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Parties Involved:
Jaime Andrade
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

This successive appeal has been submitted to the original panel under Operating *

Procedure 6(b). After examining the briefs and the record, we have concluded that oral

argument is unnecessary. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a); Cir. R. 34(f).

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with

 Fed. R. App. P. 32.1

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Submitted March 25, 2010*

Decided May 7, 2010

Before 

FRANK H. EASTERBROOK, Chief Judge

KENNETH F. RIPPLE, Circuit Judge

TERENCE T. EVANS, Circuit Judge

Nos. 09-2404 & 09-2405

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Appeals from the United States 

District Court for the Northern

Plaintiff-Appellee, District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

 v. No. 1:04-cr-00522

JAIME ANDRADE and MARIBEL

MIRAMONTES, David H. Coar, Judge.

Defendants-Appellants.

O R D E R

In this successive appeal, Jaime Andrade and Maribel Miramontes contend that the

district court erred by denying their motion to dismiss the indictment. We conclude that the

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Nos. 09-2404 & 09-2405 Page 2

motion was outside the scope of our remand order, and that the defendants waived their rights

to challenge the indictment. We therefore affirm the district court's order denying their

motion.

Mr. Andrade and Ms. Miramontes were convicted of drug violations, pursuant to 21

U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1) and 846, and they appealed their sentences on various grounds. See United

States v. Andrade, 295 Fed. Appx. 64 (7th Cir. 2008). We denied Ms. Miramontes’s contention

that the district court erred by finding that her crime involved crack cocaine. Id. at 67-68.

However, we vacated Mr. Andrade’s and Ms. Miramontes’s sentences and remanded for

resentencing in light of Kimbrough v. United States, 552 U.S. 85 (2007). See Andrade, 295 Fed.

Appx. at 68-69. Our remand order contained specific and circumscribed instructions. With

respect to Ms. Miramontes, we explained:

Because Ms. Miramontes originally was sentenced after the amended guidelines

for cocaine became effective, the district court should employ those guidelines

in calculating Ms. Miramontes’ sentence on remand. After the sentence is

calculated using the amended guidelines, the district court may then consider

whether any further reduction, in light of Kimbrough, is warranted.

Id. at 68. With respect to Mr. Andrade, we noted that he had been sentenced prior to the

adoption of the guideline amendments for crack cocaine. Accordingly, we explained:

Similar to the procedure set forth in [United States v. Taylor, 520 F.3d 746 (7th Cir.

2008)], the district court must decide whether, in response to a motion by the

defendant or on the court’s own motion, relief under the new guidelines is

appropriate. Regardless of the district court’s action with respect to the motion-

-whether it determines that no relief under the Guidelines should be granted or

it decides to impose a new sentence under the amended guideline--the

defendant’s sentence still must be evaluated in light of Kimbrough.

Id. at 69. We vacated the judgments of the district court and remanded for resentencing

according to the procedures set forth in our order. Id.

On remand, Mr. Andrade and Ms. Miramontes filed a motion to dismiss the indictment,

on the ground that the mandatory minimum sentencing regime of 21 U.S.C. § 841(b) violated

their constitutional rights. They contended primarily that the 100:1 ratio of crack-cocaine to

powder cocaine mandatory minimum penalties (1) is arbitrary and without rational basis, thus

violative of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution,

and (2) produces a disparate impact on African-American and Hispanic defendants, thus

violative of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Government 

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Nos. 09-2404 & 09-2405 Page 3

opposed the motion on the ground that its subject matter was beyond the scope of our limited

remand. The Government also contended that, pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal

Procedure 12, the defendants had waived their rights to bring such a motion by failing to raise

it before trial. Finally, and in any event, the Government contended that the motion had no

merit and cited our previous consideration and rejection of the constitutional arguments in

United States v. Lawrence, 951 F.2d 751, 755 (7th Cir. 1991), and United States v. Chandler, 996 F.2d

917, 918 (7th Cir. 1993). During the resentencing hearing, the district court denied the motion

without comment, see Tr. at 2, Apr. 28, 2009, and issued a minute entry confirming the denial,

see R.172. The district court resentenced the defendants according to our remand instructions.

Mr. Andrade and Ms. Miramontes now appeal the denial of their motion to dismiss.

They repeat the arguments they made to the district court about the constitutionality of 21

U.S.C. § 841(b). They also contend that since our remand order vacated their sentences, they

were free to raise new and old sentencing arguments during the remand proceedings. They

do not respond to the Government’s contention that they waived their rights to contest the

constitutionality of § 841(b) by failing to raise that issue prior to trial. We conclude that the

district court properly denied the motion.

Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2106, we may limit the scope of our remand orders. If we

identify “a discrete, particular error that can be corrected on remand without the need for a

redetermination of other issues, the district court is limited to correcting that error.” United

States v. Parker, 101 F.3d 527, 528 (7th Cir. 1996). This is commonly referred to as the mandate

rule. See United States v. Polland, 56 F.3d 776, 777 (7th Cir. 1995) (“The mandate rule requires

a lower court to adhere to the commands of a higher court on remand.”). Although there is

no formula for determining a remand order’s scope, the language of the remand order controls.

See United State v. White, 406 F.3d 827, 831 (7th Cir. 2005). Here, the district court properly

interpreted our remand order as directing consideration only of the Kimbrough issue and

related sentencing matters. We believe the district court denied the motion to dismiss as

outside the scope of our limited remand order. The denial was proper.

The motion to dismiss was also improperly raised on remand because the challenge to

the indictment was not raised during the initial district court proceedings. Cf. United States v.

Triplett, No. 92-1701, 1992 WL 386851, at *6 (7th Cir. Dec. 29, 1992) (noting that a defendant

waived his right to challenge the constitutionality of § 841(b) by not raising it before he filed

his appeal, although addressing the new arguments because the Government waived the

defendant’s waiver). Furthermore, even if the traditional waiver bar had not applied in this

case, the failure of Mr. Andrade and Ms. Miramontes to raise their constitutional challenges

in their initial appeal waived their right to raise those issues during the remand proceedings.

See Parker, 101 F.3d at 528 (“A party cannot use the accident of a remand to raise in a second

appeal an issue that he could just as well have raised in the first appeal because the remand

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Nos. 09-2404 & 09-2405 Page 4

did not affect it.”). While we have been careful not to issue overly restrictive remand orders,

see White, 406 F.3d at 831-32, we have consistently held that new arguments, outside the scope

of the plain language of a limited remand order, shall be treated as waived, see United States

v. Schroeder, 536 F.3d 746, 751-52 (7th Cir. 2008). 

Accordingly, we AFFIRM the district court’s denial of the motion to dismiss.

AFFIRMED

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