Opinion ID: 2758310
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Court Minutes as Shepard Documents

Text: Duhaney first argues that the district court improperly relied upon the certified state court minutes because they are not a Shepard-approved document. We disagree. The court minutes are a judicial record entered on the state court’s docket that summarizes the criminal proceedings conducted by the state court. A certified copy of the court minutes from the court of conviction reflecting that court’s acceptance of Duhaney’s nolo plea and finding of guilt as to Count 1 of the information is a “comparable judicial record” of Duhaney’s plea and conviction on Count 1. See Shepard, 544 U.S. at 26, 125 S. Ct. at 1263; see also Coronado v. Holder, 759 F.3d 977, 985-86 (9th Cir. 2014) (concluding that a California court’s certified electronic docket and the court minutes are “equally reliable to the documents approved in Shepard”); Kwong v. Holder, 671 F.3d 872, 879-80 (9th Cir. 2011) (explaining that California state court documents such as abstracts of judgment and minute orders, which are statutorily authorized and 7 Case: 14-10654 Date Filed: 12/08/2014 Page: 8 of 11 contemporaneously prepared by a neutral officer of the court, are of “equal reliability” to the illustrative list of documents in Shepard). C. Government’s Burden Under U.S.S.G. § 2L1.2(b)(1) Duhaney next contends that even if the district court properly considered the court minutes, the government still failed to carry its burden of proof as to the § 2L1.2(b)(1)(B) increase. The court minutes establish that Duhaney pled no contest to the § 11352(a) violation alleged in Count 1. That means, under California law, Duhaney admitted all the elements alleged conjunctively in Count 1. Thus, when Duhaney pled no contest, he admitted to, among other things, importing, selling, and offering to sell cocaine base, acts he does not dispute are drug trafficking offenses under § 2L1.2(b)(1). See U.S.S.G. § 2L1.2, cmt. n.1(B)(iv) (listing importation, distribution, and offering to sell a controlled substance among the offenses that constitute a drug trafficking offense). In short, Duhaney “necessarily admitted” committing statutory elements of a § 11352(a) offense that also constitute a drug trafficking offense. See Shepard, 544 U.S. at 16, 26, 125 S. Ct. at 1257, 1263 (explaining that the sentencing court may look to the approved judicial documents to determine what the defendant’s earlier guilty plea “necessarily admitted”). Duhaney argues the fact that Count 1 charged multiple elements conjunctively is insufficient to carry the government’s burden because prosecutors 8 Case: 14-10654 Date Filed: 12/08/2014 Page: 9 of 11 routinely charge offenses in the conjunctive, but are required to prove only one of the alleged statutory bases to obtain a conviction at trial. We reject this argument because, under California law, a defendant, by pleading guilty to a § 11352(a) charge pled in the conjunctive, admitted guilt as to each of the listed offenses. See United States v. Ojeda-Estrada, 577 F.3d 871, 877 (8th Cir. 2009) (concluding that a prior conviction under § 11352(a) constituted a controlled substance offense under U.S.S.G. § 4B1.2, the career offender provision); United States v. GarciaMedina, 497 F.3d 875, 878 (8th Cir. 2007) (concluding that a prior conviction under § 11352(a) constituted a drug trafficking offense under U.S.S.G. § 2L1.2(b)(1)(A)). Similarly, under our Circuit’s precedent, a defendant is bound at sentencing by the factual allegations establishing the elements of a crime and the elements of the crime which he admitted by pleading guilty to those elements. See United States v. Fairchild, 803 F.2d 1121, 1124 (11th Cir. 1986) (stating that a guilty plea “admits all the elements of a formal criminal charge” (quotation marks omitted)); United States v. Taffe, 36 F.3d 1047, 1049 (11th Cir. 1994) (concluding that defendant who pled guilty to a charge, listed in the conjunctive, that he used and carried four firearms, one of which was equipped with a silencer, made a legally binding admission that he used and carried a firearm equipped with a silencer even though an accomplice actually carried the firearm with the silencer); see also 9 Case: 14-10654 Date Filed: 12/08/2014 Page: 10 of 11 United States v. Drayton, 113 F.3d 1191, 1193 (11th Cir. 1997) (concluding that a nolo contendere plea, followed by an adjudication of guilt, is a conviction under Florida law for purposes of the Armed Career Criminal Act). 3 Further, the government need not affirmatively disprove a defendant’s speculation, unsupported by any evidence, that he may have pled to something less than what was alleged in Count 1, where the Shepard documents the government submitted show that the defendant pled to Count 1. See Ojeda-Estrada, 577 F.3d at 877 (stating that to require the government to disprove the defendant’s theory that he may have pled guilty to something narrower than the charged offense “overstates the government’s burden” to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the defendant was convicted of a qualifying offense). The court minutes showing Duhaney entered a no contest plea to Count 1, which alleged the offense in the conjunctive, carries the government’s burden to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that Duhaney had a prior conviction for a drug trafficking offense. 4 3 We recognize that Duhaney cites Young v. Holder, wherein the Ninth Circuit applied its own circuit precedent, not California law, to conclude, in the immigration context, that a guilty plea to a conjunctively charged § 11352(a) violation established at least one of the charged offenses, but not necessarily all of them. Young, 697 F.3d 976, 986 (9th Cir. 2012) (en banc). We need not address whether state or federal law controls because the result is the same under either California law or our circuit precedent given the particular record in this case. 4 Because we conclude that Duhaney’s plea to the conjunctively charged § 11352(a) offense in Count 1, as shown by the information and the court minutes, is sufficient to establish that Duhaney’s conviction was for a drug trafficking offense, we need not address: (1) the government’s alternative argument that the probation-ineligibility allegation in Count 1 narrowed Duhaney’s § 11352(a) charge to only selling or offering to sell cocaine base; or (2) Duhaney’s 10 Case: 14-10654 Date Filed: 12/08/2014 Page: 11 of 11 Accordingly, the district court did not err in applying U.S.S.G. § 2L1.2(b)(1)(B)’s 12-level increase. AFFIRMED. argument that a police report and disposition of arrest also submitted to the district court at sentencing were not Shepard-approved documents. 11