Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-12-10372/USCOURTS-ca9-12-10372-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Manuel Guerrero-Jasso
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

MANUEL GUERRERO-JASSO,

Defendant-Appellant.

No. 12-10372

D.C. No.

5:11-cr-00363-DLJ-1

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of California

D. Lowell Jensen, Senior District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted

July 8, 2013—San Francisco, California

Filed May 27, 2014

Before: Ferdinand F. Fernandez, Richard A. Paez,

and Marsha S. Berzon, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Berzon;

Concurrence by Judge Fernandez;

Concurrence by Judge Berzon

 Case: 12-10372, 05/27/2014, ID: 9108277, DktEntry: 32-1, Page 1 of 37
2 UNITED STATES V. GUERRERO-JASSO

SUMMARY*

Criminal Law

The panel vacated a sentence and remanded for further

proceedings in a case in which the defendant entered a plea

of guilty to an information alleging that he reentered the

country without authorization after being removed – a

violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326 – and received a 42-month

sentence. 

The panel held that in applying the twenty-year statutory

maximum penalty under 8 U.S.C. § 1326(b) instead of the

two-year statutory maximum penalty, the district court

impermissibly relied on a fact – that the defendant’s removal

was subsequent to his aggravated felony conviction – that

was neither admitted by the defendant nor found by a jury

beyond a reasonable doubt, in violation of Apprendi v. New

Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000).

The panel rejected the government’s contention that the

defendant’s admission to the necessary conviction/removal

sequence is satisfied by documents and statements that were

not dependent on the guilty plea.

The panel wrote that the district court incorrectly

interpreted United States v. Mendoza-Zaragoza, 567 F.3d 431

(9th Cir. 2009), as holding that a guilty plea to a § 1326

indictment which alleges multiple removal dates establishes

as a fact each removal date. Because the defendant did not

* This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

 Case: 12-10372, 05/27/2014, ID: 9108277, DktEntry: 32-1, Page 2 of 37
UNITED STATES V. GUERRERO-JASSO 3

admit to the only alleged removal date that succeeded the

qualifying conviction, the panel held that the sentence of

more than two years did not rest on an admission by the

defendant, and therefore violated Apprendi.

Distinguishing United States v. Zepeda-Martinez,

470 F.3d 909 (9th Cir. 2006), the panel concluded that the

Apprendi error was not harmless.

Judge Fernandez concurred in the majority opinion, with

the exception of a paragraph – which he deemed brumal,

overbroad, and unnecessary – discussing why an out-of-court

confession cannot alone suffice to meet Apprendi

requirements.

Concurring, Judge Berzon wrote separately to express her

concern that, under this court’s case law, harmless-error

review based on post-conviction factual submissions could

swallow up the Apprendi rule.

COUNSEL

Cynthia C. Lie (argued), Assistant Federal Public Defender,

Office of the Federal Public Defender, San Jose, California,

for Defendant-Appellant.

Anne M. Voigts, (argued) and Barbara Valliere, Assistant

United States Attorney, Office of the United States Attorney,

San Francisco, California, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

 Case: 12-10372, 05/27/2014, ID: 9108277, DktEntry: 32-1, Page 3 of 37
4 UNITED STATES V. GUERRERO-JASSO

OPINION

BERZON, Circuit Judge:

Appellant Manuel Guerrero-Jasso’s mother brought him

to the United States from Mexico when he was eleven years

old. At age twenty-six, he was found unlawfully present in

California. He entered a plea of guilty to a one-count

information alleging that he reentered the country without

authorization after being removed — a violation of 8 U.S.C.

§ 1326 — and received a forty-two-month sentence. He

appeals the length of his sentence as exceeding the maximum

sentence allowed under the operative statute. We hold that,

in applying the twenty-year statutory maximum penalty

instead of the two-year statutory maximum penalty, the

district court impermissibly relied on facts that were neither

admitted by the Defendant nor found by a jury beyond a

reasonable doubt. See Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466

(2000). Accordingly, we vacate the sentence, and remand for

further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

I.

A person convicted under 8 U.S.C. § 1326 is ordinarily

subject to a fine and a maximum term of two years

imprisonment. See United States v. Mendoza-Zaragoza,

567 F.3d 431, 433 (9th Cir. 2009). “Section 1326(b),

however, increases the maximum sentence to twenty years if

the alien’s removal ‘was subsequent to a conviction for

commission of an aggravated felony.’” Id. (quoting 8 U.S.C.

§ 1326(b)(2)). As the language of § 1326(b)(2) makes plain,

for the penalty enhancement to apply, the removal on which

the conviction is predicated must have occurred after the

 Case: 12-10372, 05/27/2014, ID: 9108277, DktEntry: 32-1, Page 4 of 37
UNITED STATES V. GUERRERO-JASSO 5

aggravated felony conviction. See United States v. CovianSandoval, 462 F.3d 1090, 1097 (9th Cir. 2006).

Guerrero-Jasso was charged with one count of being an

alien “found in” the United States in violation of 8 U.S.C.

§ 1326. The government’s information alleged that he had

been removed from the United States “on or about April 7,

2009, April 16, 2009, and January 19, 2011.” Although the

information did not so specify, Guerrero-Jasso had been

convicted on May 20, 2010 of an aggravated felony, namely,

possession of a controlled substance for sale. 8 U.S.C.

§ 1101(a)(43)(B); see Rendon v. Mukasey, 520 F.3d 967, 976

(9th Cir. 2008).

Guerrero-Jasso pled guilty to the § 1326 count without a

plea agreement. In an Application for Permission to Enter

Plea of Guilty, he admitted that “[o]n or about February 12,

2011, [he] was found in . . . the United States after having

previously been removed” and without authorization to reenter the country. The Application acknowledged that his

counsel informed him that the maximum sentence was twenty

years. He did not admit the dates of the prior removals.

At the plea colloquy, Guerrero-Jasso affirmed his

understanding that he could face up to twenty years in prison. 

Guerrero-Jasso also affirmed that the Application contained

a “true statement of what [he] did.” He did not otherwise

admit any facts alleged in the information, including any of

the prior removal dates. The government then proffered that

Guerrero-Jasso had been removed “on or about April 7, 2009,

April 16, 2009, and January 19, 2011.” Immediately

thereafter, the district court turned to Guerrero-Jasso and

stated: “Now, this is a case that is proceeding on the basis of

an information. That means you didn’t go to the grand jury;

 Case: 12-10372, 05/27/2014, ID: 9108277, DktEntry: 32-1, Page 5 of 37
6 UNITED STATES V. GUERRERO-JASSO

do you understand that?” Guerrero-Jasso responded that he

understood. The district courtthen accepted Guerrero-Jasso’s

guilty plea, without asking him to admit to any of the alleged

dates of removal.

Prior to sentencing, the probation office prepared a

presentence report, “PSR,” which listed each of the three

alleged removal dates. The PSR also stated that “[o]n March

28, 2011 . . . Guerrero-Jasso provided a written statement” to

an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent “attesting to

his . . . prior deportations.” The PSR recommended that

because Guerrero-Jasso had reentered the United States after

being removed in January 2011 following his 2010

aggravated felony conviction, the maximum sentence was

twenty years. See 8 U.S.C. § 1326(b)(2).

In his sentencing memorandum, Guerrero-Jasso objected

to the PSR on the ground that his guilty plea “admitt[ed] only

the facts necessary for a bare conviction” under 8 U.S.C.

