Opinion ID: 538806
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Rodriguez-Gonzalez

Text: 10 1. Double Jeopardy--Rodriguez-Gonzalez asserts that the district court improperly enhanced his Guidelines sentence on the basis of alleged conduct for which he was acquitted, i.e., using a firearm in connection with a drug offense in violation of 18 U.S.C. Sec. 924(c), and that this enhancement violated the Double Jeopardy and Due Process Clauses of the Fifth Amendment. As a threshold matter, we must address the government's contention that Rodriguez-Gonzalez failed to raise his constitutional claims in the district court, and therefore waived his right to appellate review on these issues. The government maintains that Rodriguez-Gonzalez' only objection below was to the appropriateness of the two-point enhancement and not to its constitutionality, and that both the government's response to Rodriguez-Gonzalez' objection and the district court's resolution of the issue also dealt only with appropriateness and not constitutionality. 11 We disagree. An objection is adequate which fairly alerts the court and opposing counsel to the nature of the claim. See United States v. Check, 582 F.2d 668, 676 & n. 22 (2d Cir.1978); cf. Daye v. Attorney General, 696 F.2d 186, 194 (2d Cir.1982) (in banc). At the sentencing proceeding, appellant stated that when the jury acquits a defendant on circumstances that are practically the same as the basis for the increase in the guideline range included in the guideline statement, it was not appropriate for a court after the jury has acquitted him on that count, to add two points to the basis of his sentence. Although appellant failed to couch his objection in the specific terms double jeopardy, the nature of his argument fairly alerted both the court and the prosecutor to his constitutional claim, since one of the distinct abuses that the guarantee against double jeopardy protects against is a second prosecution for the same offense after acquittal. United States v. Halper, --- U.S. ----, 109 S.Ct. 1892, 1897, 104 L.Ed.2d 487 (1989). Moreover, in pointing to the acquittal, Rodriguez-Gonzalez did not say that he was relying on collateral estoppel. Finally, the responses of the court and the government indicate that they were cognizant of the nature of appellant's claim. One of the arguments advanced by the prosecutor and accepted by the court--that the count under 18 U.S.C. Sec. 924(c) charged different conduct than Guideline Sec. 2D1.1(b)(1)--spoke to the requirement of the Double Jeopardy Clause that the second proceeding involve the same offense. 12 Turning to the merits, we note that the question whether conduct that is the subject of a prior acquittal can nevertheless be used to justify an enhancement of sentence under the Guidelines is an open question in this circuit. See United States v. Stephenson, 895 F.2d 867, 877 n. 3 (2d Cir.1990); United States v. Bedoya, 878 F.2d 73, 76 (2d Cir.1989) (per curiam). In a pre-Guidelines case, however, we allowed a sentencing judge to consider the facts underlying an acquittal. See United States v. Sweig, 454 F.2d 181, 184 (2d Cir.1972). Four circuits have held that prior related acquitted conduct may be considered for purposes of enhancing a sentence under the Guidelines. See United States v. Mocciola, 891 F.2d 13, 17 (1st Cir.1989) (rejecting double jeopardy challenge); United States v. Isom, 886 F.2d 736, 738 (4th Cir.1989) (rejecting due process challenge); United States v. Juarez-Ortega, 866 F.2d 747, 749 (5th Cir.1989) (per curiam) (rejecting claim that trial judge, in considering acquitted conduct, overrode jury's determination of a fact); and United States v. Ryan, 866 F.2d 604, 608-10 (3d Cir.1989) (rejecting claim that upward departure on the basis of acquitted conduct was unreasonable). But cf. United States v. Perez, 858 F.2d 1272, 1277-78 (7th Cir.1988) (observing that consideration of a prior acquittal is permissible as long as acquittal is not relied upon to enhance sentence). 13 Rodriguez-Gonzalez broadly asserts that these cases are not persuasive, since none adequately address the applicable constitutional concerns. He more specifically contends that the Double Jeopardy Clause prohibits the government, following an acquittal, from relitigating the facts of an offense in any further proceeding that would result in criminal punishment, and that his sentencing proceeding relitigated, and imposed punishment on the basis of, the same offense for which he had already been acquitted. In support, Rodriguez-Gonzalez argues that Sec. 2D1.1(b)(1) requires proof of the same four elements--i.e., scienter, possession of a gun, possession during a drug offense and connection to the offense--as are required under 18 U.S.C. Sec. 924(c), the count on which he was acquitted. While Rodriguez-Gonzalez acknowledges that Sec. 924(c) and Sec. 2D1.1(b)(1) differ in their scienter requirements, he contends that for purposes of double jeopardy analysis both nevertheless prescribe punishment for the same offense, since one cannot commit the Sec. 924(c) offense, requiring the higher mental state of knowledge, without also meeting the requirements of Sec. 2D1.1(b)(1). 