Opinion ID: 4681319
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Figueroa-Beltran’s State Conviction

Text: Figueroa-Beltran urges us to conclude that the district court erred in applying a sixteen-level enhancement pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 2L1.2(b)(1)(A), because his Nevada conviction was not categorically a drug trafficking offense. FigueroaBeltran maintains that, because Nevada criminalizes possession of controlled substances that are not listed in the Controlled Substance Act, his conviction was not categorically a drug trafficking offense. Figueroa-Beltran further asserts that the district court erred in relying on the modified categorical approach to determine that his possession of cocaine conviction warranted a sixteen-level enhancement because NRS § 453.337 is not divisible, as is required for application of the modified categorical approach. UNITED STATES V. FIGUEROA-BELTRAN 11 At the time of Figueroa-Beltran’s conviction, § 453.337 provided in pertinent part: it is unlawful for a person to possess for the purpose of sale flunitrazepam, gamma-hydroxybutyrate, any substance for which flunitrazepam or gamma-hydroxybutyrate is an immediate precursor or any controlled substance classified in schedule I or II. Nev. Rev. Stat. § 453.337(1) (2012). The commentary to U.S.S.G. § 2L1.2 (2015) defined a “drug trafficking offense” as: an offense under federal, state, or local law that prohibits the manufacture, import, export, distribution, or dispensing of, or offer to sell a controlled substance (or a counterfeit substance) or the possession of a controlled substance (or a counterfeit substance) with intent to manufacture, import, export, distribute, or dispense. U.S.S.G. § 2L1.2, cmt. app. n.l (B)(iv) (2015). If FigueroaBeltran’s Nevada conviction qualified as a drug trafficking offense, the Guideline provided for a sixteen-level enhancement. See U.S.S.G. § 2L1.2(b)(1)(A). We have held that “the term controlled substance, as used in the drug trafficking offense definition in U.S.S.G. § 2L1.2, means those substances listed in the [Controlled Substances Act].” United States v. Leal-Vega, 680 F.3d 1160, 1167 (9th 12 UNITED STATES V. FIGUEROA-BELTRAN 2012). Consequently, our task is to compare the Nevada statute of conviction with “those substances listed in the [Controlled Substances Act].” Id. To determine whether Figueroa-Beltran’s Nevada conviction is categorically a drug trafficking offense, we apply the categorical approach articulated by the United States Supreme Court in Descamps. There, the Supreme Court explained that we must “compare the elements of the statute forming the basis of the defendant’s conviction with the elements of the generic crime—i.e., the offense as commonly understood.” 570 U.S. at 257 (internal quotation marks omitted). “Sentencing courts may look only to the statutory definitions—i.e., the elements—of a defendant’s prior offenses, and not to the particular facts underlying those convictions.” Id. at 261 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted) (emphasis in the original). If the state statute of conviction “sweeps more broadly than the generic crime,” the conviction may not be used as an enhancement “even if the defendant actually committed the offense in its generic form.” Id. “The key . . . is elements, not facts.” Id. Nevertheless, “[i]f the statute of conviction is overbroad, we determine whether the statute is divisible.” Gomez Fernandez v. Barr, 969 F.3d 1077, 1086 (9th Cir. 2020) (citation omitted). “A statute is divisible if it has multiple, alternative elements, and so effectively creates several different crimes. . . .” Id. (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). If the statute is divisible, we may apply the modified categorical approach to determine whether the conviction qualifies for the enhancement. The modified categorical approach permits consideration of a limited class of materials, such as charging documents, plea agreements, and judgments of conviction to pinpoint the crime of conviction. See id. UNITED STATES V. FIGUEROA-BELTRAN 13 In Benitez-Perez, we held that a conviction under § 453.337(1) was categorically for a drug trafficking offense because “the only conduct criminalized [was] possession of a controlled substance for the purpose of sale.” 367 F.3d at 1204. However, without the benefit of evolving Supreme Court precedent regarding application of the categorical approach articulated in Descamps, we did not address whether § 453.337 was divisible or indivisible in view of its inclusion of controlled substances not listed in the Controlled Substance Act. In the absence of any other indicators of divisibility or indivisibility, we turned to Nevada precedent in an effort to discern whether a jury must unanimously find that a defendant possessed a certain controlled substance as an element of § 453.337. Two cases contained helpful discussion, but neither case was directly dispositive. Sheriff v. Luqman, 697 P.2d 107, 108 (Nev. 1985) involved a challenge to “various provisions of Nevada’s controlled substance act.” The Nevada Supreme Court examined the authority of the state board of pharmacy to “classify drugs into various schedules according to the drug’s propensity for harm and abuse.” Id. at 110. The Court opined that “[s]ince the penalties for violating any of the provisions of the act have been established by the legislature, the board has merely been delegated the duty of applying its findings to the legislative scheme.” Id. at 110–11. The Court further articulated that “[a]lthough the legislature may not delegate its power to legislate, it may delegate the power to determine the facts or state of things upon which the law makes its own operations depend.” Id. at 110 (citations omitted). “Thus, the legislature can make the application or operation of a statute complete within itself dependent upon 14 UNITED STATES V. FIGUEROA-BELTRAN the existence of certain facts or conditions, the ascertainment of which is left to the administrative agency. . . .” Id. (citation omitted). In Muller v. Sheriff, 572 P.2d 1245 (Nev. 1977), the Nevada Supreme Court rejected the defendant’s assertion that “since the sale of . . . different controlled substances was consummated simultaneously in one transaction, his conduct [did] not constitute two separate offenses for which he may be charged.” Id. at 1245. Rather, the Court held that, under the controlled substance statutes applicable to heroin and cocaine, “[t]he sale of heroin and the sale of cocaine [were] distinct offenses requiring separate and different proof.” Id. (citations omitted). After reviewing Luqman and Muller, we concluded that the two decisions were “in conflict,” because “Luqman suggest[ed] that the identity of a controlled substance [was] a non-elemental factual determination,” whereas “Muller appear[ed] to conclude that the sale of one controlled substance [was] an offense distinct from the sale of another, and proof of the identity of the controlled substance at issue [was] required.” United States v. Figueroa–Beltran, 892 F.3d 997, 1003–04 (9th Cir. 2018). Because we were unable to “say with confidence that the Nevada precedent definitively answer[ed] the question whether § 453.337 [was] divisible as to the identity of a controlled substance,” we certified the following questions to the Nevada Supreme Court:
the controlled substance requirement?
