Opinion ID: 2792926
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Remand is required because the Government

Text: improperly withheld a motion for a third-level reduction for acceptance of responsibility. Under § 3E1.1(a) of the Sentencing Guidelines, a defendant is entitled to have his total offense level decreased by 2 if he “clearly demonstrates acceptance of responsibility for his offense.” Section 3E1.1(b) provides: If the defendant qualifies for a decrease under subsection (a), the offense level determined UNITED STATES V. SAHAGUN-GALLEGOS 7 prior to the operation of subsection (a) is level 16 or greater, and upon motion of the government stating that the defendant has assisted authorities in the investigation or prosecution of his own misconduct by timely notifying authorities of his intention to enter a plea of guilty, thereby permitting the government to avoid preparing for trial and permitting the government and the court to allocate their resources efficiently, decrease the offense level by 1 additional level. The district court reduced Sahagun-Gallegos’s offense level by 2 because he clearly demonstrated acceptance of responsibility. The PSR indicated the Government would have moved for a third-level reduction if Sahagun-Gallegos had waived his appeal rights. While Sahagun-Gallegos’s appeal was pending, the application notes to § 3E1.1 were amended to clarify that “[t]he government should not withhold [a motion for a thirdlevel reduction] based on interests not identified in § 3E1.1, such as whether the defendant agrees to waive his or her right to appeal.” U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual § 3E1.1 cmt. n.6 (2014). The Government acknowledges that this revision applies retroactively to defendants whose cases were pending on direct appeal, and that Sahagun-Gallegos’s “sentence should be vacated and remanded so that the district court can assess whether [he] should receive a third point [for] acceptance of responsibility.” We therefore vacate SahagunGallegos’s sentence and remand for resentencing. 8 UNITED STATES V. SAHAGUN-GALLEGOS II. Applicability of the 16-level enhancement based on Sahagun-Gallegos’s aggravated assault conviction. Section 2L1.2(a) of the Sentencing Guidelines calls for a base offense level of 8 for a defendant convicted of illegal reentry. Section 2L1.2(b) calls for a 16-level enhancement if the defendant has a prior felony conviction for “a crime of violence.” U.S.S.G. § 2L1.2(b)(1)(A)(ii). “Crime of violence” is defined to include “any . . . offense under federal, state, or local law that has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another.” U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual § 2L1.2 cmt. n.1(B)(iii) (2014). Sahagun-Gallegos argues his 2008 aggravated assault conviction does not qualify as a “crime of violence,” but he did not make this argument before the district court. Under these circumstances, this court’s review ordinarily would be for plain error. United States v. Guzman-Mata, 579 F.3d 1065, 1068 (9th Cir. 2009). “Plain error is ‘(1) error, (2) that is plain, and (3) that affects substantial rights.’” Id. (quoting United States v. Rodriguez-Lara, 421 F.3d 932, 948 (9th Cir. 2005)).2 But because we vacate Sahagun-Gallegos’s sentence for the reasons discussed in the previous section, and because the applicability of the 16-level enhancement is an issue that will reoccur at resentencing, we address the applicability of the enhancement in order to provide guidance to the district court on remand. 2 If a court finds plain error it “may only reverse if the error ‘seriously affects the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings.’” Guzman-Mata, 579 F.3d at 1068 (quoting Rodriguez-Lara, 421 F.3d at 948–49). UNITED STATES V. SAHAGUN-GALLEGOS 9
divisible. We employ the “categorical approach” set forth in Taylor v. United States, 495 U.S. 575 (1990), to determine whether a prior state court conviction qualifies as a “crime of violence” under the Sentencing Guidelines. Under the Taylor framework, we determine whether the statute of conviction is categorically a “crime of violence” by comparing the elements of the statute of conviction with the generic federal definition. United States v. Caceres-Olla, 738 F.3d 1051, 1054 (9th Cir. 2013). If the statute of conviction is broader than the generic federal definition, we must determine whether the statute of conviction is divisible. Alvarado v. Holder, 759 F.3d 1121, 1126 (9th Cir. 2014). A divisible statute is one that “‘comprises multiple, alternative versions of the crime,’ at least one of which ‘correspond[s] to the generic offense.’” Id. (alteration in original) (quoting Descamps, 133 S. Ct. at 2284–85). If the statute of conviction is divisible, then under the “modified categorical approach” we may examine a limited class of judicially noticeable documents to determine whether the alternative corresponding to the generic offense was the basis of the conviction. United States v. GonzalezMonterroso, 745 F.3d 1237, 1241 (9th Cir. 2014). When a defendant’s conviction was based on a guilty plea, such documents include the “charging document, written plea agreement, transcript of plea colloquy, and any explicit factual finding by the trial judge to which the defendant assented.” Shepard v. United States, 544 U.S. 13, 16 (2005). The documents must show that the defendant “necessarily admitted [the] elements of the generic offense.” Id. at 26; see 10 UNITED STATES V. SAHAGUN-GALLEGOS also United States v. Marcia-Acosta, No. 13-10475, — F.3d —, 2015 WL 1283771, at –5 (9th Cir. Mar. 23, 2015). In this case, Sahagun-Gallegos was convicted of violating A.R.S. § 13-1204(A)(2). A.R.S. § 13-1204(A)(2) provides: “A person commits aggravated assault if the person commits assault as prescribed by § 13-1203” and “the person uses a deadly weapon or dangerous instrument.” A.R.S. § 131203(A) defines “assault” as follows: A person commits assault by:
