Source: http://legaliq.com/Case/United_States_V_Julio_Ortiz_And_Manuel_Hurtado
Timestamp: 2017-12-15 06:26:52
Document Index: 30210670

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United States v. Julio Ortiz and Manuel Hurtado (84 F.3d 977)
Case Name: United States v. Julio Ortiz and Manuel Hurtado
Citations: 84 F.3d 977
Docket #: 95-1386
84 F.3d 977
65 USLW 2027
Julio ORTIZ and Manuel Hurtado, Defendants-Appellants.
Nos. 95-1386, 95-1869.
Chapter 2 of the guidelines, the chapter relating to offense conduct, contains part J, which concerns offenses involving the administration of justice. Section 2J1.1 deals with "contempt," but it's not helpful for it simply says "[a]pply § 2X5.1 (Other Offenses)." Section 2X5.1 tells the sentencing judge that "[i]f the offense is a felony or Class A misdemeanor for which no guideline expressly has been promulgated, apply the most analogous offense guideline." The government and Hurtado part company on the question of what is the "most analogous" offense to Hurtado's conduct of criminal contempt. Hurtado argued that the "most analogous" offense was "Failure to Appear by Material Witness" under § 2J1.5, which carries a base offense level of 6 (a 3-level increase can be ordered if a "substantial interference with the administration of justice" occurs) when the failure to appear relates to a felony. The government argued that Hurtado's conduct was an obstruction of justice--in the prosecution of Ortiz--and therefore § 2J1.2 was the most analogous provision. The correct application of § 2J1.2, the government said, required a cross-reference under subsection (c), which provides:
The district court looked to U.S.S.G. § 2J1.2, Obstruction of Justice, and opined that "the defendant's conduct did constitute obstruction of justice in the prosecution of a criminal case against Mr. Ortiz." Citing § 2J1.2(c)(1), the district court imposed the sentence pursuant to § 2X3.1 (Accessory After the Fact), stating:
Title 18, U.S.C. § 3, provides that "[w]hoever, knowing that an offense against the United States has been committed, receives, relieves, comforts or assists the offender in order to hinder or prevent his apprehension, trial or punishment, is an accessory after the fact." Hurtado neither received, relieved, comforted, nor assisted Julio Ortiz. Having been arrested himself, it was impossible for Hurtado to "receive" Ortiz. His post-arrest statements to the police (we'll see what he said when we discuss the motion-to-suppress issue) cannot be said to have provided Ortiz with relief, comfort, or assistance. Actually, the assistance Hurtado provided was entirely to the government, not Ortiz. He gave Ortiz no help whatsoever.
Obstruction of Justice (sec.2J1.2) is not the best guideline either, especially when the whole case is considered. There are no overt acts in the record which indicate that Hurtado intended to obstruct justice, beyond his refusal to testify. Furthermore, there is no evidence that he actually obstructed justice. In this regard, the case is similar to the situation faced by a district court in United States v. Herre, 731 F.Supp. 1051 (S.D.Fla.1990).
Herre, 731 F.Supp. at 1053. The court noted that the government had shown neither.
In the one case we have found where a court applied the obstruction of justice guideline to a conviction for contempt, the conduct was much more egregious than Hurtado's here. In United States v. Remini, 967 F.2d 754 (2d Cir.1992), the defendant refused to testify, notwithstanding a grant of immunity, at the trial of Thomas Gambino, an organized crime figure from New York. Remini was convicted of contempt in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 401(3). The trial court applied U.S.S.G. § 2J1.2, Obstruction of Justice, and sentenced him to 16 months. On appeal, the defendant argued that the proper guideline was U.S.S.G. § 2J1.5, Failure to Appeal by a Material Witness. The court of appeals rejected the defendant's argument and affirmed the district court.
In rejecting Remini's arguments, the Second Circuit noted that the trial court based its use of the guideline for obstruction on a taped conversation of convicted mob boss John Gotti, who told a third party that he instructed his lawyers to "[g]et my cell ready, get Joe Butch's cell ready; and get Fat Georgie's [Remini's] cell ready. And nobody is taking the stand. Tell them to go fight! Don't worry about it." Remini, 967 F.2d at 756. Clearly, Remini intended to obstruct the Gambino trial. He succeeded. The Gambino trial ultimately resulted in an acquittal. Remini's conduct, we think, was far more egregious than Hurtado's, and his sentence--16 months--was 21 months shorter.
Hurtado's case is more analogous to that of the defendant in United States v. Underwood, 880 F.2d 612 (1st Cir.1989). Underwood was convicted of contempt under 18 U.S.C. § 402 for his refusal to testify against a codefendant after having been granted immunity. The trial court imposed a 3-year sentence. The First Circuit vacated the sentence and remanded the case, concluding that "there is no applicable sentencing guideline" for contempt and that therefore the "plainly unreasonable" standard of review, 18 U.S.C. § 3742(e)(4), must be employed. Id. at 619. By analogizing the situation to the guidelines, however, the First Circuit found that § 2J1.5, Failure to Appear by a Material Witness, was a good fit. In declining to employ the obstruction guideline, the court noted that the district court found that the defendant "did not intend to 'obstruct justice;' he simply intended not to testify. In that sense, he intended only to 'fail to appear' as a 'material witness'...." Id. at 620.