§ 1326, not the “sentence-enhancing fact[ ]” that he had been

removed after conviction for an aggravated felony. After the

government obtained three continuances of the sentencing

hearing, it introduced three execution of warrant forms,

indicating that an immigration officer had witnessed

Guerrero-Jasso’s removal on each of the three dates in

question.

At the final sentencing hearing, the district court stated

that it was not relying on the warrants of removal (although

it rejected the defense’s motion to strike those documents). 

Instead, the court ruled that Guerrero-Jasso could be subject

to the enhanced twenty-year maximum sentence because he

had sufficiently admitted to all the dates of removal by

pleading guilty to the information. Accordingly, Guerrero-

 Case: 12-10372, 05/27/2014, ID: 9108277, DktEntry: 32-1, Page 6 of 37
UNITED STATES V. GUERRERO-JASSO 7

Jasso was sentenced to forty-two months, considerably more

than the twenty-four-month maximum penalty for violations

of § 1326 without the enhancement.

II.A

Guerrero-Jasso’s sole contention on appeal is that under

Apprendi, it was error to apply 8 U.S.C. § 1326(b)’s increased

statutory maximum, because his guilty plea to the essential

elements of 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a) did not establish that he had

been removed after an aggravated felony conviction.

The rule established in Apprendi requires that, “‘[o]ther

than the fact of a prior conviction, any fact that increases the

penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutorymaximum

. . . be submitted to a jury, and proved beyond a reasonable

doubt,’” Mendoza-Zaragoza, 567 F.3d at 434 (quoting

Apprendi, 530 U.S. at 490) (first alteration in original), or

“admitted by the defendant,” United States v. ZepedaMartinez, 470 F.3d 909, 910 (9th Cir. 2006). As applied to

§ 1326, the Apprendi principle requires that to trigger

§ 1326(b)’s twenty-year-maximum sentence, facts

establishing that the removal occurred after an aggravated

felony conviction must be admitted by the defendant or

proved to a jury.

Such facts can be established in one of two ways. First,

the defendant can admit to, or the jury could find, the

requisite sequence — i.e., the “fact that [the defendant] had

been removed after his conviction.” Mendoza-Zaragoza,

567 F.3d at 434 (emphasis in original). In that event, the

precise date of the post-conviction removal need not be

proven or admitted. Id. Alternatively, the date of the

defendant’s post-conviction removal can be admitted by the

 Case: 12-10372, 05/27/2014, ID: 9108277, DktEntry: 32-1, Page 7 of 37
8 UNITED STATES V. GUERRERO-JASSO

defendant or proven to a jury. As the date of a prior

conviction need not itself be proven beyond a reasonable

doubt, see United States v. Pacheco-Zepeda, 234 F.3d 411,

414 (9th Cir. 2000) (explaining that Apprendi preserved the

rule of Almendarez-Torres v. United States, 523 U.S. 224

(1998), and “carved out an exception [to the Apprendi rule]

for ‘prior convictions’”), admission or proof of the removal

date is sufficient to establish eligibility for the § 1326(b)

enhancement. Such admission or proof allows for a

constitutionally proper determination of “whether the

removal had followed the [qualifying] conviction in time.” 

Mendoza-Zaragoza, 567 F.3d at 434 (emphasis in original)

(quoting United States v. Salazar-Lopez, 506 F.3d 748, 751

(9th Cir. 2007)).

In this case, however, Guerrero-Jasso entered a guilty plea

to a criminal information that listed three separate removal

dates, in the conjunctive. “[W]hen either ‘A’ or ‘B’ could

support a conviction, a defendant who pleads guilty to a

charging document alleging ‘A and B’ admits only ‘A’ or

‘B.’” Young v. Holder, 697 F.3d 976, 988 (9th Cir. 2012) (en

banc). We therefore treat Guerrero-Jasso’s guilty plea as

admitting only that one of the three removal dates is correct,

not that all are correct.

As it turns out, just one of the three removal dates, the

removal on January 19, 2011, occurred after May 20, 2010,

the date of the qualifying conviction. Guerrero-Jasso did not

admit that he was removed on the 2011 date; he only

admitted that he was removed on one of the three dates

alleged, not which one. So the entry of the guilty plea alone

could not justify application of the § 1326(b) enhancement. 

See id. at 987–88. And it was the “government[’s] . . . burden

‘at the plea colloquy to seek an explicit admission of any

 Case: 12-10372, 05/27/2014, ID: 9108277, DktEntry: 32-1, Page 8 of 37
UNITED STATES V. GUERRERO-JASSO 9

unlawful conduct it [sought] to attribute to the defendant,’”

United States v. Hunt, 656 F.3d 906, 912 (9th Cir. 2011)

(quoting United States v. Thomas, 355 F.3d 1191, 1199 (9th

Cir. 2004)), here, the fact of a removal date subsequent to the

qualifying conviction. The government sought no such

admission, and Guerrero-Jasso did not make one.

This much the government concedes, acknowledging both

that, “to support the application of Section 1326(b)’s penalty

provision, Guerrero-Jasso had to admit the January19, 2011[]

removal date,” and that “[h]is plea to the conjunctively[]

phrased information does not provide a specific admission to

that single removal date.” The government goes on to base

its opposition to Guerrero-Jasso’s appeal on three factors not

dependent on the guilty plea itself: First, the government

maintains that Guerrero-Jasso constructively accepted the

facts contained in the PSR; second, the government points to

Guerrero-Jasso’s post-arrest, written confession; and third,

the government relies upon the court’s statement during the

plea colloquy that Guerrero-Jasso faced a twenty-year

maximum sentence. According to the government, these

documents and statements have the same legal effect as an

express admission during a plea colloquy. We disagree.

First, as to the PSR, Guerrero-Jasso was not presented

with the PSR’s alleged removal dates until after his

conviction, and never specifically acceded to them. “When

a conviction is obtained through a guilty plea rather than a

jury verdict,” it is the government’s burden “to seek an

explicit admission of any unlawful conduct it seeks to

attribute to the defendant” for Apprendi purposes. Hunt,

656 F.3d at 912 (internal quotation marks and citations

omitted). Guerrero-Jasso’s non-objection at sentencing to

facts recited in the PSR cannot meet this standard.

 Case: 12-10372, 05/27/2014, ID: 9108277, DktEntry: 32-1, Page 9 of 37
10 UNITED STATES V. GUERRERO-JASSO

With regard to the “post-arrest confession” cited by the

government, the confession itself is not in the record. The

government cites the PSR as support for its interpretation of

the confession, but the PSR states only that “Mr. GuerreroJasso provided a written statement attesting to his illegal

status [and] prior deportations.” The PSR’s recitation of the

confession thus neither specifies the removal dates nor

specifies that Guerrero-Jasso admitted any particular removal

dates.

At any rate, an out-of-court confession cannot alone

suffice to meet the Apprendi trial-by-jury and beyond-areasonable-doubt requirements with regard to facts essential

to establishing the maximum penalty for the crime of

conviction. If it could, there would be no need ever to have

a trial or an in-court plea and admission in a case in which

there was an out-of-court confession — obviously a

nonsensical proposition, even where the admissibility (as

opposed to the content) of the out-of-court confession is not

at issue. We treat defendant admissions as analogous to jury

findings beyond a reasonable doubt for Apprendi purposes

only when those admissions are made with knowledge of the

penal consequences that attend those admissions. See United

States v. Cazares, 121 F.3d 1241, 1247 (9th Cir. 1997)

(noting that “to attribute to a defendant an admission which

was never subject to a plea colloquy under Fed. R. Crim. P.

11 would undermine the rule’s prophylactic purposes”).

