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Parties Involved:
Gerardo Baez-Leyva
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Submitted June 16, 2010

Decided June 17, 2010

Before

RICHARD D. CUDAHY, Circuit Judge

ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge

DIANE S. SYKES, Circuit Judge

No. 09-4119

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

GERARDO BAEZ-LEYVA,

Defendant-Appellant.

Appeal from the 

United States District Court for the

Northern District of Illinois, 

Eastern Division.

No. 08 CR 981-1

Ruben Castillo,

Judge.

O R D E R

Gerardo Baez-Leyva, a courier for the Sinaloa Cartel, a Mexican drug-trafficking

organization, delivered twenty kilograms of heroin to an undercover DEA agent. He

pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute heroin, 21 U.S.C. §§ 846,

841(a), and the district court sentenced him to 135 months’ imprisonment, the low end of

the guidelines range. Baez-Leyva appeals, but his appointed lawyer seeks to withdraw

because he has concluded that there are no meritorious issues to pursue. See Anders v.

California, 386 U.S. 738 (1967). Baez-Leyva did not respond to our invitation to comment on

counsel’s motion. See CIR. R. 51(b). We limit our review to the potential issues identified in

counsel’s facially adequate brief. See United States v. Schuh, 289 F.3d 968, 973-74 (7th Cir.

2002).

Baez-Leyva informed counsel that he does not want his guilty plea vacated, so

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with

Fed. R. App. P. 32.1

Case: 09-4119 Document: 12 Filed: 06/17/2010 Pages: 2
No. 09-4119 Page 2

counsel properly omits any discussion of the adequacy of the plea colloquy or the

voluntariness of the plea. See United States v. Knox, 287 F.3d 667, 670-72 (7th Cir. 2002).

Counsel first considers whether Baez-Leyva could challenge the district court’s

finding that he was ineligible for the “safety valve,” which provides a two-point decrease in

offense level for certain nonviolent, first-time drug offenders and permits the district court

to impose a sentence below a statutory minimum. 18 U.S.C. § 3553(f); U.S.S.G.

§§ 2D1.1(b)(11), 5C1.2. To qualify for the safety valve, a defendant must, among other

things, truthfully provide to the government “all information and evidence” he has

“concerning the offense or offenses that were part of the same course of conduct or of a

common scheme or plan.” U.S.S.G. § 5C1.2(a)(5). At sentencing the government argued

that Baez-Leyva had not satisfied this requirement because he insisted at his safety-valve

proffer that the twenty-kilogram delivery (worth roughly a million dollars) was his sole

involvement with the cartel. Baez-Leyva responded that there was no direct evidence that

his role had been more extensive than he admitted, but the government argued, and the

district court agreed, that a stranger to a large-scale drug-trafficking organization would not

have been entrusted with such a valuable delivery. Baez-Leyva had the burden of proving

that he provided a full and honest disclosure to the government, and we would review for

clear error the district court’s finding that he failed to meet this burden. See United States v.

Montes, 381 F.3d 631, 634 (7th Cir. 2004). Baez-Leyva simply asserted through counsel that

he had been forthright during the proffer, but this was insufficient to demonstrate his

eligibility for the safety valve. See id. at 637; United States v. Ponce, 358 F.3d 466, 468 (7th Cir.

2004). In light of the improbability that the cartel would have assigned Baez-Leyva a

million-dollar delivery as his first task, we agree with counsel that it would be frivolous to

argue that the district court’s finding is clearly erroneous. 

Counsel also considers whether Baez-Leyva could challenge the reasonableness of

his prison sentence. On appeal we would presume Baez-Leyva’s within-guidelines sentence

to be reasonable, see United States v. Zohfeld, 595 F.3d 740, 743 (7th Cir. 2010), and we see

nothing in the record that would rebut this presumption. The district court imposed

sentence only after considering the factors under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), particularly the very

large quantity of heroin involved, and we therefore agree with counsel that any challenge to

the reasonableness of Baez-Leyva’s sentence would be frivolous.

Counsel’s motion to withdraw is GRANTED, and the appeal is DISMISSED.

Case: 09-4119 Document: 12 Filed: 06/17/2010 Pages: 2