Opinion ID: 196562
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Whether the 1986 Disposition Was a Conviction

Text: 6 Cuevas assumes that whether the disposition in 1986 of his second cocaine possession offense is to be considered a conviction for purposes of the Guidelines is a matter of Rhode Island law. He posits that he was not convicted of that offense under Rhode Island law and so it cannot be a conviction for purposes of Guidelines § 2L1.2. 5 This assumption is unfounded. In this Circuit and others, courts have consistently held that whether a particular disposition counts as a conviction in the context of a federal statute is a matter of federal determination. 6 Under applicable federal standards, Cuevas was clearly convicted with respect to his 1986 cocaine possession offense. As that offense was an aggravated felony, his 1989 deportation was after a conviction for at least one aggravated felony, and the enhancement of § 2L1.2(b)(2) was properly applied. 7 In Molina v. INS, 981 F.2d 14 (1st Cir.1992), this court addressed the meaning of a statute limiting the availability of amnesty from deportation to illegal aliens who have not been convicted of any felony while in the United States. 8 U.S.C. § 1255a(a)(4)(B). The petitioner in that case, an illegal alien, admitted that he had twice pleaded nolo contendere and been sentenced to probation on felony drug charges under Rhode Island law. Citing the same provision of Rhode Island law upon which Cuevas relies here, see R.I.Gen.Laws § 12-18-3, the petitioner argued that a nolo plea to a drug charge followed by a sentence of straight probation was not treated as a conviction under state law and, therefore, should not be considered so for purposes of federal law. Molina, 981 F.2d at 19. For the court, Judge (now Justice) Breyer rejected this argument. The court specifically held that the term conviction is a matter of federal, not state, definition. Molina, 981 F.2d at 19-20; see also White v. INS, 17 F.3d 475, 479 (1st Cir.1994) (As we have held before, federal law defines the term 'conviction' as it is used in the immigration context. (citing Molina, 981 F.2d at 19)). The court noted that this Circuit, forty years earlier, had held that the meaning of the word 'convicted' in the federal immigration law is a federal question. Id. at 19-20 (quoting Pino v. Nicolls, 215 F.2d 237, 243 (1st Cir.1954) (Magruder, J.) (internal quotation marks omitted), rev'd on other grounds, 349 U.S. 901, 75 S.Ct. 576, 99 L.Ed. 1239 (1955) (per curiam)). 7 8 We follow Molina and Pino and hold that the meaning of the word conviction in § 2L1.2(b)(2) of the Sentencing Guidelines, which implements 8 U.S.C. § 1326(b), a provision found within the immigration laws, is to be determined in accordance with federal law. See also White, 17 F.3d at 479; Chong v. INS, 890 F.2d 284 (11th Cir.1989) (per curiam); accord Wilson v. INS, 43 F.3d 211, 215 (5th Cir.) (per curiam), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 116 S.Ct. 59, 133 L.Ed.2d 23 (1995); Ruis-Rubio v. INS, 380 F.2d 29 (9th Cir.) (per curiam), cert. denied, 389 U.S. 944, 88 S.Ct. 302, 19 L.Ed.2d 302 (1967). 9 Support for this conclusion comes from outside the context of immigration statutes as well. For example, the Seventh Circuit has recently held, in applying the penalty enhancement provisions of the Controlled Substances Act, 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(B), that a plea of guilty to a state felony offense followed by a sentence of probation 8 constitutes a prior conviction, even though that disposition would not be so deemed under the law of the convicting state. See United States v. McAllister, 29 F.3d 1180, 1184 (7th Cir.1994). 9 Similarly, in 1983 this court held that a defendant who had entered a nolo contendere plea and was sentenced to probation under Rhode Island law had been convicted of a crime for purposes of the federal felon-in-possession-of-a-firearm statute, 18 U.S.C. § 922(h)(1), even though the event did not amount to a conviction under state law. United States v. Bustamante, 706 F.2d 13, 14-15 (1st Cir.) (Breyer, J.), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 856, 104 S.Ct. 175, 78 L.Ed.2d 157 (1983). 10 The decisions in Bustamante and, to a lesser degree, in McAllister both were based in part on the Supreme Court's decision in Dickerson v. New Banner Institute, Inc., 460 U.S. 103, 103 S.Ct. 986, 74 L.Ed.2d 845 (1983). In Dickerson, a defendant who had pleaded guilty to a state offense, served a term of probation, and received an expungement of his record argued that he had not been convicted of that offense. The Court did not agree. Observing that a defendant cannot be placed on probation if the court does not deem him to be guilty of a crime, id. at 113-14, 103 S.Ct. at 992, the Court held that the meaning of conviction for purposes of the federal gun control statutes is a federal matter: 11 Whether one has been convicted within the language of [a federal] statute[ ] is necessarily ... a question of federal, not state, law, despite the fact that the predicate offense and its punishment are defined by the law of the State. 12 Id. at 111-12, 103 S.Ct. at 991. 