Finally, Guerrero-Jasso’s acknowledgment of a twentyyear statutory maximum sentence during the plea colloquy

was not an admission of the conviction/removal sequence,

nor of the dates of removal. During a plea colloquy, judges

are not required “to predict the precise maximum penalty at

sentencing. Instead, the court need only tell defendants the

 Case: 12-10372, 05/27/2014, ID: 9108277, DktEntry: 32-1, Page 10 of 37
UNITED STATES V. GUERRERO-JASSO 11

maximum sentence that they could possibly face.” GarciaAguilar v. U.S. Dist. Court for the S. Dist. of Cal., 535 F.3d

1021, 1025 (9th Cir. 2008) (internal citation omitted).

Here, it was entirely proper for the court to ensure

Guerrero-Jasso was aware of the twenty-year penalty. At that

point in the colloquy, it was not yet clear whether the district

court would require Guerrero-Jasso to admit the 2011

removal date as a condition of accepting his plea. So the

maximum sentence Guerrero-Jasso could “possibly” face

going into the plea colloquy was twenty years: His

acknowledgment that he was advised of this possibility is not

an admission of the facts essential to establish the

applicability of the twenty-year maximum sentence.

B.

As none of the government’s current arguments are

adequate to sustain the conclusion that Guerrero-Jasso

admitted to the necessary sequencing facts, we must assess

the district court’s quite different rationale for adopting the

enhanced twenty-year maximum. In deciding to sentence

Guerrero-Jasso in accordance with the twenty-year statutory

maximum, the district court read Mendoza-Zaragoza,

567 F.3d 431, as holding that a guilty plea to a § 1326

indictment which alleges multiple removal dates establishes

as a fact each removal date. That interpretation of MendozaZaragoza is not correct.

Mendoza-Zaragoza was charged with removal dates, but

not with a prior conviction. He sought to enter a guilty plea

that did not “admit any facts that would subject him to

§ 1326(b)’s sentence enhancement.” Id. at 433. The district

court “refused to accept” such a plea, and, as a condition of

 Case: 12-10372, 05/27/2014, ID: 9108277, DktEntry: 32-1, Page 11 of 37
12 UNITED STATES V. GUERRERO-JASSO

accepting the plea, required the defendant to “admit[] his

removal dates.” Id. On appeal, we held that the district court

did not abuse its discretion in conditioning acceptance of the

plea on the detailed admission, because the indictment

“alleged facts (his removal dates) sufficient to support the

sentence enhancement under § 1326(b).” Id. at 437.

More specifically, Mendoza-Zaragoza held, first, “that an

indictment will support the § 1326(b) sentence enhancement

if it alleges a removal date.” Id. at 434. That is true as far as

the sufficiency of the indictment is concerned. Although

Apprendi requires that “any fact . . . that increases the

maximum penalty for a crime must be charged in an

indictment,” 530 U.S. at 476 (internal quotation marks

omitted), Almendarez-Torres excepts prior convictions from

all of Apprendi’s requirements, including the requirement that

facts essential to establishing penalty exposure be alleged in

the indictment, Almendarez-Torres, 523 U.S. at 226–27. 

Thus, for purposes of a § 1326(b) enhancement, no allegation

in the indictment of the date of the pre-removal conviction is

necessary: “[A]n indictment will support a 20-year maximum

sentence under § 1326(b) if it alleges a removal date, thus

enabling a sentencing court to determine whether the

conviction predated the defendant’s removal to establish the

necessary sequence.” Mendoza-Zaragoza, 567 F.3d at 436.

In addition to an indictment alleging facts essential to

establish the maximum sentence, Apprendi mandates proof to

a jury of those essential facts beyond a reasonable doubt, or

a clear admission to the pertinent fact, adequate to waive the

constitutional proof requirement. As to this aspect of

Apprendi, Mendoza-Zaragoza held only that a district court

has the discretion to require a defendant to admit a specific

removal date before accepting a guilty plea to a § 1326

 Case: 12-10372, 05/27/2014, ID: 9108277, DktEntry: 32-1, Page 12 of 37
UNITED STATES V. GUERRERO-JASSO 13

charge, thereby satisfying the Apprendi proof requirements. 

Id. at 437.

The district court in this case accepted Guerrero-Jasso’s

plea without requiring him to admit to the removal date

essential to the enhanced sentence. As Guerrero-Jasso did not

admit to the 2011 removal date, the district court’s sentence

of more than two years, unlike the sentence in MendozaZaragoza, did not rest on an admission by the defendant, and

so violated Apprendi.

III.

Not all violations of Apprendi warrant reversal. A

properly preserved Apprendi error is reviewed for harmless

error, see Washington v. Recuenco, 548 U.S. 212, 222 (2006),

under the standard articulated in Neder v. United States,

527 U.S. 1 (1999). See Zepeda-Martinez, 470 F.3d at 913.

Guerrero-Jasso preserved his Apprendi claimbyexpressly

stating at sentencing that he had never admitted the January

2011 removal date and arguing that his sentence thus could

not exceed two years. The Apprendi error was, of course, a

constitutional one. We must therefore reverse unless we

“find[] beyond a reasonable doubt that the result ‘would have

been the same absent the error.’” Zepeda-Martinez, 470 F.3d

at 913 (quoting Neder, 527 U.S. at 19); see Chapman v.

California, 386 U.S. 18 (1967). “[W]here the record contains

‘overwhelming’ and ‘uncontroverted’ evidence supporting an

element of the crime, the error is [constitutionally] harmless.” 

Zepeda-Martinez, 470 F.3d at 913 (quoting Neder, 527 U.S.

at 17, 18).

 Case: 12-10372, 05/27/2014, ID: 9108277, DktEntry: 32-1, Page 13 of 37
14 UNITED STATES V. GUERRERO-JASSO

The government asks us to approve Guerrero-Jasso’s

sentence on the basis of (1) a warrant of removal it introduced

post-conviction and (2) Guerrero-Jasso’s alleged acceptance

of the PSR. The government maintains that this postconviction evidence proves any constitutional error harmless

beyond a reasonable doubt, arguing that the circumstances of

this case are indistinguishable from the facts of ZepedaMartinez.

In Zepeda-Martinez, a warrant of removal showed

“Zepeda was ordered removed on June 8, 2004 and was

physically removed . . . on foot on June 17, 2004.” Id. The

warrant included “Zepeda’s name, signature, fingerprint, and

immigration case number, as well as the name, title, and

signature of an immigration officer who witnessed the

removal.” Id. Noting that “Zepeda did not dispute the

authenticity of this document,” and that “Zepeda himself had

offered the first page of the same warrant as an exhibit” pretrial, the court concluded that the warrant was “sufficient

alone to support a finding of removal beyond a reasonable

doubt.” Id. As a result, the evidence of the essential removal

date was “overwhelming” as well as “uncontroverted,”

thereby satisfying the constitutional harmless error standard. 

Id.

The record before this court includes a somewhat similar

document. But unlike the document in Zepeda-Martinez, the

first page of which was filed pre-trial by the defendant

himself, Guerrero-Jasso has never vouched for the accuracy

and reliability of this document. Indeed, unlike ZepedaMartinez, who “did not contest . . . the authenticity of the

warrant of removal,” Hunt, 656 F.3d at 914, Guerrero-Jasso

made a timely objection that the removal warrant should not

be admitted, arguing that it was aimed solely at the appellate

 Case: 12-10372, 05/27/2014, ID: 9108277, DktEntry: 32-1, Page 14 of 37
UNITED STATES V. GUERRERO-JASSO 15

court’s harmless-error determination, was “inadequately

authenticated,” “insufficient,” and included only the

execution-of-warrant documentation, “not thewarrant itself.” 

