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Parties Involved:
Roberto Gutierrez
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

[DO NOT PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

________________________

No. 15-12736

Non-Argument Calendar

________________________

D.C. Docket No. 8:11-cr-00316-RAL-MAP-1

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee,

versus

ROBERTO GUTIERREZ, 

 Defendant-Appellant.

________________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Middle District of Florida

________________________

(February 26, 2016)

Before TJOFLAT, JORDAN and JULIE CARNES, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM: 

On February 4, 2000, Roberto Gutierrez, having pled guilty in the Southern 

District of Texas to possession of marijuana with intent to distribute, 21 U.S.C. §

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841(a), was sentenced to a prison term of 156 months and a three-year’s term of 

supervised release. On February 17, 2011, following his release from prison, the 

supervision of Gutierrez’s supervised release was transferred to the Middle District 

of Florida. 

The terms of Gutierrez’s supervised release were that (1) he could not 

commit another crime; (2) he could not possess a controlled substance; (3) and he 

had to submit a truthful report to his probation officer within the first five days of 

each month. On February 11, 2014, Gutierrez’s probation officer petitioned the 

district court pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(3) for a warrant for his arrest on the 

grounds, among others, that he had been arrested by the Hillsborough Sheriff’s 

Office for possession of heroin, his urinalysis testing was positive for cocaine and 

opiates, and he had possessed narcotics paraphernalia. The district court granted 

the probation officer’s petition. At the evidentiary hearing that followed, the court 

found that Guitierrez had violated the conditions of his supervised release, evoked 

the release and sentenced him to prison for a term of 24 months. Guiterrez appeals 

the district court’s decision.

1

I.

 1

 We review the district court’s decision to revoke Gutierrez’s supervised release for 

abuse of discretion. United States v. Velasquez Velasquez, 524 F.3d 1248, 1252 (11th Cir. 2008). 

We accept the court’s factual findings unless they are clearly erroneous. United States v. 

Almand, 992 F.2d 316, 318 (11th Cir. 1993). 

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Gutierrez’s first argument is that the probation officer’s petition for an arrest 

warrant failed to provide him with adequate notice of the statutory provisions that 

he had violated, thereby violating his Fifth Amendment Due Process rights. 

Gutierrez was entitled to the same due process that is provided in parole-revocation 

proceedings. United States v. Frazier, 26 F.3d 110, 114 (11th Cir. 1994). Such 

process includes a written notice specifying the condition(s) of supervised release 

allegedly violated. Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471, 489, 92 S. Ct. 2593, 2604, 

33 L. Ed. 2d 484 (1972). Relevant here is our decision in United States v. Evers. 

There we held that that a petition stating that it was based on the defendant’s arrest 

for “possession of marihuana on November 24, 1974” provided adequate notice. 

534 F.2d 1186, 1188 (5th Cir. 1976). 

We review Gutierrez’s due process argument for plain error because he did 

not present it to the district court in the first instance. United States v. Gresham,

325 F.3d 1262, 1265 (11th Cir.2003).2

 We find no plain error much less error. 

Gutierrez received adequate written notice of his arrest for possession of heroin, 

when the arrest occurred, and the case number of the state-court case that resulted. 

See Evers, 534 F.2d at 1188. Although Gutierrez’s petition did not include a 

 2 Under plain-error review, we will correct an error when an error was plain, affected the 

defendant’s substantial rights, and seriously affected the fairness, integrity, or public reputation 

of the judicial proceedings. United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 732-36, 113 S. Ct. 1770, 

1777-79, 123 L. Ed. 2d 508 (1993). There can be no plain error where there is no precedent 

from the Supreme Court or our Court directly resolving an issue. United States v. Castro, 455 

F.3d 1249, 1253 (11th Cir. 2006).

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reference to a specific statute, no precedent, binding or otherwise, has established 

that a supervised-release revocation petition must cite the statute authorizing it. 

See id. In sum, the probation officer’s petition satisfied Gutierrez’s due process 

rights.

II.

Gutierrez’s second argument is that the evidence that he possessed heroin (as 

alleged by the deputies of the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s office) was 

insufficient to support the petition’s charge because the government failed to show 

that he had control over the narcotics paraphernalia that was found in his car. The 

precise question is whether the evidence was sufficient for the court to find “by a 

preponderance of evidence” that he had “violated a condition of supervised 

release.” 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(3). 

Possession of a controlled substance can be shown by either actual or 

constructive possession. United States v. Leonard, 138 F.3d 906, 909 (11th Cir. 

1998). To prove actual possession, the evidence must show that the defendant 

either had physical possession of or personal dominion over the thing allegedly 

possessed. Id. In Leonard, we held that the evidence was sufficient to show that 

one of the defendants had personal dominion over cocaine where he was the driver 

of a vehicle and knew cocaine was in the vehicle. Id.

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The testimony at the revocation hearing established that the arresting 

officers found heroin in a vehicle in which Gutierrez was the sole occupant. 

Moreover, he admitted knowing that heroin was there. Gutierrez’s second 

argument accordingly fails. 

III.

Gutierrez’s third argument, which he presents for the first time on appeal, is 

that he did not violate the terms of his supervised release by failing to submit his 

monthly report to the probation officer because the officer waived the condition to 

report by excusing his failure to submit the monthly report on numerous prior 

occasions. 

Under the plain error standard, Gutierrez’s argument lacks merit because he 

identifies no authority from this court or the Supreme Court in support of his 

contract-waiver theory. See United States v. Castro, 455 F.3d 1249, 1253 (11th 

Cir. 2006) (providing that an error cannot be plain if it is not clear under current 

law, in that there is no binding precedent from this court or the Supreme Court).

IV.

Finally, Gutierrez argues that the district court should have treated his 

violations of the conditions of his supervised release as Grade C violations and 

sentenced him to a lower term of incarceration. He failed to present this argument 

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to the district court, so we review it for plain error. See United States v. Parrish,

427 F.3d 1345, 1348 (11th Cir. 2005). 

Chapter 7 of the Sentencing Guidelines governs the sentencing proceedings 

following a revocation of supervised release. United States v. Silva, 443 F.3d 795, 

799 (11th Cir. 2006). Where a defendant violates more than one condition of 

supervision, the grade of the violation is the most serious grade. U.S.S.G. 

§ 7B1.1(b). Conduct that constitutes a crime punishable by a term of 

imprisonment exceeding one year is a Grade B violation. Id. § 7B1.1(a)(2). 

Conduct constituting a crime punishable by a term of one year or less of 

imprisonment, or a violation of any other condition of supervised release, is a 

Grade C violation. Id. § 7B1.1(a)(3). A defendant’s guideline range is generally 

determined based on the grade of the condition of release violated and the 

defendant’s underlying criminal history category. Id. § 7B1.4(a). Under Florida 

law, possession of heroin is a third-degree felony, punishable by a term of 

imprisonment exceeding one year. See Fla. Stat. §§ 893.13(6)(a), 

893.135(1)(c)(1).

Because the district court did not clearly err in determining that Gutierrez 

possessed heroin, it did not plainly err by sentencing him for a Grade B violation. 

AFFIRMED.

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