Opinion ID: 3065342
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The end date listed in the indictment

Text: The indictment alleged that the conspiracy continued until October 18, 2001. The indictment was reproduced in full in the plea agreement. The plea’s “Factual Basis” section mentioned only a beginning date, stating that “[i]n or about 332 UNITED STATES v. FORRESTER November, 2000, . . . Forrester entered into an agreement with Alba, and others, to manufacture and distribute” ecstacy. [21] We have declined to treat “guilty pleas as admitting factual allegations in the indictment not essential to the government’s proof of the offense.” United States v. Cazares, 121 F.3d 1241, 1247 (9th Cir. 1997). Forrester asserts that, because “the date alleged in a section 846 indictment is not an element of the offense,” the date in the indictment, even though it was replicated in his signed guilty plea, was not part of the admission. In Cazares, we held that the “appropriate course is not, as the government argues, for the defendant to delete this [end date] from the guilty plea, but rather, for the government at the plea colloquy to seek an explicit admission of any unlawful conduct which it seeks to attribute to the defendant. Having failed to do so, the government must follow the normal procedure of proving relevant conduct at sentencing by a preponderance of the evidence.” Id. at 1248 (internal quotation marks omitted). There is no mention of an end date in the plea agreement, nor did Forrester admit to one at the plea colloquy. Therefore the temporary amendment, which took effect after Forrester’s admitted start date of November 2000, cannot apply to him under the current posture of the case. We therefore remand for resentencing. Unless the government proves by a preponderance of the evidence that the conspiracy continued until after the temporary amendment became effective, Forrester should be sentenced under the November 2000 50:1 ratio.