14 We believe that this argument misperceives the distinction between a sentence and a sentence enhancement. Mocciola, 891 F.2d at 17. Had Rodriguez-Gonzalez been convicted of possessing a firearm in relation to drug trafficking under Sec. 924(c), he would have received a separate, mandatory five-year sentence, to run consecutively, rather than 19-24 months added to the sentence on the offenses for which he was found guilty, as a result of application of Sec. 2D1.1(b)(1) of the Guidelines. In considering the acquitted conduct as a basis for enhancing Rodriguez-Gonzalez' sentence, the district court was not relying on facts disclosed at trial to punish the defendant for the extraneous offense, but to justify the heavier penalties for the offenses for which he was convicted. Juarez-Ortega, 866 F.2d at 749. Of course, from the point of view of a defendant receiving added prison time because of the presence of a gun, the distinction may be academic. But the analysis is crucial in considering the double jeopardy argument. Moreover, the district court's application of Sec. 2D1.1(b)(1) did not, and could not, enhance the maximum penalty authorized by Congress for the offenses on which Rodriguez-Gonzalez was convicted, see U.S.S.G. Sec. 5G1.1(a); rather, the district court's consideration of the acquitted conduct merely affected the point within the statutory range at which his sentence was imposed. 15 We note that the Supreme Court has rejected on similar grounds a due process challenge to a state statute which subjected a defendant convicted of an enumerated felony to a mandatory minimum sentence if the sentencing judge found, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the person visibly possessed a firearm during the commission of the offense. See McMillan v. Pennsylvania, 477 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 2411, 91 L.Ed.2d 67 (1986). In upholding the constitutionality of that statute, the Court twice noted that the statute neither altered the maximum sentence for an enumerated felony nor created a separate offense calling for a separate sentence. Id. at 83, 87-88, 106 S.Ct. at 2414, 2416-17. Rather, that statute, like the Guidelines provision at issue here, operate[d] solely to limit the sentencing court's discretion in selecting a penalty within the range already available to it without the special finding. Id. at 88, 106 S.Ct. at 2417. 16 Moreover, as pointed out above, prior to the promulgation of the Guidelines this Court had held that a sentencing court could take acquitted conduct into account when fashioning a sentence. Sweig, 454 F.2d at 184. Although Rodriguez-Gonzalez suggests that Sweig addressed only the question of whether a sentencing judge could consider evidence of crimes for which a defendant was acquitted, and not whether the judge could enhance the sentence based on such evidence, our prior decision should not be read so narrowly. Although it is true, as Rodriguez-Gonzalez points out, that the Sweig court did not expressly address double jeopardy, the argument was made to it in the brief for appellant in that case. We reaffirm the validity of the Sweig decision after considering and rejecting the constitutional claims now before us. We discern no convincing reason why the Sweig rule should not continue to apply with equal force to sentences imposed under the Guidelines, thus permitting sentence enhancement on the basis of acquitted conduct. 17 Rodriguez-Gonzalez suggests, however, that a sentencing proceeding under the Guidelines shares the trial-like characteristics of the sentence proceedings found to trigger the protections of the Double Jeopardy Clause in Arizona v. Rumsey, 467 U.S. 203, 211-12, 104 S.Ct. 2305, 2310-11, 81 L.Ed.2d 164 (1984), and Bullington v. Missouri, 451 U.S. 430, 446, 101 S.Ct. 1852, 1862, 68 L.Ed.2d 270 (1981). Reliance on Rumsey and Bullington is inapposite, however, since those cases arose in the unique context of capital sentencing. In both, the Court concluded that the imposition of a penalty of life imprisonment in a first sentencing proceeding constituted an implied acquittal of a defendant's eligibility for the death penalty, and thus barred, on double jeopardy grounds, the imposition of the death penalty upon a subsequent resentencing. The special considerations implicated in those death penalty cases are not applicable here. 18 2. Due Process--Rodriguez-Gonzalez also argues that it is impermissible to enhance a sentence upon the basis of conduct for which a defendant was acquitted, since due process entitles an acquitted defendant to be treated as innocent. This court has noted to the contrary that [a]cquittal does not have the effect of conclusively establishing the untruth of all of the evidence introduced against the defendant. Sweig, 454 F.2d at 184; see also Isom, 886 F.2d at 738 (A verdict of acquittal demonstrates only a lack of proof beyond a reasonable doubt; it does not necessarily establish the defendant's innocence.). 19 Traditionally, a sentencing judge exercised broad discretion in considering all relevant information in determining an appropriate sentence, including evidence of uncharged crimes, dropped counts of a criminal indictment and criminal activity resulting in acquittal. Furthermore, consideration of this evidence was not thought to offend due process, provided a defendant was given an opportunity to contest the accuracy of that information. See, e.g., United States v. Romano, 825 F.2d 725, 728 (2d Cir.1987). Under the Guidelines 20 [i]n resolving any reasonable dispute concerning a factor important to the sentencing determination, the court may consider relevant information ... provided that the information has sufficient indicia of reliability to support its probable accuracy. 21 U.S.S.G. Sec. 6A1.3(a). Recent decisions of this court indicate that adoption of the Guidelines has not changed the principle that disputed sentencing factors need only be proved by a preponderance of the evidence to satisfy due process. United States v. Rivalta, 892 F.2d 223, 230 (2d Cir.1989); United States v. Guerra, 888 F.2d 247, 251 (2d Cir.1989). On the record before us, the district court could properly have found by a preponderance of the evidence that Rodriguez-Gonzalez possessed a firearm during the commission of a narcotics offense. For example, Rodriguez-Gonzalez was present in the apartment at the time that the drug deals took place, and he was apprehended going from the kitchen toward the living room, where the loaded gun was found.