Source: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/229/292/577457/
Timestamp: 2017-11-19 12:21:55
Document Index: 748335043

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 924', '§ 2', '§ 2', '§ 2', '§ 2', '§ 3', '§ 201', '§ 924', '§ 924', '§ 924', '§ 924', '§ 924', '§ 924', '§ 924', '§ 924', '§ 924', '§ 924', '§ 924', '§ 924', '§ 2', '§ 2', '§ 1', '§ 1', '§ 2', '§ 2', '§ 924', '§ 924', '§ 924', '§ 2', '§ 2', '§ 2']

United States of America, Appellee,v.john Alexis Mojica-baez, Defendant, Appellant.united States of America, Appellee,v.josue G. Reyes-hernandez, Defendant, Appellant.united States of America, Appellee,v.rodolfo E. Landa-rivera, Defendant, Appellant.united States of America, Appellee,v.nelson Cartagena-merced, Defendant, Appellant.united States of America, Appellee,v.jose Ramos-cartagena, Defendant, Appellant, 229 F.3d 292 (1st Cir. 2000) :: Justia
Justia › US Law › Case Law › Federal Courts › Courts of Appeals › First Circuit › 2000 › United States of America, Appellee,v.john Alexis Mojica-baez, Defendant, Appellant.united States of...
United States of America, Appellee,v.john Alexis Mojica-baez, Defendant, Appellant.united States of America, Appellee,v.josue G. Reyes-hernandez, Defendant, Appellant.united States of America, Appellee,v.rodolfo E. Landa-rivera, Defendant, Appellant.united States of America, Appellee,v.nelson Cartagena-merced, Defendant, Appellant.united States of America, Appellee,v.jose Ramos-cartagena, Defendant, Appellant, 229 F.3d 292 (1st Cir. 2000)
US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit - 229 F.3d 292 (1st Cir. 2000)
APPEALS FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO [Hon. Jose Antonio Fuste, U.S. District Judge][Copyrighted Material Omitted][Copyrighted Material Omitted][Copyrighted Material Omitted]
The defendants originally raised a myriad of arguments on appeal. In addition, after the Supreme Court decided United States v. Castillo, 120 S. Ct. 2090 (2000), we requested that the parties brief the effect of that decision. None of the defendants had raised at trial or on appeal a Castillo claim that the use of a semiautomatic assault weapon in the robbery was an element -- and not merely a sentencing factor -- of a firearms offense. See 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (1) (A), (B). This is our first occasion to discuss the effects of Castillo on trials and indictments, and our view on the indictment issue is quite different from the view of another circuit. Save for one sentencing issue regarding one defendant -- as to which the government agrees that there was error and that the matter should be remanded -- we reject the defendants' arguments.
The four main defendants are John Alexis Mojica-Baez, Josue G. Reyes-Hernandez, Nelson Cartagena-Merced, and Jose Ramos-Cartagena. After a trial lasting almost a month, they were convicted of committing the robbery. Specifically, all four of these defendants were convicted of two counts of armed robbery, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2, 2113(a), (d); one count of assault, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2, 2114(a); one count of breaking and entering, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2, 2117; and one count of using and carrying a firearm in relation to a crime of violence, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2, 924(c) (1). Another co-defendant, Rodolfo E. Landa-Rivera, was convicted of being an accessory after the fact to the robbery, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 3, 2113(a).1
Reyes-Hernandez and Mojica-Baez seek to raise an argument that had its brief moment in the sun but has since faded. The claim is that two prosecution witnesses received something of value from the government in return for their testimony, to wit, a reduced sentence and a cash stipend respectively, and that this violates 18 U.S.C. § 201(c) (2), which prohibits offering "anything of value" as an inducement to a witness. This court flatly rejected that argument in Lara, 181 F.3d at 197-98, and we do so here.
Mojica Baez, Reyes-Hernandez, and Ramos-Cartagena say that they should not have been sentenced to the mandatory ten years imprisonment on Count 5 of the indictment for use of a semiautomatic assault weapon. See 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (1) (A), (B). Use of an ordinary firearm results in a sentence of not less than 5 years imprisonment. See id. § 924(c) (1) (A). Subsection (B) of the statute provides, in relevant part:
Id. § 924(c) (1) (B). A violation of § 924(c) (1) was charged in the indictment without reference to subsection (B) and without any reference to the type of weapon used. Reyes-Hernandez made an objection at sentencing that there was inadequate evidence to support the conclusion that a semiautomatic assault weapon was used.
