Opinion ID: 3050456
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Appellee Gamboa-Victoria

Text: [8] Appellee Gamboa-Victoria presents an additional argument to support his claim for estoppel against the government. He argues for estoppel based on his waiver of the right to testify at trial. Gamboa-Victoria argues that he would have testified at trial if the government had not assured him that the safety valve was legally available to him. Unlike with appellee Barahona-Estupinan, appellee Gamboa-Victoria’s reliance 14698 UNITED STATES v. GAMBOA-CARDENAS went beyond merely restating in his pre-trial safety valve interview what he had already previously voluntarily told authorities. Gamboa-Victoria fully cooperated with the authorities before trial, but he also specifically chose not to testify at trial because he did not want to jeopardize the government’s previous assurance that his initial pre-trial statement would qualify him for safety valve relief. We thus conclude that appellee Gamboa-Victoria has established the necessary elements of equitable estoppel, including detrimental reliance on the government’s assurance that the safety valve would apply to him. See Hemmen, 51 F.3d at 892. In light of the government’s past acquiescence to the application of the safety valve in § 1903 cases as well as GamboaVictoria’s decision not to testify at trial based on the government’s assurance that the safety valve would apply to him, we find that the government’s abrupt change of position regarding safety valve relief in this case goes beyond “mere negligence” and would cause a “serious injustice” in the case of Gamboa-Victoria. See Pauly, 348 F.3d at 1149. Imposing estoppel against the government has no impact on GamboaVictoria’s original sentence and causes no harm to the public interest. Id. Therefore, we hold that the government is estopped from arguing that the safety valve is inapplicable to appellee Gamboa-Victoria.9 9 We reject the government’s contention that appellee Gamboa-Victoria failed to raise his estoppel argument based on the theory of detrimental reliance with the district court. Before the district court, counsel for Gamboa-Victoria stated that “since the government invited us in to do the safety valve debriefing then offered a plea agreement that included reduction of safety valve, they can’t come in now and say it doesn’t apply to the case.” This sufficiently placed the government and the district court on notice of Gamboa-Victoria’s argument that his reliance on the government’s representations concerning the safety valve should estop the government from changing its position. UNITED STATES v. GAMBOA-CARDENAS 14699 C. The district court did not err in reducing appellee Gamboa-Victoria’s sentence for acceptance of responsibility. [9] Section 3E1.1 of the sentencing guidelines states, “If a defendant clearly demonstrates acceptance of responsibility for his offense,” the district court will apply a two-level reduction. The adjustment for acceptance of responsibility “is not intended to apply to a defendant who puts the government to its burden of proof at trial by denying the essential factual elements of guilt . . . .” U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1, cmt. n.2. In “rare situations,” however, a defendant can qualify for this downward adjustment even after going to trial and being convicted. Id. The district court found that appellees accepted responsibility even though the jury found them guilty. The government contends that this was error. Because the safety valve is unavailable to appellees Gamboa-Cardenas, Cuero-Aragon, and Barahona-Estupinan, the statutory minimum sentence applies and on remand the district court cannot grant a reduction for acceptance of responsibility below the statutory minimum for those appellees. However, with respect to appellee Gamboa-Victoria, the government is estopped from arguing that the safety valve is unavailable. Therefore, we must consider whether the district court erred when it granted GamboaVictoria a two-level reduction for acceptance of responsibility. At trial, the government charged appellees with violations of 46 App. U.S.C. § 1903. According to the district court’s jury instructions, the essential factual elements of guilt with respect to this offense are that appellees (1) were on board a vessel subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, (2) knowingly possessed cocaine, and (3) possessed it with intent to deliver it to another person. Neither side challenges the jury instructions, but the government contends that appellees denied the “essential factual elements” of the offense by claiming duress at trial. U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1, cmt. n.2. Thus, the government argues that appellees did not accept responsibility 14700 UNITED STATES v. GAMBOA-CARDENAS for their crimes. However, the affirmative defense of duress does not dispute any of the three essential elements of the crime charged. To prove duress, appellees had the burden of showing (1) the existence of an immediate threat of death or serious bodily injury if they did not participate in the crime, (2) a well-grounded fear that the threat of death or serious bodily injury would be carried out, and (3) no reasonable opportunity to escape the threatened harm. See United States v. Contento-Pachon, 723 F.2d 691, 693 (9th