13 It is true, of course, that the particular outcome reached in Dickerson under the federal gun control laws was effectively abrogated by Congress in May 1986, when it amended 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(20) to read as it currently does. That congressional action, however, reflects not a disagreement with the Court's reasoning, but merely that Congress determined that its legislative objectives would be better served by defining conviction by reference to state law. See McAllister, 29 F.3d at 1184-85 ([W]hile interpreting federal statutes is a question of federal law, Congress can make the meaning of a statute dependent on state law.). The decisions in Dickerson and Bustamante still stand for the proposition that, absent legislative indication to the contrary, the meaning of conviction for purposes of a federal statutory scheme is to be determined under prevailing federal law. See Yanez-Popp v. INS, 998 F.2d 231, 236 (4th Cir.1993) ([Dickerson ] still stands for the general proposition that federal law governs the application of Congressional statutes in the absence of a plain language to the contrary.); cf. McAllister, 29 F.3d at 1185 (treating Dickerson as still authoritative, outside context of gun laws, for principle that guilty plea plus probation equals conviction under federal law). Congress' decision to overrule the particular result reached in Dickerson simply reflects a deliberate choice to define conviction as used in a federal gun statute by reference to state law. 14 Congress has not made the same choice with respect to the immigration laws. See Wilson, 43 F.3d at 215; Yanez-Popp, 998 F.2d at 235; see also Molina, 981 F.2d at 22 (Of course, federal gun control law is not federal immigration law.). Since the May 1986 enactment of the statutory amendment to the gun control laws that effectively abrogated Dickerson, the courts--including this one, see White, 17 F.3d at 479; Molina, 981 F.2d at 19--have continued to define conviction according to uniform federal standards for purposes of the laws governing immigration offenses. If Congress had disapproved of these cases, it surely could have amended the immigration laws in the same fashion it did the firearms statute. That Congress has chosen not to do so reinforces our conclusion that conviction in the context of the laws governing immigration offenses, including federal sentencing for those offenses, remains a matter of federal definition. 15 The disposition of Cuevas' 1986 state cocaine possession offense clearly falls within the scope of the term conviction, federally understood. This is true both as a matter of Guidelines interpretation and, more broadly, under the law governing immigration offenses. Although the particular guideline at issue here (§ 2L1.2) does not define conviction, the guideline that contains the general instructions for assessing a defendant's criminal history does provide clear guidance. See U.S.S.G. § 4A1.2. That guideline specifically provides that the phrase  '[c]onvicted of an offense' ... means that the guilt of the defendant has been established, whether by guilty plea, trial, or plea of nolo contendere. U.S.S.G. § 4A1.2(a)(4) (Nov.1994). 10 16 Relying in part on § 4A1.2, this court held in United States v. Pierce, 60 F.3d 886 (1st Cir.1995), petition for cert. filed (Oct. 19, 1995) (No. 95-6474), that a prior state conviction is established for Guidelines purposes by a guilt-establishing event (such as a plea where a defendant states that he does not wish to contest the charges). Id. at 892 (plea of nolo, even if followed by a withheld adjudication, constitutes a conviction for federal sentencing purposes); see also United States v. Jones, 910 F.2d 760, 761 (11th Cir.1990) (per curiam) (same). Here, there is no dispute that whether or not Cuevas' second cocaine offense could be considered a conviction under Rhode Island law, he was indeed adjudged guilty of that crime following his nolo plea and was sentenced to probation based on that plea. Cf. Dickerson, 460 U.S. at 113-14, 103 S.Ct. at 992 ([O]ne cannot be placed on probation if the court does not deem him to be guilty of a crime.). It seems clear under the Guidelines, then, that Cuevas was convicted of the 1986 cocaine offense. 17 Furthermore, even outside the specific context of the Guidelines, the law is plain that a state's acceptance of a defendant's plea of nolo contendere on a drug charge followed by imposition of a probationary sentence counts as a conviction for purposes of the statutes relating to immigration offenses. White, 17 F.3d at 479; 11 Molina, 981 F.2d at 18; Ruis-Rubio, 380 F.2d at 29-30. We conclude that Cuevas was convicted in 1986 of his second cocaine offense, both within the meaning of the Guidelines and within the broader context of the laws governing immigration offenses. 18 Once the disposition of Cuevas' second cocaine offense is recognized to be a conviction, it clearly constitutes an aggravated felony under U.S.S.G. § 2L1.2(b)(2). An aggravated felony includes any drug trafficking crime within the meaning of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(2). U.S.S.G. § 2L1.2, comment. (n. 7). A drug trafficking crime in turn encompasses, inter alia, any offense that is both (1) a felony and (2) punishable under the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. § 801 et seq.). See 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(2); United States v. Restrepo-Aguilar, 74 F.3d 361, 365 (1st Cir.1996); United States v. Forbes, 16 F.3d 1294, 1301 (1st Cir.1994). Here, the defendant's second offense of simple possession of cocaine undoubtedly qualifies as a felony in the requisite sense. Forbes, 16 F.3d at 1301 (explaining that a second drug possession offense is punishable as a felony under federal law). 12 And cocaine possession is, of course, punishable under the Controlled Substances Act. See 21 U.S.C. § 844(a). Thus, the offense falls within the definition of drug trafficking crime under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(2), and is an aggravated felony within the meaning of U.S.S.G. § 2L1.2(b)(2) and application note 7. The district court, therefore, properly increased the defendant's base offense level by 16 levels. 19