Opinion ID: 223527
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Relevant Conduct and Career Offender Determinations in Sentencing

Text: Lechuga next contends that, even if his convictions were sound, his sentence must be vacated because the sentencing court committed two crucial errors. Like Rodriguez and Hernandez, Lechuga first argues that the district court increased his offense level based on erroneous findings that his co-conspirators' acts of violence were conduct relevant to his offense under the Sentencing Guidelines. He then argues that the district court erroneously determined that his two prior convictions for distributing narcotics made him a career offender under the Guidelines. These two errors, he concludes, resulted in a dramatic increase from the appropriate 57-71 month guideline range to the twenty years' imprisonment he ultimately received as a sentence. We review de novo the district court's application of the sentencing guidelines, and we review its findings of fact for clear error. United States v. Knox, 624 F.3d 865, 870 (7th Cir.2010). The jury found Lechuga guilty of both the racketeering and narcotics conspiracies, but their general verdicts shed no light on how it assessed his withdrawal defense. After the jury returned its general verdicts, it received instructions and special verdict forms to assess each guilty Defendant's involvement in the racketeering conspiracy and the amount of narcotics each guilty Defendant was responsible for in the narcotics conspiracy. Because the indictment did not accuse Lechuga of personal involvement in any of the acts of violence described as part of the racketeering conspiracy, no special verdict questions were submitted regarding Lechuga's intent and specific involvement in those violent acts. The jury was asked, however, what types and amounts of narcotics had been proven as to Lechuga regarding his involvement in the narcotics conspiracy; it determined that he was accountable for less than 500 grams of powder cocaine and no cocaine base or marijuana. The district court, in interpreting the general and special verdicts, found that the jury had determined that Lechuga had withdrawn from the conspiracies at some point prior to the June 2002 roll-back meeting, but that he had rejoined the conspiracies at or before that meeting. (Lechuga Sent. Tr. at 25-26.) It then found that Lechuga was responsible for all of the incidents of violence perpetrated by his co-conspirators in the period between the June 2002 meeting and the date of his arrest, id., but found that he was only responsible for the small amount of narcotics entered in the jury's special verdict form, id. at 39. Lechuga challenges the district court's relevant conduct finding as to his racketeering conspiracy offense, arguing that his co-conspirators' violent acts could not have been attributable to him given the extremely limited scope and duration of his conspiracy. He reads the jury's verdicts to declare that he rejoined the conspiracies only for the month-long period between the rollback meeting and a subsequent meeting he attended and only for the circumscribed purpose of obtaining a small amount of powder cocaine. Given that self-serving assessment of the scope of his jointly undertaken criminal activities, the violent acts of his co-conspirators would not have been foreseeable to him and, therefore, could not constitute conduct relevant to his racketeering offense. See, e.g., United States v. Bustamante, 493 F.3d 879, 887-88 (7th Cir.2007) (narcotics conspirator only accountable for the conduct relevant to his smaller conspiracy despite it being a subset of a larger conspiracy of which he was aware). Lechuga reads too much into the jury's verdicts, especially given that no special verdict was requested as to his involvement in the violent acts specified in the racketeering count and that the quantity verdict related only to the narcotics conspiracy. The verdicts are susceptible to multiple interpretations, and read in the light most favorable to the prosecution, they certainly do not prove that Lechuga again withdrew from the racketeering conspiracy after rejoining in the summer of 2002. Nor did any evidence at the trial or at sentencing demonstrate the elements of any subsequent withdrawal from the conspiracies. See Emerson, 501 F.3d at 811 (mere inactivity insufficient to establish withdrawal). Nothing in the verdicts or evidence shows conclusively that Lechuga's agreement regarding the racketeering enterprise and its objectives was necessarily smaller than the overall conspiratorial agreement. We conclude that the district court did not clearly err in finding that his co-conspirators' violent acts were relevant to Lechuga's racketeering offense, given his long-standing Insane Deuce affiliation, his pervasive familiarity with their objectives and methods, and his renewed involvement in planning their activities. Lechuga's final argument regards the district court's determination that he was a career offender under the Sentencing Guidelines. Lechuga was convicted for delivery of marijuana in 1990 and for delivery of cocaine in 1991. He argues that he was an active Insane Deuce at those times and that, under the government's theory that all narcotics sales by Deuces had to be at least in part for the gang's benefit, those deliveries were pursuant to his participation in the gang. He concludes that those two previous convictions could not be used to categorize him as a career offender during sentencing for his current racketeering and narcotics conspiracy convictions. In general, a defendant is sentenced as a career offender upon conviction of his third violent or drug-related felony. U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1; Garecht, 183 F.3d at 673. If the career offender guideline applies, the defendant is automatically categorized in criminal history Category VI, and his total offense level may shift. U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1(b). The Guidelines require that the two prior felony convictions pre-date the instant offense of conviction and that the sentences for those two prior convictions be counted separately under section 4A1.1, the criminal history category guideline. U.S.S.G. § 4B1.2(c). The definition of prior sentence as the term is used in section 4A1.1 plays a critical role in Lechuga's appeal because it means any sentence previously imposed ... for conduct not part of the instant offense.  U.S.S.G. § 4A1.2(a)(1) (emphasis added). We therefore return to section 1B1.3 to determine whether the conduct underlying the prior sentences is conduct relevant to the instant offense. According to Lechuga, his prior sentences resulted from drug-dealing activities that were intrinsic parts of his current offenses of racketeering and narcotics conspiracies, so the district court could not consider the previous convictions in determining his career offender status. The district court rejected Lechuga's argument and determined that he was a career offender based on the narcotics conspiracy component of his instant offense. (Lechuga Sent. Tr. at 50-51.) It recognized that the nature of Lechuga's conviction might change the ordinary rules of determining his career offender status because the Guidelines make the criminal history computation provisions in section 4A1.2 applicable to the counting of convictions in section 4B1.1, U.S.S.G. § 4B1.2 cmt. n. 3, but also except some racketeering activities from the standard instant offense analysis in section 1B1.3 and the prior sentence definition in section 4A1.2, U.S.S.G. § 2E1.1, cmt. n. 4. But despite Lechuga's extensive contrary assertions, the district court neither reached nor relied on this legal analysis. It instead determined that the conduct underlying Lechuga's prior sentences could not have been related to his instant offense. [12] (Lechuga. Sent. Tr. at 51.) This finding was based, in part, on the fact that the previous felony narcotics convictions were entered in 1990 and 1991, before the period of the racketeering and narcotics conspiracies alleged in the indictment  in or about late 1994 through 2006. Indeed, Lechuga was hoisted on his own petard. He convinced the district court that, for purposes of his present offense, his involvement in the conspiracy began in the summer of 2002. Lechuga does not even endeavor to explain in his briefs to this Court how the district court's finding that his 1990 and 1991 convictions were unrelated to a conviction for racketeering and narcotics conspiracies commencing in 2002 amounts to clear error. We can perceive no infirmity in the district court's reasoning, let alone any that leaves us with a definite sense that a mistake was made. See Salem, 597 F.3d at 884. We will therefore affirm the sentence the district court imposed on Lechuga.