Another reason exists for rejecting accessory after the fact as a good-fit analogy in this case. Its base offense level--a 20 under the guidelines--is seriously out of kilter with Hurtado's offense. A base offense level of 20, for someone without a criminal record, results in a sentencing range of 33-41 months. The mid-point of the range exceeds three years, without parole. That's a mighty stiff sentence to visit on someone who has sinned as Hurtado has. In fact, base offense levels of 20 are used for persons convicted of serious offenses like aggravated assault with serious bodily injury (sec. 2A2.2(b)(3)(B)), theft of more than $5 million (sec. 2B1.1(b)), and the importation of a quarter of a kilo of cocaine (sec. 2D1.1(c)(10)). When compared to these transgressions, Hurtado's decision to clam up seems fairly tame. For these reasons, Hurtado must be resentenced.
We review the denial of a motion to suppress for clear error. United States v. Patterson, 65 F.3d 68, 70 (7th Cir.1995). "A finding is clearly erroneous when, although there is evidence to support it, the reviewing court on the entire evidence is left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been made." Id. The district court here did not clearly err in denying Ortiz's suppression motions: the search of the vehicle was conducted pursuant to the automobile exception to the warrant requirement, and the information from the pager was properly seized incident to a valid arrest.
Under the "automobile exception" to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment, law enforcement officers may search an automobile without a warrant when they have probable cause to believe that the vehicle contains contraband or evidence of criminality. Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U.S. 42, 52, 90 S.Ct. 1975, 1981-82, 26 L.Ed.2d 419 (1970); Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 153-56, 45 S.Ct. 280, 285-86, 69 L.Ed. 543 (1925); Patterson, 65 F.3d at 70. The scope of the search may "extend[ ] to all parts of the vehicle in which contraband or evidence could be concealed, including closed compartments and trunks." United States v. Young, 38 F.3d 338, 340 (7th Cir.1994).
Ortiz's argument tries to tiptoe past the automobile exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement. The "wingspan" argument would only be applicable if the officers lacked probable cause to believe Ortiz's Buick contained drugs. See, e.g., United States v. Evans, 994 F.2d 317, 322 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 114 S.Ct. 335, 126 L.Ed.2d 280 (1993). Under the automobile exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement, the district court's denial of the motion to suppress the pistol was not clearly erroneous.
In United States v. Chan, 830 F.Supp. 531, 533 (N.D.Cal.1993), DEA agents seized a pager from the defendant at the time of arrest and searched its contents by activating its memory and retrieving telephone numbers. The defendant argued that activation of the pager was a search requiring a warrant because the pager was a container as to which he had a reasonable expectation of privacy. Id. The court found that the possessor of a pager has an expectation of privacy in the data contained therein in the same manner as an individual in possession of a closed container. Id. at 534-535. The court ruled, however, that the search of the pager was legal under cases which permit the search of containers found on or near the arrestee in a search incident to arrest. See New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454, 461, 101 S.Ct. 2860, 2864-65, 69 L.Ed.2d 768 (1981).
The defendant in Chan also argued that under United States v. Chadwick, 433 U.S. 1, 12-13, 97 S.Ct. 2476, 2484-85, 53 L.Ed.2d 538 (1977), a warrant is required to search the contents of closed containers when an individual has a heightened expectation of privacy in its contents. The Chan court appropriately recognized that Chadwick's protections are not so broad:
The Court in Chadwick adopted a narrow exception to the incident to arrest doctrine, holding that a warrantless search of seized property cannot be justified when the search is remote in time or place from the arrest. Chadwick, 433 U.S. at 13-15, 97 S.Ct. at 2485. As the Supreme Court explains:
Chan, 830 F.Supp. at 535. Chan found that the retrieval of telephone numbers from a pager's memory immediately upon arrest is not so "remote" from the arrest that it falls within the exception of Chadwick. Id. We agree with this analysis.
An officer's need to preserve evidence is an important law enforcement component of the rationale for permitting a search of a suspect incident to a valid arrest. See United States v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218, 226, 234-35, 94 S.Ct. 467, 472-73, 38 L.Ed.2d 427 (1973). Because of the finite nature of a pager's electronic memory, incoming pages may destroy currently stored telephone numbers in a pager's memory. The contents of some pagers also can be destroyed merely by turning off the power or touching a button. See, e.g., United States v. Meriwether, 917 F.2d 955, 957 (6th Cir.1990). Thus, it is imperative that law enforcement officers have the authority to immediately "search" or retrieve, incident to a valid arrest, information from a pager in order to prevent its destruction as evidence. The motion to suppress was properly denied.
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