The district court never resolved these objections, because it

found — erroneously, as we have explained — that GuerreroJasso had adequately admitted to the pertinent removal date.

We thus disagree that the facts before us are

indistinguishable from those in Zepeda-Martinez, and cannot

conclude beyond a reasonable doubt, on the record before us,

that the Apprendi error in Guerrero-Jasso’s case was

harmless.

By objecting to the execution-of-warrant form as

inauthentic and incomplete, Guerrero-Jasso challenged the

government’s belated evidentiary basis for proving his

removal date. The government’s evidence cannot, therefore,

be described as “uncontroverted.” See Black’s Law

Dictionary (9th ed. 2009) (defining “controvert” as “[t]o

dispute or contest; esp. to deny (as an allegation in a

pleading) or oppose in argument”). And we cannot say

beyond a reasonable doubt that a jury would necessarily have

relied on this evidence, even if it were admitted as prima

facie authentic.

In Hunt, we refused to declare an Apprendi error

harmless, in part because, as the essential, omitted fact was

“never litigated,” the “plea and sentencing proceedings . . .

provide[d] an inadequate record” for our harmless-error

review. 656 F.3d at 915. In so concluding, we noted that:

If Hunt’s case had proceeded to trial, he

could have raised Sixth Amendment or

evidentiary objections, he could have

 Case: 12-10372, 05/27/2014, ID: 9108277, DktEntry: 32-1, Page 15 of 37
16 UNITED STATES V. GUERRERO-JASSO

presented expert testimony to counter the

opinions of Detective Feliciano, he could have

cross-examined the various civilian and

government witnesses called by the

government, and he could have decided to

testify to tell his side of the story.

Id. at 916. Here, had Guerrero-Jasso had the opportunity to

challenge the authenticity of the warrant at trial, he could

have pointed out the absence of live testimony from the

immigration officer who signed the execution of warrant, as

well as the absence of any testimony as to the form’s chain of

custody. Cf. United States v. Estrada-Eliverio, 583 F.3d 669,

671–73 (9th Cir. 2009) (holding that the government made a

prima facie showing of authenticity of a warrant of removal

where the immigration agent who maintained the defendant’s

immigration file testified at trial as to his record-keeping

practices and that the warrant admitted was a true and correct

copy of the warrant in the defendant’s file). On those bases,

Guerrero-Jasso could have argued that there was not proof

beyond a reasonable doubt that the document was what it

purported to be.

The government contends that Guerrero-Jasso’s

objections did not sufficiently controvert the government’s

evidence, because he did not meaningfully place the accuracy

of the document into dispute and failed to “raise[] evidence

sufficient to support a contrary finding.” Neder, 527 U.S. at

19.

We disagree that Guerrero-Jasso’s challenge to the

authenticity of the government’s evidence was not

“meaningful.” By challenging the document as

unauthenticated, he disputed the government’s assertion that

 Case: 12-10372, 05/27/2014, ID: 9108277, DktEntry: 32-1, Page 16 of 37
UNITED STATES V. GUERRERO-JASSO 17

the document was what the government said it was. This

challenge is a meaningful one, as it goes to the likelihood that

a jury would find the necessary removal date beyond a

reasonable doubt. Cf. Zepeda-Martinez, 470 F.3d at 913. In

similar circumstances, Hunt refused to characterize the

government’s evidence of a post-arrest confession as

“overwhelming” evidence of an essential, omitted fact, where

the defendant “presented non-frivolous arguments contesting

the reliability of the statement.” 656 F.3d at 915.

More fundamentally, we reject the government’s

suggestion that a defendant in Guerrero-Jasso’s position has

an affirmative obligation to introduce evidence post hoc to

defeat the government’s harmlessness argument. The

government cites the statement in Zepeda-Martinez that a

constitutional “error is not harmless if ‘the defendant

contested the omitted element and raised evidence sufficient

to support a contrary finding,’” 470 F.3d at 913 (quoting

Neder, 527 U.S. at 19), as support for such a requirement. 

But when placed in its proper context, this statement does not

obligate a defendant to introduce evidence during sentencing

to establish that the government’s error was harmless. 

Zepeda-Martinez was quoting Neder, in which the Court

explained that, to “safeguard[] the juryguarantee,” courts will

often need to “conduct a thorough examination of the record”

before concluding that a constitutional error was harmless. 

527 U.S. at 19. Neder went on to explain: “If . . . the court

cannot conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that the jury

verdict would have been the same absent the error — for

example, where the defendant contested the omitted element

and raised evidence sufficient to support a contraryfinding—

it should not find the error harmless.” Id. (emphasis added).

 Case: 12-10372, 05/27/2014, ID: 9108277, DktEntry: 32-1, Page 17 of 37
18 UNITED STATES V. GUERRERO-JASSO

The example provided in Neder is not the only way a

constitutional error can be ruled not harmless; it is one way. 

Where, as here, there was no trial but a guilty plea, and the

evidence is introduced post-conviction by the government

only to demonstrate harmlessness, it would fundamentally

undermine the Apprendi protections to require the defendant

affirmatively to present evidence to counter facts that were

never properlyestablished in accord with Apprendi in the first

place.

Finally, the government asserts that any constitutional

error was harmless because Guerrero-Jasso “accepted” the

prior removal dates as expressed in the PSR. But in his

sentencing memorandum, Guerrero-Jasso continued to assert

that his plea “admitted only the facts necessary for a bare

conviction,” not the “sentence-enhancing fact” of a specific

removal date, and he objected to the PSR’s sentencing

calculations, insisting that the two-year statutory maximum

cabined his sentence. At sentencing, Guerrero-Jasso

continued to object to the enhancement and did not

specifically accede to the PSR’s recitation of the dates of

removal. In light of Guerrero-Jasso’s challenges to the

removal warrant and his continued protestations at

sentencing, the lack of an express objection to the removal

dates recited in the PSR does not alone satisfy the

“overwhelming and uncontroverted” evidentiary standard in

this case.

For these reasons, the sentence must be vacated, and the

case remanded. On remand, the district court must sentence

Guerrero-Jasso in accordance with the statutory maximum

 Case: 12-10372, 05/27/2014, ID: 9108277, DktEntry: 32-1, Page 18 of 37
UNITED STATES V. GUERRERO-JASSO 19

penalty applicable to the offense he admitted when he entered

his guilty plea. See Hunt, 656 F.3d at 917.

VACATED and REMANDED.

FERNANDEZ, Circuit Judge, concurring:

I concur in the majority opinion, with the exception of the

paragraph that commences at line 10 on page 10, which I

believe is brumal, overbroad, and unnecessary to our

decision. On the record in this case, the result we reach is

compelled without that embellishment.

BERZON, Circuit Judge, concurring:

I write separately to express my concern that, under our

case law, harmless-error review based on post-conviction

factual submissions could swallow up the rule of Apprendi v.

New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000). We need to re-think our

doctrine on this important point.

I.