After this appeal was briefed, the Supreme Court decided that the distinctions in 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (1) between types of firearms (which result in different sentences), were elements of separate crimes and not just sentencing factors. See Castillo v. United States, 120 S. Ct. 2090, 2091 (2000). This means that the question of whether a firearm is a semiautomatic assault weapon must (1) go to the jury, not the judge, and (2) be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, not by a preponderance of the evidence, as is true with sentencing factors. See Apprendi v. New Jersey, 120 S. Ct. 2348, 2362-63 (2000) ("Other than the fact of a prior conviction, any fact that increases the penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory maximum must be submitted to a jury, and proved beyond a reasonable doubt."); Sustache-Rivera v. United States, 221 F.3d 8, 10-11 (1st Cir. 2000). At our request, counsel filed supplemental briefs on the effect of Castillo on this case.
The only objections at sentencing regarding the § 924(c) (1) conviction did not encompass Castillo's distinction between sentencing factors and elements.8 Nor were the arguments in the initial briefs on appeal addressed to this point. As a result, our review of this type of trial error is for plain error. Plain error review requires four showings: that there was error; that it was plain; that the error affected substantial rights; and that the error seriously affected the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings. See Johnson v. United States, 520 U.S. 461, 467 (1997); United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 732 (1993). The first two criteria are met here; there was error, and it was plain, at least by the time of argument on the direct appeal. See Johnson, 520 U.S. at 468.
The defendants' main argument, though, is based upon the fact that the indictment only charged them with a violation of § 924(c) (1) for use of a firearm during the robbery, but did not specifically charge them with a violation under subsection (B) of the statute or state that a semiautomatic assault weapon was used in the robbery. They urge, therefore, that this is not an instance merely of trial error. This requires, they say, that their convictions for the § 924(c) (1) violation be reversed,9 because such indictment errors are not subject to harmless or plain error analysis. In other words, they claim that the indictment was fatally deficient, and that this, per se, requires reversal. They do not argue that the indictment failed to provide them with fair notice of the charge against them.
We start with the fact that Castillo and Apprendi are trial-error cases and do not tell us what to do in claims of indictment error based on their holdings, particularly where the issue was not raised at trial. Mojica-Baez cites to some recent cases for the proposition that omission of an element from an indictment is never harmless error. He relies on United States v. Du Bo, 186 F.3d 1177 (9th Cir. 1999) (reversing conviction and dismissing indictment for failure to include element of the charged offense), but that case involved a timely pre-trial challenge to a deficient indictment. See id. at 1179. The case expressly limits its analysis to timely challenges. See id. at 1180 n.3. In a later unpublished opinion, that court declined to abandon harmless error analysis where the claim was not timely made at or before trial. See United States v. Woodruff, 198 F.3d 256, 1999 WL 776213, at *1 n.5 (9th Cir. 1999) (unpublished), cert. denied, 120 S. Ct. 2202 (2000). Closer to defendants' mark is the Tenth Circuit's recent decision in United States v. Prentiss, 206 F.3d 960 (10th Cir. 2000), vacating a conviction based on a post-conviction challenge to an indictment that had failed to include an element of the crime charged.10 See id. at 966. The court described the indictment's failure to include all of the essential elements of the offense and the indictment's lack of other language that would have remedied the omission as a "fundamental jurisdictional defect that is not subject to harmless error analysis." Id. at 975. Prentiss was decided over an argument in dissent that the decision was inconsistent with Neder. See Prentiss, 206 F.3d at 978-79 (Baldock, J., dissenting). The majority thought Neder was inapplicable, primarily because Neder involved a failure to submit an element of an offense to a petit jury rather than to a grand jury. See Prentiss, 206 F.3d at 977 n.14. Furthermore, the Third Circuit vacated a guilty plea in United States v. Spinner, 180 F.3d 514 (3rd Cir. 1999), remanding so that the defendant could be reindicted where the original indictment had failed to allege the interstate commerce element of the crime. See id. at 517. Spinner did not mention Neder and was concerned with an element that went to the constitutionally required basis for federal jurisdiction. In addition, in United States v. Rudisill, 215 F.3d 1323, 2000 WL 620314 (4th Cir. 2000) (unpublished), the court vacated a sentence where the indictment had not referenced the statutory section. See id. at *1. Rudisill also did not discuss Neder.11
We accept as true two general propositions. Those propositions do not mean, though, that the defendants' argument is sound. The first proposition is that an objection that an indictment fails to state an essential element of an offense "shall be noticed by the court at any time during the pendency of the proceedings." Fed. R. Crim. P. 12(b) (2). This means that the defendant may raise the objection for the first time on appeal or that this court may raise the issue sua sponte. See United States v. Forbes, 16 F.3d 1294, 1297 (1st Cir. 1994); United States v. Seuss, 474 F.2d 385, 387 n.2 (1st Cir. 1973). The second proposition is that a statutory citation standing alone in an indictment does not excuse the government's failure to set forth each of the elements of an offense. See Forbes, 16 F.3d at 1297; United States v. McLennan, 672 F.2d 239, 243 (1st Cir. 1982). An indictment may incorporate the words of a statute to set forth the offense, but the statutory language "must be accompanied with such a statement of the facts and circumstances as will inform the accused of the specific offence, coming under the general description, with which he is charged." Hamling v. United States, 418 U.S. 87, 117-18 (1974) (quoting United States v. Hess, 124 U.S. 483, 487 (1888)) (internal quotation marks omitted). We do not decide here whether the indictment was defective or inadequate for its failure to do more than refer to the "use of a firearm" statute in the context of accusing defendants of using a firearm in the robbery, see id. (stating that, to be adequate, indictment must fairly inform a defendant of the charges against him and enable him to assert a double jeopardy defense to future prosecution), but we take it that there is an argument that it was inadequate. The government's brief seems to assume, without analysis, that the indictment was inadequate.