the existence of a controlled substance is a UNITED STATES V. FIGUEROA-BELTRAN 15 fact rather than an element of § 453.337, rendering the statute indivisible? If so, can this conclusion be reconciled with Muller?
offenses under § 453.337 comprise distinct offenses requiring separate and different proof, rendering the statute divisible as to the controlled substance requirement? If so, can this conclusion be reconciled with Luqman? Id. at 1004 (internal quotation marks omitted).4 The Nevada Supreme Court accepted these certified questions, but “reframe[d] them into one question to better reflect existing state law principles: Is the identity of a substance an element of the crime articulated in NRS 453.337?” Figueroa-Beltran v. United States, 467 P.3d 615, 618 (Nev. 2020). The Nevada Supreme Court concluded that “the identity of a substance is an element of the crime described in NRS 453.337, such that each schedule I or II controlled substance simultaneously possessed with the intent to sell constitutes a separate offense.” Id. In reaching this conclusion, the Nevada Supreme Court acknowledged that § 435.337 was ambiguous because “‘any controlled substance’ as used by the Legislature in NRS 453.337 could mean, alternatively, ‘one controlled 4 Figueroa-Beltran objected to our certification order to the Nevada Supreme Court to resolve the conflict in Nevada law concerning the elements of § 435.337. However, we denied Figueroa-Beltran’s petition, and the United States Supreme Court denied his petition for a writ of certiorari. See Figueroa-Beltran v. United States, 139 S.Ct. 1445 (2019). 16 UNITED STATES V. FIGUEROA-BELTRAN substance,’ ‘some controlled substances,’ or ‘all controlled substances’ listed under schedule I or II, or under both schedules.” Id. at 622. Relying on Muller and Andrews v. State, 412 P.3d 37 (Nev. 2018), the Court clarified that under the statute: Proof of the identity of the item possessed is an element of the offense. Where possession of separate drugs is charged, while the evidence relating to possession may be the same for each charge, the evidence describing the substance and establishing its drug identity would undoubtedly differ with respect to each drug charged. Hence, the totality of evidence required to prove one count would not establish all of the elements required with respect to the other counts. Id. at 623 (alterations and footnote reference omitted). The Nevada Supreme Court explained that Luqman had no bearing on whether identity of the controlled substance was an element of the possession-for-sale offense because “Luqman applied to a special circumstance involving legislative delegation of power,” and “the Luqman court’s reasoning for why there was no unconstitutional delegation of authority does not apply here.” Id. at 623 n.6. The Nevada Supreme Court concluded that “the particular identity of a substance is an element that must be proven to sustain a conviction under NRS 453.337.” Id. at 623 (footnote reference omitted). In light of the guidance provided by the Nevada Supreme Court, we hold that § 453.337 is a divisible statute because possession of a specific controlled substance is an element of UNITED STATES V. FIGUEROA-BELTRAN 17 the crime, and not merely a means of committing the possession-for-sale offense. Although the Nevada schedules of controlled substances are not coterminous with the listing of prohibited substances delineated in the Controlled Substances Act, § 453.337 is not fatally overbroad, because a jury must unanimously agree that a defendant possessed a specific controlled substance in order to convict under the statute. See Figueroa-Beltran, 467 P.3d at 623. As a result, we may apply the modified categorical approach to determine if Figueroa-Beltran’s conviction was for a drug trafficking offense. See Descamps, 570 U.S. at 260 (explaining that the modified categorical approach “helps effectuate the categorical analysis when a divisible statute, listing potential offense elements in the alternative, renders opaque which element played a part in the defendant’s conviction”). Under the modified categorical approach, we “examine judicially noticeable documents of conviction to determine which statutory phrase was the basis for the conviction.” Gomez Fernandez, 969 F.3d at 1086 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). “These documents include the charging document, the terms of a plea agreement, the transcript of the plea colloquy, and comparable judicial records such as the judgment.” Id. (citation, alteration, and internal quotation marks omitted). The information filed in Figueroa-Beltran’s state prosecution charged him with “wilfully, unlawfully, feloniously, knowingly, and intentionally possess[ing], for the purpose of sale, a controlled substance, to-wit: Cocaine” in violation of NRS § 453.337. The judgment reflects that Figueroa-Beltran entered a plea of guilty to the charged offense. Based on the information and judgment, the district court correctly applied a sixteen-level enhancement pursuant to U.S.S.G. 18 UNITED STATES V. FIGUEROA-BELTRAN § 2L1.2(b)(1)(A) for Figueroa-Beltran’s Nevada conviction.5 See United States v. Martinez-Lopez, 864 F.3d 1034, 1043 (9th Cir. 2017) (concluding that possession of cocaine with intent to sell was a drug trafficking offense warranting a sixteen-level enhancement under the sentencing guidelines).