First, some context:

After Guerrero-Jasso filed a sentencing memorandum

objecting to the Pre-Sentence Report’s conclusion that he was

subject to a mandatory twenty-year statutory maximum

sentence, the government asked for more time to check

Guerrero-Jasso’s assertion that he had not, in fact, admitted

 Case: 12-10372, 05/27/2014, ID: 9108277, DktEntry: 32-1, Page 19 of 37
20 UNITED STATES V. GUERRERO-JASSO

each date of removal alleged in the conjunctively phrased

information. Guerrero-Jasso agreed to continue sentencing to

give the government the time it sought. After receiving the

transcript of the change of plea proceeding (which confirmed

that Guerrero-Jasso did not admit to each date of removal) the

government “request[ed] additional time to compare [the]

transcripts with case law.” The district court granted the

government’s request. The day before the continued

sentencing hearing, the government filed a “Supplemental

Exhibit” in support of its sentencing memorandum. The

exhibit comprises three one-page documents, each entitled

“Warrant of Removal/Deportation” and each purporting to

show that Guerrero-Jasso was removed to Mexico on the date

indicated.

At sentencing, Guerrero-Jasso renewed his position that

he was not subject to the twenty-year maximum penalty

because he had not admitted the requisite removal date. The

government argued, and the court responded, as follows:

THE GOVERNMENT: [T]here’s enough in

the record for the Court to find that the date

was proven. The Supreme Court says that any

Apprendi error is reviewed for harmlessness.

THE COURT: That’s when the Circuit gets

their hands on it — I mean after I’m through. 

I mean, if you tell me that if I commit an

error, “It’s okay. Don’t worry about it

because the Ninth Circuit is not going to pay

any attention to it.” To me that doesn’t

impress me in terms of whether I should

commit an error or not. So I don’t think I

should be committing any errors even if I

 Case: 12-10372, 05/27/2014, ID: 9108277, DktEntry: 32-1, Page 20 of 37
UNITED STATES V. GUERRERO-JASSO 21

know that if I commit an error, the Ninth

Circuit isn’t going to care.

THE GOVERNMENT: The cases that say

Apprendi error is reviewed for harmlessness

don’t draw a distinction between whether the

district court judge is aware of this error or

not. What they ask the district court to

consideris whether there is overwhelming and

uncontroverted evidence of, in this case, the

fact of the prior deport.

And theGovernment submitted exhibitsto

this Court that prove the prior deport, the

warrants of deport. The Government notes

that the PSR — the Court is allowed to look at

the failure to object to [the date of] deport in

the PSR . . . .

And maybe most tellingly, the defendant

is never telling this Court he wasn’t deported

on those dates. There’s no chance that the

result in this Court would be different. And

that’s what Apprendi error asks this Court and

asks the Ninth Circuit to look at: Would the

result be different if the error this Court is

worried about committing didn’t occur? In

this case the result wouldn’t be different.1

1 The government also pointed to Guerrero-Jasso’s failure to object to

the court’s representation that he was subject to the twenty-year maximum

penalty as an admission of post-conviction removal. For the reasons

expressed in the majority opinion, Guerrero-Jasso’s preliminary

 Case: 12-10372, 05/27/2014, ID: 9108277, DktEntry: 32-1, Page 21 of 37
22 UNITED STATES V. GUERRERO-JASSO

Combined with the timing of the government’s evidentiary

submission, this exchangemakes it obvious that the sole point

of introducing the warrants of removal was to “prove” the

essential removal date, thereby justifying a twenty-year

statutory ceiling.

Even though the district court’s sentence violated

Apprendi, the government asks us to uphold the sentence on

the basis of the “warrant of removal/deportation” purporting

to show that Guerrero-Jasso was removed to Mexico on

January 19, 2011. As our opinion in this case indicates, there

is support in this court’s case law for permitting such postconviction governmental submissions as proof of Apprendi

harmlessness — although, as the result reached in this case

demonstrates, such after-the-fact submissions can establish

Apprendi harmlessness only in limited circumstances.

One would think that a constitutional protection designed

to assure that juries rather than judges decide facts essential

to determining the potential maximum sentence could never

be satisfied by post-conviction evidentiary submissions,

reviewed by a judge and directed at demonstrating that had

the submissions been introduced at a jury trial, a jury would

have found the facts in the government’s favor beyond a

reasonable doubt. Such an approach is entirely different from

the usual harmless-error analysis, which reviews the record

of an actual trial to determine what the actual jury in that case

would have decided on the record before it. See, e.g.,

Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 25–26 (1967). It is,

after all, out of respect for “the jury-trial guarantee,” that the

Supreme Court “instructs . . . reviewing court[s] to consider

acceptance of the court’s maximum-sentence representation was

insufficient for that purpose.

 Case: 12-10372, 05/27/2014, ID: 9108277, DktEntry: 32-1, Page 22 of 37
UNITED STATES V. GUERRERO-JASSO 23

. . . not what effect [a] constitutional error might generally be

expected to have upon a reasonable jury, but rather what

effect it had upon the guilty verdict in the case at hand.” 

Sullivan v. Louisiana, 113 S. Ct. 2078, 2081 (1993).

This case, of course, involved a guilty plea, so there was

no jury trial. But that circumstance makes the postconviction submission of evidence in an effort to demonstrate

harmless error even more questionable: The defendant

waived a jury trial, so there is no pre-conviction factual

record at all. To create one after the fact is not only to

undermine Apprendi but to broaden the defendant’s waiver,

byallowing courts to make factual determinations concerning

a trial that never occurred.

Here, for example, the government neglected to elicit

necessary admissions at the plea hearing. How can we, or the

district court, know that it would have done better had a trial

occurred — that is, that it would properly have submitted the

necessary removal documents? And why is Guerrero-Jasso’s

waiver of jury trial to be taken as waiving a jury trial as to

that question, which did not arise until after the waiver?

This state of affairs leads me to wonder: How did we get

here? And can, and should, we reconsider?

II.

A review of our case law shows that we have not always

treated Apprendi’s protections so carelessly:

• United States v. Tighe, 266 F.3d 1187, 1195 (9th Cir.

2001), held that if the fact of a juvenile adjudication

is used to increase the maximum statutory penalty,

 Case: 12-10372, 05/27/2014, ID: 9108277, DktEntry: 32-1, Page 23 of 37
24 UNITED STATES V. GUERRERO-JASSO

that fact must be charged in an indictment and found

by a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. “Because Tighe

properly preserved his . . . Apprendi claim for appeal,

his sentence [could not] stand unless the district

court’s constitutional error was harmless beyond a

reasonable doubt.” Id. We then held, without further

inquiry, that the error in that case was not harmless,

simply because the defendant’s sentence exceeded

“the applicable statutory maximum.” Id. Like

Guerrero-Jasso, Tighe’s conviction was the result of

a guilty plea. Id. at 1190.

• United States v. Velasco-Heredia, 319 F.3d 1080,

1085–86 (9th Cir. 2003), considered whether an

Apprendi error resulting from judicial fact-finding as

to drug quantity was harmless. The drug quantity

found at sentencing increased what was otherwise a

thirty-seven-to-forty-six month guidelines range and

a statutory maximum of five years, to a mandatory

five-year sentence and a maximum forty-year

sentence. Id. at 1083–84, 1086. We reasoned that

therefore “not only was the error not harmless, it was

demonstrably harmful.” Id. at 1086. We found it

“too clever by half to permit the government in the

guilt phase of a case to prove beyond a reasonable

doubt that only one kilogram of marijuana was

involved in the offense, and then at sentencing to

prove 101 kilograms by a preponderance of the

evidence and claim that such a finding . . . requires

the maximum sentence of five years.” Id. Rather, in

our view, the increased penalty provision could not

apply “unless and until 100 kilograms or more of

marijuana are properly on the sentencing table,”

which, “[a]fter Apprendi, . . . cannot happen until the

 Case: 12-10372, 05/27/2014, ID: 9108277, DktEntry: 32-1, Page 24 of 37
UNITED STATES V. GUERRERO-JASSO 25

jury, or the court in a bench trial, finds beyond a

reasonable doubt that this is the quantity involved in

the violation.” Id. Recognizing that “the Fifth

Amendment to our Constitution does not permit

Velasco-Heradia to be tried twice for the same

offense[,]” we vacated his sentence and remanded for

resentencing in accordance with an unspecified drug

quantity. Id. at 1086–87.