Cir. 1984). By relying on the defense of duress, appellees did not “deny[ ] the essential factual elements of guilt.” U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1, cmt. n.2. Appellees could admit the elements of the offense under 46 App. U.S.C. § 1903 without disqualifying their affirmative defense of duress at trial. Therefore, we cannot say that the district court erred when it determined that Gamboa-Victoria and the other appellees accepted responsibility despite electing to go to trial. This is especially true given that “the determination of the sentencing judge [on this issue] is entitled to great deference on review” since “[t]he sentencing judge is in a unique position to evaluate a defendant’s acceptance of responsibility.” U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1, cmt. n.5. We are aware of our previous decisions that limit as a matter of law the availability of a sentencing reduction for acceptance of responsibility when a defendant unsuccessfully presents a defense of duress at trial. However, we find that those decisions do not preclude a finding that appellee Gamboa-Victoria accepted responsibility in this case. In United States v. Johnson, 956 F.2d 894, 904 (9th Cir. 1992), we held that “the defense of duress is an affirmative defense which negates criminal conduct by the fact of coercion.” Because the jury’s guilty verdict demonstrated that it rejected the defendant’s in-court statements of duress, we held that the defendants were “not entitled to a reduction for acceptance of responsibility during the trial.” Johnson, 956 F.2d at 904. However, in Johnson we also determined that “if in fact the defendants accepted responsibility by statements made after the conviction they are entitled to this reduction.” Id. at 905. UNITED STATES v. GAMBOA-CARDENAS 14701 In United States v. Martinez-Martinez, 369 F.3d 1076, 108990 (9th Cir. 2004), we noted that in light of a 1992 amendment to the sentencing guidelines commentary, Johnson’s holding was no longer good law to the extent that a defendant demonstrated acceptance of responsibility through post-trial conduct. We stated that “Johnson was decided prior to the amendments made to the Sentencing Guidelines in 1992, in which the precise language we relied upon was deleted from § 3E1.1(b)” and that “our decision in Johnson is directly at odds with the amended Commentary to § 3E1.1,” which now directs that acceptance of responsibility “be based primarily on pre-trial statements and conduct.” Martinez-Martinez, 369 F.3d at 1090 (citing U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1 cmt. n.2 ). Thus, the assertion of a duress defense at trial precludes a sentencing reduction for acceptance of responsibility based on the statements and conduct of a defendant “during the trial,” Johnson, 956 F.2d at 904, and such a reduction is also precluded based on statements made “during the sentencing phase,” MartinezMartinez, 369 F.3d at 1090. [10] Appellee Gamboa-Victoria’s situation is distinguishable from Johnson and Martinez-Martinez because the district court granted him a sentencing reduction for acceptance of responsibility based primarily on pre-trial statements and conduct. Comment note 2 of U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1 specifically states that sentence decreases for acceptance of responsibility are available after trial if such decreases are “based primarily upon pre-trial statements and conduct” (emphasis added). Here, the district court applied the downward adjustment based primarily on pre-trial statements rather than relying solely on statements made during or after the trial. At sentencing, the district court stated its grounds for applying the downward adjustment for acceptance of responsibility to all four appellees: I find that all of the defendants have accepted responsibility for their actions in this case. They have accepted responsibility at debriefings. They have 14702 UNITED STATES v. GAMBOA-CARDENAS accepted responsibility after they were arrested in post-arrest statements. They have accepted responsibility here in court during trial. They have accepted responsibility at this time, at the time of sentencing. So I adjust downward two levels for acceptance of responsibility. (Emphasis added). Unlike in Johnson and Martinez-Martinez, appellees made extensive statements before trial in which they accepted responsibility for their criminal activity. Although the district court also relied on statements made during trial and at sentencing, appellees repeated the same information in those situations that they had already provided in their pretrial interviews. The record thus indicates that the district court relied primarily on statements made before trial when it applied the reduction for acceptance of responsibility. This is particularly true with respect to appellee Gamboa-Victoria, who did not testify at trial and whose post-trial statements were substantively indistinguishable from the statements he had already given to the authorities before trial. Because the district court based its finding of acceptance of responsibility primarily on pre-trial statements and conduct, it did not violate U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1, comment note 2, or the holdings of Johnson and Martinez-Martinez when it applied the downward adjustment for acceptance of responsibility.