causing any physical injury to another person; or
reasonable apprehension of imminent physical injury; or
the intent to injure, insult or provoke such person. The parties agree that A.R.S. § 13-1203(A) is overbroad because the definition of “assault” in subsection (1) encompasses acts done with ordinary recklessness, whereas a “crime of violence” requires a mens rea of at least heightened recklessness. See United States v. GomezHernandez, 680 F.3d 1171, 1175 (9th Cir. 2012). The parties also agree that A.R.S. § 13-1203(A) is divisible. See United States v. Cabrera-Perez, 751 F.3d 1000, 1004–05 (9th Cir. UNITED STATES V. SAHAGUN-GALLEGOS 11 2014).3 Finally, the parties agree that, under Cabrera-Perez, an aggravated assault predicated on A.R.S. § 13-1203(A)(2) is a “crime of violence,” specifically, an offense “that has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another.”4
support of the 16-level enhancement do not show that Sahagun-Gallegos admitted the elements of A.R.S. § 13-1203(A)(2). The parties dispute whether the three documents submitted by the Government in support of the 16-level enhancement are sufficient to establish that Sahagun-Gallegos pleaded guilty to aggravated assault predicated on A.R.S. § 13-1203(A)(2), as opposed to A.R.S. § 13-1203(A)(1) or (3). 3 After Cabrera-Perez was decided, our court clarified that under the Supreme Court’s decision in Descamps, courts “determine whether a disjunctively worded state statute is divisible or not by looking to whether the state treats the parts of the statute on opposite sides of the ‘or’ as alternative elements or alternative means.” Rendon v. Holder, 764 F.3d 1077, 1088 (9th Cir. 2014). Arizona treats the subsections of A.R.S. § 131203(A) as three different crimes, each comprised of different elements. See State v. Freeney, 219 P.3d 1039, 1042 (Ariz. 2009) (en banc); State v. Delgado, 303 P.3d 76, 82–83 (Ariz. Ct. App. 2013). 4 At oral argument, the Government argued that A.R.S. § 13-1203(A)(2) is a general intent crime, and therefore it is sufficient for a conviction that a defendant intended to point the weapon, as opposed to “[i]ntentionally placing another person in reasonable apprehension of imminent physical injury.” See Ariz. Rev. Stat. § 13-1203(A)(2). This argument was not included in the Government’s briefing, but Sahagun-Gallegos’s attorney correctly responded that if A.R.S. § 13-1203(A)(2) were a general intent crime, application of the enhancement would fail because the statute would be overbroad. 12 UNITED STATES V. SAHAGUN-GALLEGOS The plea agreement provides that on or about November 1, 2007, Sahagun-Gallegos committed assault with a firearm, in violation of A.R.S. § 13-1204(A)(2) (the aggravated assault statute). It does not specify which subsection of A.R.S. § 13-1203(A) was violated. At the 2008 state court change of plea hearing, SahagunGallegos confirmed that he was pleading guilty to “aggravated assault, a class 3 felony.” The superior court then asked Sahagun-Gallegos’s attorney to provide a factual basis for the plea, and Sahagun-Gallegos’s attorney responded: Around this time period Mr. Sahagun was having marital problems with his wife and began drinking heavily. And around November 1st of last year here in Pima County he was going through the drive-thru of a fast-food restaurant and had during his drunken state pointed a gun at the lady who was the cashier who was present. . . . And that was the basis of the [aggravated assault count]. Sahagun-Gallegos’s attorney also agreed that the superior court could consider the grand jury transcript as part of the factual basis for the plea.5 5 In his briefing before this court, Sahagun-Gallegos notes that “the [2008] plea agreement incorporated the grand jury transcript within the factual basis.” He does not contest whether the 2008 grand jury transcript is Shepard compliant. UNITED STATES V. SAHAGUN-GALLEGOS 13 At the grand jury proceeding, a Tucson police detective testified that Sahagun-Gallegos admitted in an interview to pulling his car up to the drive-through window of a Jack In The Box restaurant and pointing a sawed-off shotgun at the employee working there. None of the three documents submitted by the Government cites a specific subsection of A.R.S. § 131203(A) or quotes the elements of a specific subsection. The Government suggests the court may examine the factual basis provided by Sahagun-Gallegos’s attorney at the change of plea hearing and use the process of elimination to deduce that Sahagun-Gallegos pleaded guilty to A.R.S. § 13-1203(A)(2). More specifically, the Government argues the factual basis does not support a conviction under A.R.S. § 13-1203(A)(1) or (3) because those types of assault require physical injury or touching—i.e., conduct that was not part of the factual basis provided by Sahagun-Gallegos’s attorney. We reject the Government’s argument for two reasons. First, both this court and the Supreme Court have held that the factual basis for a plea must be assented to by the defendant for a sentencing court to rely on it when conducting the modified categorical approach, see Shepard, 544 U.S. at 26; Alvarado, 759 F.3d at 1132, and there is no indication in the plea hearing transcript that Sahagun-Gallegos assented to the factual basis provided by his attorney, much less to the police detective’s grand jury testimony. Second, even if Sahagun-Gallegos had assented to the factual basis provided by his attorney, the Supreme Court emphasized in Descamps that the modified categorical approach “retains the categorical approach’s central feature: a focus on the elements, rather than the facts, of a crime.” 