• United States v. Banuelos, 322 F.3d 700, 705 (9th Cir.

2003), held that the district court erred by making a

finding, by a standard lowerthan beyond a reasonable

doubt, as to the amount of drugs for which a

defendant involved in a drug conspiracy was

personally responsible, where the finding increased

the defendant’s maximum sentence exposure. The

defendant in that case had entered a guilty plea to a

drug conspiracy charge, but he never waived his right

to have a jury determine the drug quantity attributable

to him, and he refused to waive the beyond-areasonable-doubt standard as to drug quantity. Id. at

703. We held that, “because Baneuelos did not

allocute to drug quantity at the change of plea hearing

or admit to drug quantity in a written plea

agreement,” he was properly convicted of only the

“general offense . . . charged in the indictment . . . the

only offense for which there was a factual basis for

conviction.” Id. at 706–07. Because he challenged

his sentence but not his conviction, we explained that

the proper course on remand was for the district court

to resentence him “subject to the maximum sentence

supported by the facts found by the [fact-finder]

beyond a reasonable doubt,” — the facts necessarily

included in his plea to the general drug-conspiracy

 Case: 12-10372, 05/27/2014, ID: 9108277, DktEntry: 32-1, Page 25 of 37
26 UNITED STATES V. GUERRERO-JASSO

offense. Id. at 706 (internal quotation marks omitted;

alteration in original). And, although Banuelos did

not raise the issue on appeal, we noted that “[t]he

court’s finding of drug quantity attributable to

Banuelos by any standard, without first advising

Banuelos that he had a right to jury determination of

that fact beyond a reasonable doubt, also violated

Apprendi.” Id. at 705 n.3.

Finally, we rejected the suggestion that the court

should scour the record at sentencing to determine if

the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. 

Id. at 706 & n.4. As “the very finding of an Apprendi

violation means that it was improper for the district

court to determine drug quantity attributable to

Banuelos at sentencing without first informing

Banuelos of his right to a jury determination of drug

quantity to him beyond a reasonable doubt[,]” we

deemed ourselves “prohibit[ed] . . . from considering

admissions made at sentencing in evaluating an

Apprendi violation for harmless error.” Id. at 706 n.4.

• United States v. Thomas, 355 F.3d 1191 (9th Cir.

2004), followed Banuelos and Velasco-Heradia. In

that case, the defendant pled guilty to a drug offense,

but refused to accept responsibility for any specific

drug quantity during the plea colloquy. Id. at

1192–93. Nevertheless, the judge sentenced him in

accordance with a statutory maximum correlating to

a specified drug quantity. Id. at 1194. Because the

error increased the defendant’s guidelines offense

level and required a mandatory minimum sentence,

we deemed the error “clearly harmful.” Id. at 1201. 

We rejected the government’s argument that, on

 Case: 12-10372, 05/27/2014, ID: 9108277, DktEntry: 32-1, Page 26 of 37
UNITED STATES V. GUERRERO-JASSO 27

remand, the judge could impose a sentence in

accordance with the elevated statutory maximum

penalty if the judge found the drug quantity beyond a

reasonable doubt: As the defendant “did not . . . admit

to possessing any specific quantity, nor . . . knowingly

waive his right under Apprendi . . . to have a jury

determine quantity beyond a reasonable doubt,” we

held, “the district judge cannot determine any

particular drug quantity that would affect the

maximum statutory sentence to which [the defendant]

is exposed.” Id. at 1202.

• United States v. Patterson, 381 F.3d 859 (9th Cir.

2004), considered the effect of a guilty plea to

manufacturing an unspecified amount of marijuana on

the defendant’s sentence. The defendant entered, and

the district court accepted, a guilty plea that did not

admit to a specified amount of marijuana, with the

understanding that the judge would determine the

amount of marijuana at the time of sentencing. Id. at

861–62. After the defendant entered his plea, but

before sentencing, Apprendi issued, holding such

judicial determinations unconstitutional, and the

district court, on the government’s motion, vacated

the defendant’s plea. Id. at 862. The defendant was

then tried and convicted by a jury, and the jury made

a finding as to the specific drug quantity. Id. This

court reversed, reasoning that jeopardy attached the

moment the defendant entered and the court accepted

the guilty plea; that the court was not free to vacate

the plea on the government’s motion; and that the trial

therefore violated double jeopardy principles. Id. at

864–65. Although it would have been a simple matter

to review the trial record to determine whether there

 Case: 12-10372, 05/27/2014, ID: 9108277, DktEntry: 32-1, Page 27 of 37
28 UNITED STATES V. GUERRERO-JASSO

was evidence to support a finding that the Apprendi

violation was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, we

instead remanded with instructions to resentence the

defendant in accordance with the maximum penalty

allowable under the plea that he entered. Id. at 866.

• Finally, United States v. Lococo, 514 F.3d 860, 865

(9th Cir. 2007), held that a district court violated

Apprendi by sentencing a defendant according to the

statutorymaximum penalty for knowing involvement

in a conspiracy to distribute crack cocaine, because

the defendant admitted only to knowing involvement

in the conspiracy’s distribution of powder cocaine

when he entered his guilty plea. In remanding for

resentencing, we cited our prior decision in Banuelos,

and instructed the district court that it could only base

the defendant’s sentence on the amount of powder

cocaine involved in the conspiracy, “because it is only

powder cocaine that Lococo admits he knew about.” 

Id. at 866.

Our interpretations of the Apprendi harmless-error review

standard in these cases do not correspond with the

“overwhelming and uncontroverted” standard described in

Neder v. United States, 527 U.S. 1, 9 (1999), outside the

Apprendi context, and adopted in United States v. ZepedaMartinez, 470 F.3d 909, 913 (9th Cir. 2006), and United

States v. Hunt, 656 F.3d 906, 913 (9th Cir. 2011), as

applicable in Apprendi cases. The difference, in my view,

rests largely on a critical distinction between post-conviction,

harmless-error review of a preserved Apprendi claim and

plain-error review of an unpreserved claim. See United States

v. Minore, 292 F.3d 1109, 1122 n.12 (9th Cir. 2002).

 Case: 12-10372, 05/27/2014, ID: 9108277, DktEntry: 32-1, Page 28 of 37
UNITED STATES V. GUERRERO-JASSO 29

United States v. Minore considered two potential

methods, first outlined by United States v. Nordby, 225 F.3d

1053, 1060 (9th Cir. 2000), overruled in part by United States

v. Buckland, 289 F.3d 558, 567–68 (9th Cir. 2002) (en banc),

for reviewing an unpreserved Apprendi violation for plain

error. 292 F.3d at 1121–22. We termed the two Nordby

methods the “less stringent” approach and the “more

stringent” approach. Id. The more stringent approach

followed Neder, asking “whether it was clear beyond a

reasonable doubt that a rational jury would have found the

defendant guilty absent the error.” Id. at 1122 (internal

quotation marks omitted). We held the more stringent

approach properly applicable to plain-error cases, where it is

the defendant’s burden to prove the error “affected his

substantial rights.”2Id. at 1123; accord United States v.