The error in this case is not of that dimension. No interest in safeguarding fair trials or vindicating compelling constitutional policies would be served by classifying the error here as structural. Nor do we think the integrity of the judicial system is implicated. See Johnson, 520 U.S. at 469-70. The reason the indictment in this case did not specify that a semiautomatic assault weapon or AK-47 had been used in the robbery was that circuit precedent at the time did not require it. After the defendants in this case were convicted, but prior to their sentencing, we decided that § 924(c) (1)'s subsections defined sentencing factors and not elements of separate offenses. See United States v. Shea, 150 F.3d 44, 51 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, 525 U.S. 1030 (1998). It is one thing to vacate a conviction or sentence where the prosecutor failed to indict in accordance with the current state of the law. It is quite another thing to vacate a conviction or sentence based on an indictment that was entirely proper at the time. Neither the prosecution nor defense counsel in this case anticipated that the Supreme Court would rule as it did in Castillo.
There are some serious harms, to be sure, that can emerge from flawed indictments. The most serious may be when a defendant is without fair notice of the charges against him. See United States v. Murphy, 762 F.2d 1151, 1155 (1st Cir. 1985). The defendants have not argued on appeal that they lacked fair notice. Moreover, when the government requested that the defendants be sentenced pursuant to the semiautomatic assault weapon subsection, the defendants made no claim of lack of fair notice. The § 924(c) (1) charge against the defendants put them on notice that they could be sentenced for using a semiautomatic assault weapon (pursuant to § 924(c) (1) (B)) if the judge found, by a preponderance of the evidence, that such a weapon had been used.12 We see no unfairness to the defendants in terms of notice. This situation is different that the error which led to reversal in Stirone v. United States, 361 U.S. 212, 80 S. Ct. 270, 4 L. Ed. 2d 252 (1960).13 There, an indictment alleged specific facts as to an element of a crime. At trial, over defendant's objection, evidence of a different set ot facts to make out that element was introduced. The Supreme Court held that this variance was an unconstitutional broadening of the indictment. Id. at 217-219, 80 S. Ct. 270.Because the indictment did not give fair notice of this different theory, it could not be said that the grand jury would have indicted on this theory, and the jury may well have convicted on this new theory. Id. Here, by contrast, there was no objection at trial, there was no lack of notice to the defendants, there is no reason to think the grand jury would have had any trouble in redering an indictment specifying the weapons used, and there was no variance.
Viewing the issue not as a Castillo issue but simply as an issue of whether the trial judge's determination was sufficiently supported by the record, we find there was no error. The 10-year sentences under § 924(c) (1) (B) for Ramos-Cartagena, Cartagena-Merced, Reyes-Hernandez, and Mojica-Baez are affirmed.
Second, Landa-Rivera argues that the district court erred in calculating his total offense level. We review the applicability and interpretation of a sentencing guideline de novo, but we review the district court's factual findings at sentencing only for clear error. See United States v. Cali, 87 F.3d 571, 575 (1st Cir. 1996). Landa-Rivera makes two separate claims relating to the calculation of his offense level. First, he claims the court incorrectly increased his offense level for "specific offense characteristics that were known, or reasonably should have been known, by the defendant."14 U.S.S.G. § 2X3.1, application note 1. According to Landa-Rivera, since being an accessory after the fact is not itself a crime of violence, sentencing enhancements related to the violent nature of the robbery in this case should not apply to him. He is incorrect. The relevant Guidelines sections make clear that the specific characteristics of the underlying offense constitute relevant conduct for the purpose of calculating an accessory sentence. Application note 1 of § 2X3.1 (the accessory after the fact guideline) references § 1B1.3, application note 10, for purposes of computing the total offense level. That note, in turn, states, "In the case of... accessory after the fact, the conduct for which the defendant is accountable includes all conduct relevant to determining the offense level for the underlying offense that was known, or reasonably should have been known, by the defendant." U.S.S.G. § 1B1.3, application note 10 (emphasis added). As a factual matter, there was no clear error in finding that Landa-Rivera knew or should have known of these characteristics of the robbery. In fact, the record shows that Landa-Rivera recounted the details of the robbery to Nevarez-Marrero and Diaz-Nevarro. Castillo, supra, and Jones v. United States, 526 U.S. 227, 119 S. Ct. 1215, 143 L. Ed. 2d 311 (1999), do not require a different result.
