Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-05-01450/USCOURTS-ca8-05-01450-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Douglas Jose Cadenas
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

1

The Honorable Linda R. Reade, United States District Judge for the Northern

District of Iowa.

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 05-1450

___________

United States of America, *

*

Plaintiff - Appellee, *

 * Appeal from the United States

v. * District Court for the Northern

* District of Iowa.

Douglas Jose Cadenas, also known *

as Jose Ramiro Marin-Ramirez, *

*

Defendant - Appellant. *

___________

Submitted: January 9, 2006

Filed: April 26, 2006

___________

Before WOLLMAN, JOHN R. GIBSON, and ARNOLD, Circuit Judges.

___________

JOHN R. GIBSON, Circuit Judge.

Douglas Jose Cadenas pled guilty to unlawfully re-entering the United States

after being removed for an aggravated felony conviction in violation of 8 U.S.C. §

1326(a) and (b)(2). On appeal he argues that his sentence of 46 months' imprisonment

was unreasonable because the district court1

 should have given more weight to several

of the factors listed in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) and less to the advisory guideline range of

46 to 57 months. We affirm.

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Appellant was born as Jose Ramiro Marin-Ramirez in Sopetran, Antioquia,

Colombia in 1953. He first entered the United States in 1980 on a visitor’s visa, but

eventually received lawful permanent residence status under the name Marin-Ramirez

after marrying his first wife. In 1991, appellant was arrested and charged with money

laundering and conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine. In connection

with the arrest, appellant provided Drug Enforcement Administration agents with false

information including that his name was Douglas Jose Cadenas. He pled guilty to the

drug charge under that name and was sentenced to 97 months' imprisonment and a

five-year term of supervised release. Appellant had discharged his term of

imprisonment by the end of 1998, and he was transferred to immigration custody to

be deported as an aggravated felon. At that time, federal officials notified him that he

was prohibited from entering, attempting to enter, or being in the United States at any

time following his removal. 

Appellant returned to Medellin, Colombia with his wife and the couple's

children, all of whom were United States citizens, except for appellant. There, the

couple obtained a business license to operate a liquor store, but shortly after opening,

local guerillas began threatening to kidnap and kill the children unless they received

payments of $1,000 a month. According to appellant and his wife, the guerillas

believed they were wealthy due to their recent arrival from the United States, the fact

that they were United States citizens, and the fact that they owned a business. Fearing

for her safety, the couple sent their oldest daughter back to the United States. In order

to care for their daughter and earn money to send back home to Colombia, appellant's

wife also returned to the United States. 

Although appellant remained in Colombia with his son for the next eighteen

months, he eventually applied for a visa to enter Mexico. The application was denied,

but Mexican officials informed appellant that he could re-apply for admission in

ninety days. Instead, appellant left Colombia with his son and re-entered the United

States through Newark, New Jersey. While his son was able to use his American

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passport to re-enter, appellant used the passport and resident alien card he had been

issued under his true name, Jose Ramiro Marin-Ramirez. Reunited, the family

traveled to Waterloo, Iowa, where appellant and his wife opened a bar and restaurant

called the Tequila Club.

In 2004, a cooperating federal defendant alerted agents of the Iowa Division

of Narcotics Enforcement that an individual named "Jose," the owner of the Tequila

Club in Waterloo, had previously been convicted of cocaine charges and deported to

Colombia. A review of the Tequila Club's Iowa liquor license revealed that the

business was owned by appellant's wife, with "Jose Marin" listed as the contact name.

Further investigation confirmed that the driver's license photograph for Jose Ramiro

Marin-Ramirez appeared to be the same as that of the individual deported as an

aggravated felon under the name Douglas Cadenas. A search of appellant's residence

following his arrest uncovered photocopies of the passport and resident alien card

bearing the name Jose Ramiro Marin-Ramirez that appellant had used to re-enter the

United States, and a fingerprint analysis subsequently confirmed that appellant was

the individual previously deported as Douglas Jose Cadenas.

Appellant was indicted and later pled guilty to unlawful re-entry into the United

States after having been previously removed following conviction for an aggravated

felony offense in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a) and (b)(2). He was sentenced on

January 26, 2005, shortly after the United States Supreme Court issued its decision in

United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005). In light of Booker, the district court

informed the parties that, in deciding what sentence to impose, it would be guided by

the advisory guidelines range of 46 to 57 months' imprisonment and "all the factors

set forth at 18 United States Code Section 3553(a)(1) through (7)."

At sentencing, appellant presented the testimony of his wife and introduced

several exhibits, including the 2001 United States Department of State Country Report

on Human Rights Practices in Colombia. He argued that this evidence demonstrated

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In this regard the court stated: 

[T]he Court finds that there are no facts or circumstances that would take

this case out of the heartland of cases because, as I said, when you boil

it down, it is the common situation where you have family members in

two countries, and the one parent, because of prior criminal conduct in

the United States, is not allowed in the United States legally. So I just

don't see that this is really a common – an uncommon situation. I decline

to depart as urged by defense counsel for those reasons. And so the

guidelines sentence, which is only one factor that the Court takes into

consideration, remains as it is, forty-six to fifty-seven months.

3

Initially, the government argues that we lack jurisdiction under 18 U.S.C. §

3742(a) to hear this appeal. As appellant correctly points out, we have previously

rejected this argument. United States v. Mickelson, 433 F.3d 1050, 1055 (8th Cir.