Covian-Sandoval, 462 F.3d 1090, 1098 (9th Cir. 2006);

Buckland, 289 F.3d at 569–70 (9th Cir. 2002) (concluding

that defendant’s substantial rights were not affected by

Apprendi error in light of the unchallenged amount of

narcotics attributed to him and therefore refusing to reverse

under plain error review).

2 Similarly, United States v. Cotton held that failure to charge drug

quantity in an indictment was error, but that where the evidence of drug

quantitywas “overwhelming and essentiallyuncontroverted,” the error did

not “seriouslyaffect[] the fairness, integrity or public reputation ofjudicial

proceedings.” 535 U.S. 625, 632–33 (2002) (internal quotation marks

omitted). Perceiving that “[t]he real threat . . . to the fairness, integrity,

and public reputation of judicial proceedings would be if respondents,

despite the overwhelming and uncontroverted evidence that they were

involved in a vast drug conspiracy, were to receive a sentence prescribed

for those committing less substantial drug offenses because of an error that

was never objected to at trial[,]” the Court determined reversal for plain

error improper. Id. at 634 (internal quotation marks omitted).

 Case: 12-10372, 05/27/2014, ID: 9108277, DktEntry: 32-1, Page 29 of 37
30 UNITED STATES V. GUERRERO-JASSO

Minore described the less stringent approach as simply

asking whether the defendant received a sentence greater than

authorized, absent the error. See 292 F.3d at 1121–22. And

although we held the less stringent standard not applicable to

plain-error cases, we recognized that we had previously

applied it in harmless-error cases, and were careful “not [to]

suggest that the less stringent approach is no longer available

on harmless error review.” Id. at 1122 n.12. We then

continued to review properly preserved Apprendi claims for

harmless error by analyzing only the error’s effect on the

sentence received, not combing the record for overwhelming,

uncontroverted evidence of the sentencing-enhancing fact. 

See, e.g., Thomas, 355 F.3d at 1201.

Zepeda-Martinez, however, apparently deeming this long

line of cases incompatible with Washington v. Recuenco,

548 U.S. 212 (2006), held that Neder’s brand of harmlesserror review applies to “properly preserved” Apprendi

violations, too. 470 F.3d at 913. Accepting that “our prior

case law may suggest otherwise,” Zepeda-Martinez cites

Recuenco as holding that “Apprendi errors are reviewed

under the harmless error standard as applied in Neder[.]” Id.

In my view, Recuenco did not so hold, and ZepedaMartinez erred in assuming that it did. Recuenco affirmed a

rule that already existed in our circuit, i.e., that Apprendi

violations are reviewable for harmless error. But it did not

mandate any particular method for conducting that review,

and so did not require us to overrule our circuit precedents

regarding the nature of that review where there is preserved

Apprendi error.

In Recuenco, the jury returned a guilty verdict for assault

and a special verdict finding that the defendant was armed

 Case: 12-10372, 05/27/2014, ID: 9108277, DktEntry: 32-1, Page 30 of 37
UNITED STATES V. GUERRERO-JASSO 31

with a deadly weapon. The jury was not asked to find, and

did not find, that the defendant was armed with a firearm. 

548 U.S. at 215. Nonetheless, at sentencing, the defendant

received a three-year enhancement for being armed with a

firearm. Id.

The Court held Neder’s harmless-error ruling applicable

under these circumstances, reasoning that, “[b]ecause Neder’s

jury did not find him guilty of each of the elements of the

offenses with which he was charged, its verdict is no more

fairly described as a complete finding of guilt of the crimes

for which the defendant was sentenced than is the verdict

here.” Id. at 221. As the case was in this respect

“indistinguishable from Neder,” id. at 220, the Court held the

Apprendi error in Recuenco reviewable for harmless error. 

The Court did not, however, explain how harmless-error

review of Apprendi errors should be conducted. Neder’s

mode of harmless-error analysis is not discussed in Recuenco,

and Recuenco specifically declined to rule on the question of

whether the error in the case before it was harmless.3Id. at

 

3

 The defendant-respondent in Recuenco had argued that at the time of

his conviction, Washington state law did not provide a procedure whereby

a jury could make the finding required by Apprendi. Id. at 217. He went

on to maintain that the Washington Supreme Court’s structural error

holding regarding the Apprendi violation in his case thus rested on an

adequate and independent state ground — the lack of a procedural

mechanism allowing a jury to make the necessary factual finding. Id. at

216–17. Recuenco rejected the argument that state law barred it from

reaching the merits, but explained that the state’s mechanisms for

presenting sentence enhancements to a jurywere relevant to harmlessness. 

If the state had no such mechanism, Recuenco reasoned, “that . . . suggests

that respondent will be able to demonstrate that the . . . violation in this

particular case was not harmless.” Id. at 218 (emphasis in original)

(citing Chapman, 386 U.S. at 24). Recuenco thussuggests that a sentence

above the statutory maximum could not be deemed harmless if the penalty

 Case: 12-10372, 05/27/2014, ID: 9108277, DktEntry: 32-1, Page 31 of 37
32 UNITED STATES V. GUERRERO-JASSO

217–18. Recuenco held only that “[f]ailure to submit a

sentencing factor to the jury, like failure to submit an element

to the jury, is not structural error.” 548 U.S. at 222.

Our rejection of our prior case law following Recuenco

might not be so troubling if our mode of harmless-error

review had been limited to reviewing the trial record with

regard to what the jury would almost surely have found on

the factual question essential to determining the maximum

sentence. But we held in Nordby that review of an Apprendi

violation should “encompass[] the ‘whole record,’” including

evidence from sentencing proceedings. 225 F.3d at 1061 n.6

(quoting Delaware v. Van Arsdall, 475 U.S. 673, 681 (1986)). 

We derived the notion of “whole record” review from the

Supreme Court’s opinion in Delaware v. Van Arsdall,

475 U.S. 673, 681 (1986), which held that a violation of the

constitutional right to confront an adversarial witness does

not require reversal if the error was harmless beyond a

reasonable doubt.

Van Arsdall, however, made no mention of sentencing

proceedings. Instead, it concluded that “the Supreme Court

of Delaware was wrong when it declined to consider whether

[the adverse] ruling was harmless in the context of the trial as

a whole.” 475 U.S. at 674 (emphasis added). And none of

the cases Van Arsdall cites as support for “whole record”

review mention sentencing proceedings after a trial or a

guilty plea either. See United States v. Hasting, 461 U.S.

499, 509 (1983) (“[T]he Court has consistently made clear

that it is the duty of a reviewing court to consider the trial

record as a whole and to ignore errors that are harmless.”

provision that increased the maximum sentence was not, and could not

have been, submitted to a jury.

 Case: 12-10372, 05/27/2014, ID: 9108277, DktEntry: 32-1, Page 32 of 37
UNITED STATES V. GUERRERO-JASSO 33

(emphasis added)); Moore v. Illinois, 434 U.S. 220, 232

(1977); Harrington v. California, 395 U.S. 250, 253–54

(1969).

Nonetheless, our decision to consider sentencing

proceedings in Nordby made a certain amount of sense, as we

did so for the purpose of giving the defendant an opportunity

to counter evidence that the government introduced at trial —

evidence which the defendant might have failed to dispute

because he was unaware of its relevance to the jury’s decision

until it was declared relevant on appeal. We therefore looked

to the sentencing proceedings for a limited purpose — “to

assist us in determining what evidence Nordby would have

introduced at trial [on the omitted fact] had that issue been

relevant.” Nordby, 225 F.3d at 1061 n.6 (emphasis added). 

