Opinion ID: 2766899
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Apprendi/Alleyne Error

Text: Invoking Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000), and Alleyne v. United States, 133 S. Ct. 2151 (2013), Ramos argues that his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights were violated when the district court sentenced him based on a drug quantity that was not found by a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. This claim was not raised below and is therefore reviewed only for plain error. In this instance, however, the standard is irrelevant because no drug-quantity error occurred in his sentencing. The Supreme Court's decisions in Apprendi and Alleyne establish that a jury must find beyond a reasonable doubt any drug quantity that triggers a mandatory-minimum and a statutory-maximum sentence under 21 U.S.C. § 841, whose multiple subsections set out different crimes. See, e.g., United States v. Pizarro, 772 F.3d 284, 292 (1st Cir. 2014). In this case, Ramos acknowledges that the indictment charged, and the jury found, that he possessed at least 500 grams of cocaine. Under § 841(b)(1)(B), a defendant 31 The government has not suggested that evidence already in the record would permit sentencing Ramos as a career offender if the Article 256 conviction may not be counted as a predicate crime of violence. We therefore do not address that circumstance. -51- found guilty of possessing for distribution at least 500 grams but less than five kilograms of cocaine is subject to a mandatory minimum term of five years and a maximum of forty years imprisonment. Both the PSR and the district court's comments at sentencing placed the amount of cocaine seized from the truck at roughly two kilograms -- an amount within the same statutory range as the 500 grams found by the jury. In other words, the record shows unequivocally that Ramos's sentence was based on the statutory range consistent with the jury's finding. Hence, no Apprendi or Alleyne error occurred. It is possible that Ramos's actual complaint is that the district court used the wrong Guidelines sentencing range.32 He asserts that his BOL was calculated as if he had been convicted of possessing at least two kilograms of cocaine. This assertion is incorrect. Although the PSR concluded that Ramos was responsible for just over two kilograms, the district court at sentencing expressly used the BOL for an offense involving at least 500 grams but less than two kilograms of cocaine. See U.S.S.G. § 2D1.1(7) (Level 26). 32 As we have recently explained, if the jury makes the required threshold finding to trigger a mandatory minimum (in this instance, 500 grams or more of cocaine), but does not indicate a specific quantity, the district court may make a drug quantity finding by a preponderance of the evidence to determine the recommended sentence under the Guidelines. The sentence imposed must be within the statutory range. See Pizarro, 772 F.3d at 294 n.14. -52- In sum, the drug quantity on which the district court based Ramos's sentence was proper under both the Guidelines and § 841(b)(1)(B).