2006); United States v. Frokjer, 415 F.3d 865, 875 n.3 (8th Cir. 2005); United States

v. McCully, 407 F.3d 931, 933 n.2 (8th Cir. 2005), cert. denied, 126 S. Ct. 305 (2005).

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that he and his family had returned to the United States under coercion and duress,

circumstances justifying a sentence below the applicable guidelines range. After

considering the evidence,2

 the court sentenced appellant to 46 months' imprisonment

followed by a two-year term of supervised release, along with a $100 assessment.

This appeal followed. 

I.

We review appellant's sentence for reasonableness.3

 United States v. Hadash,

408 F.3d 1080, 1083 (8th Cir. 2005) (equating "unreasonableness" with an "abuse of

discretion"). In doing so we, like the district court, begin with the applicable

guidelines sentencing range. United States v. Haack, 403 F.3d 997, 1002-03 (8th Cir.

2005), cert. denied, 126 S. Ct. 276 (2005). Although a sentence within that range is

presumed reasonable, United States v. Lincoln, 413 F.3d 716, 717 (8th Cir. 2005),

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Guideline § 2L1.2 sets a base offense level of 8 for a violation of 8 U.S.C. §

1326. Appellant received a sixteen-level increase under Guideline § 2L1.2(b)(1)(A)(i)

because he was deported following conviction for a drug trafficking offense, and a

three-point reduction for timely acceptance of responsibility under Guideline §

3E1.1(b). After these adjustments, appellant's offense level was 21 with a criminal

history category of III based on his 1991 drug offense and his commission of the

instant offense while on supervised release. Based on these calculations, the

applicable guideline range was between 46 and 57 months.

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cert. denied, 126 S. Ct. 840 (2005), that presumption may be rebutted by reference to

the factors listed in § 3553(a). Mickelson, 433 F.3d at 1055. Thus, "if the district

court failed to consider a relevant factor that should have received significant weight,

gave significant weight to an improper or irrelevant factor, or considered only

appropriate factors but nevertheless committed a clear error of judgment," even a

sentence within the guidelines range may be unreasonable. United States v. Walker,

439 F.3d 890, 892 (8th Cir. 2006) (citing Hadash, 408 F.3d at 1084). In addition,

while we do not require the district court to mechanically recite each of the § 3553(a)

factors, it must be clear from the record that it actually considered them in determining

the appropriate sentence. Id. (quoting United States v. Dieken, 432 F.3d 906, 909 (8th

Cir. 2006)). 

Here, the district court calculated the applicable guidelines range, considered

defendant's circumstances in reference to the § 3553(a) factors, and then imposed a

sentence at the bottom of the guidelines range.4

 Thus, the sentence is clothed with a

presumption of reasonableness. Lincoln, 413 F.3d at 717. Appellant advances three

arguments in an attempt to rebut this presumption. We find none to be persuasive.

First, appellant contends that the district court gave inadequate weight to the

"extraordinary circumstances" surrounding his re-entry into the United States.

Although "[a] criminal trial for the felony of illegal reentry after deportation . . . is not

the proper forum to argue a case for political asylum," United States v. PolancoGomez, 841 F.2d 235, 238 (8th Cir. 1988), appellant's evidence of the conditions in

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Colombia and his reasons for leaving that country were properly considered by the

sentencing court in evaluating the "nature and circumstances of the offense" as well

as the "history and characteristics of the defendant." See 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(1).

Nonetheless, it was for the court to determine the appropriate weight of this evidence

in the overall sentencing balance. In doing so, the court expressed doubts about the

credibility of appellant's claims of duress, recognizing the lack of corroborating

evidence, his failure to apply for asylum upon re-entry, and the fact that appellant's

family, as American citizens, could travel freely into the United States to avoid any

danger in Colombia. However, the court went on to conclude that, even if all of

appellant's evidence of duress were true, it would not warrant a sentence below the

guidelines range because appellant's separation from his family was not "an

uncommon situation." Such a conclusion was reasonable and within the sentencing

court's discretion.

Next, appellant argues that his willingness to stipulate to deportation

demonstrated his "respect for the law," see 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(2)(A), and thereby

justified a sentence below the applicable guideline range. The district court

specifically considered appellant's offer to stipulate at sentencing. However, it

recognized that the stipulation would be largely redundant as removal was "a foregone

conclusion under the facts of this case." While the court could have concluded that

his offer to stipulate to deportation warranted a sentence below the guidelines range,

see United States v. Jauregui, 314 F.3d 961, 963-64 (8th Cir. 2003) (holding, preBooker, that departure for waiving resistance to deportation is within sentencing

court's discretion), it was not unreasonable for it to decline to do so. 

Lastly, appellant argues that the record is unclear as to the manner in which the

district court weighed the remaining § 3553(a) factors in determining his sentence.

While not making explicit findings with respect to each, the record reflects that the

district court recognized its obligation to consider the § 3553(a) factors and did

actually consider them in determining the appropriate sentence. See Walker, 439 F.3d

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at 892. The district court stated on several occasions during the hearing that its

sentencing determination would be guided by the advisory guidelines and "all other

factors set forth at 18 United States Code Section 3553(a)(1) through (7)." Indeed, the

court permitted defense counsel to summarize the evidence relevant to each applicable

factor before reaching its conclusion that none of the "facts or circumstances"

presented justified a sentence below the applicable guidelines range. From this

record, we are satisfied that the district court actually considered each factor in

determining an appropriate sentence.

The judgment of the district court is affirmed.

______________________________

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