Opinion ID: 202136
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Almendarez-Torres Issue

Text: Garcia argues that his conviction must be vacated because the district court did not submit to the jury the question of his underlying 1995 drug conviction. He argues that the district court was required to do so because Almendarez-Torres v. United States, 523 U.S. 224 (1998), in which the Supreme Court held that the prior conviction is a mere sentencing factor for § 1326(b) purposes, id. at 235, has been overruled by subsequent case law. He relies on Justice Thomas' concurrence in Shepard v. United States, 125 S.Ct. 1254 (2005), which stated that in light of Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000), and subsequent Sixth Amendment jurisprudence, a majority of the Court now recognizes that Almendarez-Torres was wrongly decided. Shepard, 125 S.Ct. at 1264 (Thomas, J., concurring in part and concurring in the judgment). As an initial matter, we note that Garcia seems to be mixing apples and oranges in challenging his conviction on this basis. The cases upon which he relies largely go to whether a judge may consider a prior conviction for sentencing purposes when that conviction has not been found by a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. See id. (Innumerable criminal defendants have been unconstitutionally sentenced under the flawed rule of Almendarez-Torres . . . .) (emphasis added). Perhaps Garcia is making a sentencing argument. -25- Either way, however, Garcia's argument fails. Garcia stipulated to the prior conviction at trial: his counsel not only affirmatively told the jury about the fact of a prior conviction and agreed to the entry into evidence of a redacted record of the conviction, but also argued prior to trial that evidence of [the] conviction is wholly irrelevant to [Garcia's] charged illegal reentry offense and has the potential to prejudice Mr. Garcia unfairly. Garcia has waived any argument that the jury needed to find the fact of conviction beyond a reasonable doubt. See Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. 296, 310 (2004) ([A] defendant who stands trial may consent to judicial factfinding as to sentence enhancements, which may well be in his interest if relevant evidence would prejudice him at trial.); see also United States v. Glover, 413 F.3d 1206, 1208 (10th Cir. 2005) (In regard to sentencing, a defendant may waive his Sixth Amendment rights under Apprendi and Blakely by stipulating to facts underlying sentence enhancements.) (citing Blakely, 542 U.S. at 310). Further, even had Garcia not waived the issue, his precise argument has already been rejected by a panel of this court. United States v. Ivery, 427 F.3d 69, 75 (1st Cir. 2005). In Ivery, the court noted that the Supreme Court has taken care to reaffirm the prior conviction exception of Almendarez-Torres in all of its recent Sixth Amendment jurisprudence, and that even the Shepard majority cautioned that it is up to the future to show -26- whether Apprendi eventually will be extended to require proof of prior convictions to a jury. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Shepard, 125 S.Ct. at 1263 n.5). The Ivery panel concluded: It is not our place to anticipate the Supreme Court's reconsideration of its prior rulings; thus Almendarez-Torres remains binding law that we must apply until overruled by a majority of the Supreme Court. Id. We in turn are bound by Ivery's holding. D. Booker Issue As to Garcia's Term of Supervised Release Garcia has now served the imprisonment portion of his sentence and is subject to a two-year term of supervised release, but is in the hands of immigration authorities and awaiting deportation, if he has not yet been deported. Nonetheless, in a long footnote in his brief on appeal, Garcia says he is entitled to be resentenced, presumably to alter the sentence of supervised release. Garcia was sentenced under the mandatory Guidelines scheme in place prior to United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005). He concedes that his Booker claim was not preserved in the district court, but says he meets the reasonable probability standard this court requires under plain-error Booker review, United States v. Antonakopoulos, 399 F.3d 68, 75 (1st Cir. 2005), because the district judge sentenced him at the bottom of the applicable Guidelines range and stated that his case was -27- sympathetic. The government argues that we cannot reach the Booker issue because it is moot. It is well-settled that a convict's claim is not moot if he has finished his prison term but still faces supervised release or a restitution order, so long as those conditions give him a continuing stake in the outcome of a challenge to the sentence. United States v. Molak, 276 F.3d 45, 48 (1st Cir. 2002); see also United States v. Prochner, 417 F.3d 54, 59 n.4 (1st Cir. 2005). The government argues that the supervised release sentencing issue is moot on these facts. The argument is that Garcia, who is in immigration custody and facing imminent deportation from the United States, will never be subject to the supervised release portion of his sentence. The government argues that the possibility that Garcia could one day return to the United States does not change the analysis. This is because Garcia is inadmissible as a result of his 1995 cocaine conviction, 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(2)(A)(i)(II), and ineligible for a waiver of inadmissibility, id. § 1182(h)(2). Therefore, Garcia could only be in the United States, and potentially subject to supervised release, if he broke the law to get here; this will not suffice, the government argues, because a stake in the outcome of a case will not create standing if it is contingent upon [the defendant's] violating the law in the future. Spencer v. Kemna, 523 U.S. 1, 15 (1998). -28- There is some case law supporting the government's theory. See Okereke v. United States, 307 F.3d 117, 121 (3d Cir. 2002) (finding alien's sentencing appeal moot where alien had been removed and could not legally reenter, and resentencing would not provide [him] with the tangible benefit of reentry); United States v. Mercurris, 192 F.3d 290, 294 (2d Cir. 1999) (finding moot a