Opinion ID: 3065342
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Temporary Amendment to the Ecstasy Act

Text: [20] The November 2000 sentencing manual provided that one gram of MDA was the equivalent of 50 grams of marijuana. U.S.S.G. § 2D1.1 (2000). The Ecstasy Anti- Proliferation Act of 2000 (Ecstacy Act), contained in Pub. L. 106-310, directed the Sentencing Commission to increase penalties for ecstasy. Pub. L. 106-310 §§ 3663(a), 3664. Accordingly, the Sentencing Commission promulgated a temporary amendment to § 2D1.1 that increased this ratio to 500:1, effective retroactively as of May 1, 2001. The district court relied on this temporary amendment in setting the base offense level. Forrester argues that subjecting him to a heightened sentence pursuant to the temporary amendment violated the ex post facto clause of the Constitution.
The indictment alleged that the conspiracy continued until October 18, 2001. The indictment was reproduced in full in the plea agreement. The plea’s “Factual Basis” section mentioned only a beginning date, stating that “[i]n or about 332 UNITED STATES v. FORRESTER November, 2000, . . . Forrester entered into an agreement with Alba, and others, to manufacture and distribute” ecstacy. [21] We have declined to treat “guilty pleas as admitting factual allegations in the indictment not essential to the government’s proof of the offense.” United States v. Cazares, 121 F.3d 1241, 1247 (9th Cir. 1997). Forrester asserts that, because “the date alleged in a section 846 indictment is not an element of the offense,” the date in the indictment, even though it was replicated in his signed guilty plea, was not part of the admission. In Cazares, we held that the “appropriate course is not, as the government argues, for the defendant to delete this [end date] from the guilty plea, but rather, for the government at the plea colloquy to seek an explicit admission of any unlawful conduct which it seeks to attribute to the defendant. Having failed to do so, the government must follow the normal procedure of proving relevant conduct at sentencing by a preponderance of the evidence.” Id. at 1248 (internal quotation marks omitted). There is no mention of an end date in the plea agreement, nor did Forrester admit to one at the plea colloquy. Therefore the temporary amendment, which took effect after Forrester’s admitted start date of November 2000, cannot apply to him under the current posture of the case. We therefore remand for resentencing. Unless the government proves by a preponderance of the evidence that the conspiracy continued until after the temporary amendment became effective, Forrester should be sentenced under the November 2000 50:1 ratio.
Forrester also argues that even if the October 18, 2001 end date can be used for sentencing, the increased ratio of 500:1 did not become effective until November 1, 2001, at the earliest, because the temporary amendment was invalid. We agree that the temporary amendment’s retroactivity was invalid, but hold that the amendment became effective on June 6, 2001 when it was initially published. UNITED STATES v. FORRESTER 333 In United States v. DeLeon, the Eighth Circuit considered whether the referenced temporary amendment violated the Administrative Procedures Act (APA). 330 F.3d 1033, 1034 (8th Cir. 2003). The court analyzed the APA’s three-step rulemaking provisions, which require notice of the proposed rule, a hearing or receipt and consideration of public comments, and the publication of the new rule. Id. at 1036-38 (citing 5 U.S.C. § 553). The crux of the inquiry was the precise date on which the amendment became effective. The DeLeon court determined it became effective on June 6 (the publication date) even though the publication listed a retroactive effective date of May 1. 330 F.3d at 1036. [22] The court’s reasoning was two-fold. First, § 553(d) of the APA ordinarily requires that a rule be published at least 30 days prior to its effective date and, upon a showing of good cause, permits a rule to take effect immediately upon publication. Id. Therefore, even if the good cause exception applies, the earliest effective date would be the June 6 publication date. Second, the court considered whether the amendments could be retroactive to May 1. Agencies cannot adopt retroactive regulations “unless that power is conveyed by Congress in express terms.” Bowen v. Georgetown Univ. Hosp., 488 U.S. 204, 208 (1988). The government argued in DeLeon that the emergency nature of the Ecstasy Act, read together with the Sentencing Act of 1987, empowered the Commission to make the amendment retroactive. DeLeon, 330 F.3d at 1036-37. The court disagreed, holding that the “true effect of the 1987 Act is merely to imbue the Commission with the power to enact temporary rules that take effect immediately without prior Congressional approval.” Id. (emphasis added). The court reversed and remanded for resentencing of DeLeon under the former, pre-Ecstasy Act scheme. Id. at 1038. For the same reasons, we hold that the amendment to § 2D1.1 became effective on June 6, 2001 (the initial publication date). We also reject Forrester’s argument that the effective date should be the November 1 final publication date rather than the June 6 initial publication date. 334 UNITED STATES v. FORRESTER Therefore, if on remand the district court finds by a preponderance of the evidence that the conspiracy continued until at least October 2001, then the enhanced 500:1 ratio was appropriately applied to Forrester’s sentence because it ended after June 6 2001, when the enhanced ratio became effective.