Landa-Rivera's second argument is that there was insufficient evidence to support a finding that he knew or should have known that the property of a financial institution was taken, see U.S.S.G. § 2B3.1(b) (1), and that the total losses were over $5 million, see U.S.S.G. § 2B3.1(b) (7) (H). There was no error. Landa-Rivera told Nevarez-Marrero that over $5 million had been stolen; there was ample evidence that much of the money came from banks -- Banco Popular and Banco Santander in particular; and it was reasonable for the trial judge to conclude that Landa-Rivera knew or should have known this information.
Defendants' choice of remedy is overreaching. There is no question that the indictment fairly and adequately charged them with the basic "use of a firearm" offense under § 924(c) (1) (A). And there is no question that the government proved the elements of that offense beyond a reasonable doubt and that the elements were found by the jury. In fact, there were no objections to the sentencing for the firearm offense until the government requested that the court sentence the defendants to the longer term pursuant to the semiautomatic assault weapon subsection of the statute, and the objections went only to the sufficiency of the evidence.
As a result, the only possible relief for the defendants would be a remand for reindictment, see United States v. Spinner, 180 F.3d 514, 517 (3rd Cir. 1999), or resentencing, see United States v. Rudisill, 215 F.3d 1323, 2000 WL 620314, at *1 (4th Cir. 2000) (per curiam) (unpublished); United States v. Matthews, 178 F.3d 295, 301 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 120 S. Ct. 359 (1999). We do not decide whether the proper remedy would be remanding for reindictment or for resentencing.
Whether the use of a semiautomatic assault weapon pursuant to subsection (B) of § 924(c) (1) was an element of a separate offense or a sentencing factor had not been decided in this circuit at the time of the defendants' trial. Defendants had a great incentive to raise the issue because of the less rigorous standard of proof upon which a judge could make the finding at sentencing. However, we had already decided, in an analogous context, that the subsections to the federal carjacking statute that provide for longer sentences where a victim suffers bodily injury were sentencing factors, not elements of an independent offense. See United States v. Rivera-Gomez, 67 F.3d 993, 1000 (1st Cir. 1995). Other circuits agreed. See, e.g., United States v. Oliver, 60 F.3d 547, 552 (9th Cir. 1995); United States v. Williams, 51 F.3d 1004, 1009 (11th Cir. 1995). These decisions were later overturned in Jones v. United States, 526 U.S. 227, 251-52 (1999). With regard to § 924(c) (1)'s subsections, at the time of defendants' trial, there was a split among the circuits on the "sentencing factor vs. element" issue. Compare United States v. Branch, 91 F.3d 699, 737-41 (5th Cir. 1996) (sentencing factor), with United States v. Alerta, 96 F.3d 1230, 1235 (9th Cir. 1996) (element).
This is also not an instance, as in United States v. Smolar, 557 F.2d 13, 19 (1st Cir. 1977) where a court erroneously instructs out of a case a critical and material element of an indicted drime with the effect of changing the theories of fraud set forth in the indictment. Nor is this an issue of variance between what the indictment alleged and the proof at trial. Cf. United States v. Miller, 471 U.S. 130, 144, 105 S. Ct. 1811, 85 L. Ed. 2d 99 (1985) (limiting Ex parte Bain, 121 U.S. 1, 7 S. Ct. 781, 30 L. Ed. 849 (1887) and holding that it was not an unconstitutional amendment of indictment "to drop from an indictment those allegations that are unnecessary to an offense that is clearly contained within it.").
Specifically, he asserts error for the following increases: five levels because of the use of firearms, under U.S.S.G. § 2B3.1(b) (2) (C); three levels because the guards were restrained and firearms were taken from them, under U.S.S.G. § 2B3.1(b) (4) (B), (b) (6); and two levels because the guards sustained bodily injuries, under U.S.S.G. § 2B3.1(b) (3) (A).