14 UNITED STATES V. SAHAGUN-GALLEGOS 133 S. Ct. at 2285; see also Marcia-Acosta, 2015 WL 1283771, at  (“Consideration of only the elements of the crime of conviction is the pivotal concept in applying the modified categorical analysis.” (internal quotation marks omitted)). When conducting the modified categorical approach, we may not examine a transcript “to try to discern what . . . a plea proceeding revealed[] about the defendant’s underlying conduct.” Descamps, 133 S. Ct. at 2288. Rather, we are limited to assessing whether the defendant “‘necessarily admitted’” the elements of the particular statutory alternative that is a categorical match to the generic federal offense. See id. at 2284 (quoting Shepard, 544 U.S. at 26). Here, the documents submitted by the Government do not demonstrate that Sahagun-Gallegos admitted the elements of A.R.S. § 13-1203(A)(2), most notably the “intent” element. The Government argues this does not matter because Sahagun-Gallegos’s conduct, as detailed by his attorney, “could only have violated § 13-1203(A)(2), which, in turn, required intentional conduct.” But the Government’s argument asks us to adopt an approach that Descamps expressly forbids, namely, to “discover what [SahagunGallegos] actually did,” and then use the facts, as opposed to the elements, of his prior conviction to determine whether he committed a “crime of violence.” See id. at 2287–88. The fact-based inquiry advocated by the Government is particularly inappropriate in the plea bargaining context. Descamps cautioned that statements of fact made during a change of plea hearing may be “downright wrong” because a defendant “often has little incentive to contest facts that are not elements of the charged offense.” Id. at 2289. “[W]hen a defendant pleads guilty to a crime, he waives his right to a UNITED STATES V. SAHAGUN-GALLEGOS 15 jury determination of only that offense’s elements; whatever he says, or fails to say, about superfluous facts cannot license a later sentencing court to impose extra punishment.” Id. at 2288. We recently reiterated these principles in MarciaAcosta, and held that a defense attorney’s factual-basis statement that the defendant acted “intentionally” in violating A.R.S. § 13-1203(A)(1) was insufficient to show that the defendant pleaded guilty to the mens rea element of generic aggravated assault. 2015 WL 1283771, at –6, 9.6 6 In Marcia-Acosta, the parties agreed the defendant was convicted of violating A.R.S. § 13-1203(A)(1), which prohibits intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly causing physical injury. Because the defendant waived any argument that A.R.S. § 13-1203(A)(1) is not divisible, we analyzed that subsection under the modified categorical approach. 2015 WL 1283771, at . We observed that the defense attorney’s statement that the defendant acted intentionally was extraneous to the conviction. Id. at . We also indicated that there may be circumstances in which a factual-basis statement “negates all possible statutory alternatives” and is therefore sufficient to establish that a defendant pleaded guilty to the generic crime. Id. at  & n.10. As an example, we hypothesized a situation in which “a defendant pleading guilty to burglary stated, as part of his factual basis, that he ‘entered a house, not a boat.’” Id. at  n.10. In a letter filed pursuant to Rule 28(j) of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure, the Government argues Sahagun-Gallegos’s attorney’s factual-basis statement negates all possible statutory alternatives, and therefore the Government’s suggested approach is consistent with Marcia-Acosta. If Sahagun-Gallegos had personally assented to the elements of A.R.S. § 13-1203(A)(2), as in the MarciaAcosta burglary example, we might agree with the Government. But because Sahagun-Gallegos did not assent to the factual basis provided by his attorney, and because the factual basis did not affirmatively set forth the mens rea element of A.R.S. § 13-1203(A)(2), the Government’s argument is contrary to Descamps’s and Marcia-Acosta’s clear direction to focus on the elements, as opposed to the facts, of the underlying conviction. 16 UNITED STATES V. SAHAGUN-GALLEGOS Because the modified categorical approach does not permit courts to substitute “a facts-based inquiry for an elements-based one,” Descamps, 133 S. Ct. at 2293, we conclude it was error for the district court to apply the 16level enhancement based on Sahagun-Gallegos’s aggravated assault conviction. The documents submitted by the Government do not establish that Sahagun-Gallegos pleaded guilty to the elements of A.R.S. § 13-1203(A)(2), the statutory alternative that is a match to the generic “crime of violence.”