But we refused to consider any post-conviction admissions or

stipulations made by the defendant, because we deemed “new

admissions by Nordby at sentencing, made after the jury had

already rendered its verdict . . . irrelevant to [the] inquiry.” 

Id.

Unfortunately, we later threw Nordby’s limitations to the

wind. All that is left of Nordby’s careful excision of the

relevant post-conviction material from the irrelevant is the

rule that we do not consider the defendant’s post-conviction

admissions or stipulations in Apprendi harmless-error

review.4

See Butler v. Curry, 528 F.3d 624, 648 n.16 (9th

Cir. 2008) (noting “our long-standing rule that admissions at

sentencing are not relevant to an Apprendi harmless error

analysis”); Lococo, 514 F.3d at 864 (refusing to consider

defendant’s statements at sentencing, even though they could

 

4 Even this rule has on occasion been breached. See Zepeda-Martinez,

470 F.3d at 913.

 Case: 12-10372, 05/27/2014, ID: 9108277, DktEntry: 32-1, Page 33 of 37
34 UNITED STATES V. GUERRERO-JASSO

be interpreted as an admission, in assessing the harmlessness

of an Apprendi error in accepting a guilty plea); United States

v. Salazar-Lopez, 506 F.3d 748, 755 (9th Cir. 2007) (“[W]e

do not consider new admissions made at sentencing in our

harmless error inquiry”); United States v. Jordan, 291 F.3d

1091, 1097 (9th Cir. 2002) (“A stipulation at sentencing does

not address the jury’s finding and cannot be considered under

Apprendi.”).

Thus, several opinions of this court since Nordby have

considered evidence introduced at sentencing by the

government as part of harmless-error, rather than — as in

Nordby — plain-error review, see, e.g., Hunt, 656 F.3d at

913–16; Zepeda-Martinez, 470 F.3d at 913, and other circuits

have done likewise, see, e.g., United States v. Harakaly,

734 F.3d 88, 96–97 & n.9 (1st Cir. 2013) (declining to decide

whether post-conviction concessions “would independently

suffice to establish harmlessness,” but relying on them for

corroboration of the defendant’s “earlier concessions at his

Rule 11 hearing”); United States v. Williams, 493 F.3d 763,

767–68 (7th Cir. 2007). Moreover — again, unlike in Nordby

— we have applied this process of post-conviction

evidentiary submission and fact-finding analysis to cases in

which there was never a trial at all, even though Neder,

Recuenco, and Nordby all involved jury verdicts. See Hunt,

656 F.3d at 913–16 (guilty plea); Zepeda-Martinez, 470 F.3d

at 913 (same). In the process, we expanded the scope of postconviction evidence considered as to Apprendi harmlessness

from evidence the defendant would have admitted at trial to

evidence the parties would have admitted at trial, ZepedaMartinez, 470 F.3d at 913 n.3. The result was to pave the

way for a post-conviction bench trial on a fact never

conceded before conviction, even where no pre-conviction

trial was ever held.

 Case: 12-10372, 05/27/2014, ID: 9108277, DktEntry: 32-1, Page 34 of 37
UNITED STATES V. GUERRERO-JASSO 35

That is precisely what the government proposed here —

a bench trial as a substitute for the trial by jury required by

Apprendi, in which evidence never submitted to any jury is

presented for the first and only time to a judge. To sanction

such a procedure is to allow the protections accorded by

Apprendi entirely to atrophy.

Were we to countenance governmental introduction of

evidence for the sole, explicit purpose of defeating harmlesserror review, we would be approving a court doing “just what

[the Supreme Court] ha[s] said it cannot: relying on its own

finding about a non-elemental fact to increase a defendant’s

maximum sentence.” Descamps v. United States, 133 S. Ct.

2276, 2288–89 (2013); see also Shepard v. United States,

544 U.S. 13, 25 (2005) (plurality opinion); id. at 28 (Thomas,

J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). Descamps

applied this prohibition broadly, resoundingly rejecting our

circuit’s prior approach, which had authorized “the court to

try to discern what a trial showed, or a plea proceeding

revealed, about the defendant’s underlying conduct,” and

emphasizing that “[t]he Sixth Amendment contemplates that

a jury — not a sentencing court — will find such facts,

unanimously and beyond a reasonable doubt.” 133 S. Ct. at

2288.

Zepeda-Martinez purportedly used post-conviction

evidence as a mere “guide” to determining what would have

ensued in a jury trial and then predicting whether a reasonable

jury necessarily would have found the facts essential to the

crime charged beyond a reasonable doubt. But this mode of

analysis is judicial fact-finding of precisely the sort

Descamps proscribes: It requires going behind the fact of

conviction to establish what evidence the parties would have

introduced at a trial, and then relies on evaluation of that

 Case: 12-10372, 05/27/2014, ID: 9108277, DktEntry: 32-1, Page 35 of 37
36 UNITED STATES V. GUERRERO-JASSO

evidence to impose a sentence greater than the maximum

sentence that Congress intended. Moreover, as in United

States v. Aguila-Montes de Oca, 655 F.3d 915, 918 (9th Cir.

2011) (en banc), abrogated by Descamps, 133 S. Ct. at

2282–83, in cases like Zepeda-Martinez and Hunt, and this

case, no trial occurred, so guesses about what would have

occurred at trial are entirely hypothetical.

III.

The government’s proposal that we affirm the instant

sentence on harmless-error review would require us to hold

that because the government produced an execution-ofwarrant form at sentencing, Guerrero-Jasso’s constitutional

right, absent waiver, to have the essential fact of his removal

date put to a jury and proved beyond a reasonable doubt can

go by the wayside. Quite aside from the reasons we give in

the panel opinion for rejecting this proposition, it is one that,

in my view, should not be entertained at all. Neither Neder

nor Recuenco support such a result. And, by affording

penalty provisions that increase a maximum statutory

sentence the protections of the Sixth Amendment and

reasonable-doubt standard, the Supreme Court has forbid it. 

See Apprendi, 530 U.S. at 477. Instead, harmless-error

review in Apprendi cases must respect the principle that a

court may not itself make a finding as to a disputed fact — as

opposed to an assessment of harmless error on a preconviction trial record — in situations where fact-finding

would increase the statutory maximum. If the defendant did

not admit an essential fact during his plea colloquy and

evidence concerning the fact was not put to a jury, it violates

Apprendi for a court to allow the government, postconviction, to introduce new evidence, find that evidence of

the fact would have been introduced in a hypothetical jury

 Case: 12-10372, 05/27/2014, ID: 9108277, DktEntry: 32-1, Page 36 of 37
UNITED STATES V. GUERRERO-JASSO 37

trial, and then determine that the essential fact would have

been found by the hypothetical jury had the newly produced

evidence been before it.

With our expansive approach to harmless error in

Apprendi cases, especially in guilty plea cases, Apprendi’s

protections could become protections in name only. Indeed,

although I have no reason to think that the Apprendi error in

this case was engineered by the government, our current

Apprendi harmless-error methodology could encourage

prosecutors to do exactly that — consciously allow Apprendi

error, and then introduce the omitted evidence for the first

time at sentencing, thereby bypassing the jury trial protection

underlying Apprendi. We should stop this process in its

tracks by reconsidering en banc our Apprendi harmless-error

cases, particularly Zepeda-Martinez.

 Case: 12-10372, 05/27/2014, ID: 9108277, DktEntry: 32-1, Page 37 of 37