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dant waives downward departure argument). As Vizcaino's

counsel conceded at oral argument, under a plain error

standard his downward departure argument is "in trouble."

Even assuming the district court erred, absent precedent

from either the Supreme Court or this court holding that

relevant conduct's disproportional weight may form a basis

for a section 5K2.0 departure, the asserted error--failure to

recognize authority to depart on those grounds--falls far

short of plain error. See United States v. Merlos, 8 F.3d 48,

51 (D.C. Cir. 1993) (absent an opinion by this circuit or the

Supreme Court on the issue in dispute, there is no plain error

unless district court failed to follow "absolutely clear" legal

norm such as clear statutory provision or court rule); United

States v. Blackwell, 694 F.2d 1325, 1342 (D.C. Cir. 1982) ("the

lack of ... precedent in the circuit and the novelty of the

issue presented militate against" finding plain error).

Vizcaino's sentence is affirmed.

So ordered.

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