deported alien's claim that the district court erroneously deemed his crimes aggravated felonies because the alien ha[d] only a quixotic chance of legally returning to the United States and the possibility that his aggravated felon status could make a difference to him . . . is too speculative to create an Article III case or controversy). Defendant has not, in response, identified any practical impact on him of the Booker supervised release issue. If there is one, it is not up to the appellate court to try to guess what it is. Without adopting a general rule, we hold that any Booker issue in this case is moot. E. The Transcript Delay A disturbing aspect of this case is the fourteen-month period it took for the court reporter to produce the trial transcripts for appeal. Unfortunately, this is a recurring problem in some districts within the circuit, and not a new one. See, e.g., United States v. Pratt, 645 F.2d 89, 91 (1st Cir. 1981) (nine-month delay in preparing a transcript). -29- Garcia filed a Notice of Appeal on April 30, 2004. On June 8, 2004, this court ordered the district court's court reporter to file, by August 9 of that year, transcripts of Garcia's trial and related proceedings. The period of time until the transcript was prepared was a shared responsibility of this court, the district court, and Garcia. The court reporter was granted several extensions, without objection, which pushed the deadline back to November 1. When the transcript was not prepared by that date, this court issued an Order to Show Cause directing production of the transcripts by November 22. Several more rounds of orders and extension requests followed. On August 11, 2005, some fourteen months after the Notice of Appeal, Garcia first moved to compel production. This court granted the motion, and the transcripts were finally filed on August 19, 2005. Garcia says this delay violated his due process right to a timely appeal, and that the remedy must be reversal of his conviction. The prosecution, which is of course not actually responsible for the transcript delay, is nonetheless deemed to be responsible, as the government candidly admits. The concern is where delay in the appeal due to a tardy transcript may violate the due process rights of the defendant. [E]xtreme delay in the processing of an appeal may amount to a due process violation, and delays caused by court reporters are -30- attributable to the government for purposes of determining whether a defendant has been deprived of due process . . . . United States v. Luciano-Mosquera, 63 F.3d 1142, 1158 (1st Cir. 1995) (citing United States v. Wilson, 16 F.3d 1027, 1030 (9th Cir. 1994)). However, mere delay, in and of itself will not give rise to a due process infraction. The defendant must show prejudice. Id. Furthermore, as the Supreme Court has said in the context of pre-indictment delay, even proof of actual prejudice does not make a due process claim automatically valid. United States v. Lovasco, 431 U.S. 783, 789 (1977). The court must consider the reasons for the delay as well as the prejudice to the [defendant]. Id. at 790. The showing of prejudice is therefore a threshold requirement. See id.; see also Luciano-Mosquera, 63 F.3d at 1158. The prejudice must be such as to render the proceedings fundamentally unfair. Lovasco, 431 U.S. at 796. The question of what constitutes prejudice is one on which the circuits have differing views. Garcia has, relying on case law from elsewhere, argued that certain effects of delay constitute prejudice. We reject the arguments. Based on what is properly cognizable as prejudice, we hold that Garcia has not made his threshold prejudice showing. -31-
We have recognized two forms of possible prejudice. It is possible for delay to so impair a defendant's ability to present his appeal as to create prejudice to the appeal itself. Luciano-Mosquera, 63 F.3d at 1158. It also is possible that even where a defendant wins his appeal, the delay in preparing the transcripts on appeal could have prejudiced his right to make his case on retrial. Id. We see no impairment of Garcia’s ability to present his appeal. He was and has been present in this country and has had access to counsel.12 When we look as well at the substance of the arguments he has presented on appeal, the failure of those arguments has not in any way been caused by the delay. Since he has lost his appeal there can be no impairment of his rights on retrial. To the extent Garcia argues that any particular period -– here, a one-year delay from the original due date of the transcript 12 According to his reply brief, Garcia was still awaiting deportation as of December 29, 2005, six weeks prior to oral argument. We do not know whether his deportation has been delayed because of his appeal. We presume it has not, however, since Garcia did not request a stay of deportation from this court, and absent such a stay the government may deport an alien during the pendency of an appeal. See Neverson v. Farquharson, 366 F.3d 32, 38 (1st Cir. 2004) (The INS immediately took Neverson into custody and prepared to deport him . . . . On Neverson's emergency motion, this court issued a provisional stay . . . barring the INS from deporting Neverson until we could hear and decide his case.). Garcia suggests as much in his reply brief. -32- –- per se amounts to a due process violation, we reject the argument. This circuit's requirement is that the defendant must show prejudice, and we will not presume prejudice from the length of the delay. See Luciano-Mosquera, 63 F.3d at 1158; see also id. at 1158 & n.8 (describing approximately two-year delay in furnishing transcripts as appalling but rejecting defendant's claim for lack of prejudice); Pratt, 645 F.2d at 91 (declining to hold a nine-month delay unconstitutional, at least in the absence of exacerbating factors). There can be no per se rules on the length of delay because this court, in the exercise of its supervisory authority, is bound by the rule that a showing of prejudice is ordinarily needed for due process claims. See United States v. Tucker, 8 F.3d 673, 676 (9th Cir. 1993) (en banc) ([A] federal court may not exercise its supervisory powers to reverse a conviction absent a showing of prejudice.).
Garcia also argues that he was prejudiced in ways which, in our view, are simply not cognizable on a due process claim in this context. Specifically, he argues that due to the delay, he has suffered anxiety and oppressive incarceration during the pendency of his appeal. He bases this argument on decisions by other courts which have drawn an analogy between the right to a timely appeal and the right to a speedy trial. See, e.g., United States v. Hawkins, 78 F.3d 348, 350 (8th Cir. 1996); United States -33- v. Mohawk, 20 F.3d 1480, 1486 (9th Cir. 1994); Rheuark v. Shaw, 628 F.2d 297, 303 (5th Cir. 1980). We reject the argument and differ from these courts. We explain why. A due process claim about delays on appeal is not the same as a Sixth Amendment speedy trial claim. In Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514 (1972), a case under the Sixth Amendment, the Supreme Court identified four criteria, of which prejudice is only one, to determine when the right to a speedy trial is violated. Id. at 530. The Court held that it is possible to have a violation of the speedy trial right without a specific showing of prejudice. Id. at 533. By contrast, there is no Sixth Amendment speedy trial claim to be made as to appeals, with the possible exception, not involved here, of interlocutory appeals. See United States v. Loud Hawk, 474 U.S. 302, 313-17 (1986); see also United States v. Smith, 94 F.3d 204, 206 (6th Cir. 1996) (The speedy trial guarantee of the Sixth Amendment applies only to proceedings in the trial court.). The right of appeal is statutory, and the grant is subject to due process requirements. Evitts v. Lucey, 469 U.S. 387, 393 (1985). In Barker, three categories of potential prejudice were identified: oppressive pretrial incarceration, anxiety and concern of the accused, and the possibility that the accused's defense might be impaired. 407 U.S. at 532. Those courts that have accepted the analogy between pretrial delay and appellate delay have adopted this inquiry almost whole cloth and looked for three -34- kinds of potential prejudice from appellate delay: (1) oppressive incarceration pending appeal, (2) anxiety and concern of the convicted party awaiting the outcome of the appeal, and (3) impairment of the convicted person's grounds for appeal or of the viability of his defense in case of retrial. Hawkins, 78 F.3d at 351 (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Tucker, 8 F.3d at 646); see also Rheuark, 628 F.2d at 303 n.8. In our view, the due process issues caused by delay on appeal are more limited than those resulting from delay in the trial court. Cf. Ross v. Moffitt, 417 U.S. 600, 610 (1974) (noting, in the context of due process requirements, that there are significant differences between the trial and appellate stages of a criminal proceeding). And so we reject, at least in cases of delayed transcripts on appeal, the direct analogy made to tests involving the Sixth Amendment speedy trial right, which underlies the so-often articulated three-factor prejudice test quoted above. Other courts have shared this concern. See, e.g., Cody v. Henderson, 936 F.2d 715, 719 (2d Cir. 1991) (Certainly, the differences in a defendant's situation before trial and after conviction suggest that at the very least the Barker factors should not be applied uncritically.); see also Arkin, Speedy Criminal Appeal: A Right Without A Remedy, 74 Minn. L. Rev. 437, 473-81 (1990) (concluding that the concerns of Barker, and the Barker test, do not translate to the appellate delay setting). -35- The first two of the adopted Barker prejudice factors have little rationale in the appellate context. A defendant who has been convicted of a crime no longer enjoys a presumption of innocence, Herrera v. Collins, 506 U.S. 390, 399 (1993), and so his incarceration pending appeal cannot itself be said to be oppressive. Further, there are other remedies concerning conditions of confinement. The appellant may or may not meet the requirements for bail on appeal.13 If the conditions of incarceration raise Eighth Amendment concerns, habeas corpus is available. Similarly, while any defendant who has been convicted of a crime may experience anxiety during the pendency of the appeal, this consideration is not useful to evaluating prejudice for due process purposes. Because Garcia has not shown prejudice, we do not reach the reasons for the delay. Sometimes the reasons involve inadequate resources in the reporting services available to the district court, or overly busy court reporters; sometimes there are 13 Indeed, delay in the appeals process may itself strengthen an appellant's case for having met those requirements, so long as that delay is not attributable to the appellant. See, e.g., Leigh v. United States, 82 S.Ct. 994, 997 (1962) (Warren, Circuit Justice) (granting bail where th[e] appeal is not frivolous, . . . such delays as have occurred can hardly be attributed to applicant . . . [and] [t]he Government does not contend that there is a likelihood that applicant will flee the jurisdiction.); United States v. Bentvena, 308 F.2d 47, 48 (2d Cir. 1962) (rejecting bail but noting that [i]f for any reason there are delays in the hearing of these appeals for which the appellants are not responsible these motions may be renewed.). -36- other reasons. The problem of delay in production of transcripts is a very serious one, but one which cannot be used to benefit a defendant absent a showing of prejudice.