Opinion ID: 777439
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the increase based on the finding of the number of illegal immigrants smuggled

Text: 11 Section 2X1.1 is the guideline that applies to conspiracy, attempt, and solicitation offenses that are not expressly covered by the guideline for the substantive offense, i.e., the offense that the defendant was convicted of soliciting, attempting, or conspiring to commit. U.S. SENTENCING GUIDELINES MANUAL § 2X1.1(c)(1), cmt. n. 2 (2000). The conspiracy offense of which Nobelda and Leda were convicted, i.e., conspiracy to violate 8 U.S.C. § 1324(a)(1)(A)(iv) by encouraging or inducing illegal immigrants to come to, enter, or reside in the United States, is not expressly covered by a specific offense guideline. See id. § 2X1.1 cmt. n. 1 (providing a list of the offense guidelines that expressly cover conspiracies, which list does not include section 2L1.1, the guideline for § 1324(a) offenses). Section 2X1.1(a) directs the sentencing court to use the base offense level from the guideline for the substantive offense and to apply any adjustments from [that] guideline for any intended offense conduct that can be established with reasonable certainty. Id. § 2X1.1(a). Such adjustments are offense-level increases or decreases that are required where certain specific offense characteristics, cross references, [or] special instructions contained in the particular guideline apply. Id. § 1B1.1(b). Accordingly, in the instant case, the district court set Nobelda and Leda's base offense level at 12, as required under section 2L1.1. See id. § 2L1.1(a)(2). The district court then increased the base offense level by six based on that court's determination that one of the specific offense characteristics enumerated in section 2L1.1 had been established by a preponderance of the evidence, namely, that the offense involved the smuggling, transporting, or harboring of [twenty-five to ninety-nine] unlawful aliens. Id. § 2L1.1 (b)(2)(B). 12 Nobelda and Leda argue that the district court's number-of-immigrants finding is clearly erroneous because the government failed to adduce evidence sufficient under subsection 2X1.1(a)'s reasonable certainty standard to support that finding. In support of this argument, Nobelda and Leda analogize the instant case to United States v. Rome, 207 F.3d 251 (5th Cir.2000), in which this court vacated the defendant's sentence for conspiracy to steal firearms after determining that the district court's finding that the defendant intended to steal over fifty firearms had not been established with the reasonable certainty required by subsection 2X1.1(a). Id. at 252, 256. In particular, Nobelda and Leda point out that in Rome this court relied on the statement in section 2X1.1's commentary that [s]peculative specific offense characteristics will not be applied, id. at 254 (quoting U.S. SENTENCING GUIDELINES MANUAL § 2X1.1 cmt. n. 2) (emphasis omitted), thus rejecting as too speculative the district court's finding that the defendant must have intended to steal all the guns that were in the store that he attempted to rob merely because they were in the store, id. at 256 (noting that the district court's finding on the number of guns is the type of speculative inference the sentencing guideline comments specifically disapprove). According to Nobelda and Leda, like the district court's inference regarding the number of guns in Rome, the district court's inference in the instant case that two immigrants must have been smuggled on all but one of the fifteen occasions in question is too speculative to satisfy the reasonable-certainty standard. 13 The government responds that Rome is inapposite to the instant case because the reasonable-certainty standard of subsection 2X1.1(a) is applicable only to conduct that was allegedly intended to occur, not to conduct that allegedly did occur, such as the smuggling of immigrants at issue in the instant case. Thus, the government contends, the district court properly applied the preponderance-of-the-evidence standard, and that court's finding that the smuggling of twenty-five or more illegal immigrants had been established by a preponderance of the evidence was not clearly erroneous. 14 We conclude that the government is correct that subsection 2X1.1(a)'s reasonable-certainty standard is specific to findings of intended conduct. As noted above, subsection 2X1.1(a) provides that for a conspiracy offense not expressly covered in another guideline, the sentencing court must apply the base offense level in the guideline for the substantive offense plus any adjustments from such guideline for any intended offense conduct that can be established with reasonable certainty. Id. § 2X1.1(a) (emphasis added). The government correctly notes that the commentary to section 2X1.1 further clarifies the intended/actual distinction by noting that the sentencing court is to begin with the base offense level in the guideline for the substantive offense and then apply the appropriate adjustments triggered by any intended offense conduct that is established with reasonable certainty (conduct specifically intended) or by actual offense conduct. U.S. SENTENCING GUIDELINES MANUAL § 2X1.1 cmt. n. 2 (2000). 6 Indeed, it makes sense that the Sentencing Commission would specifically direct the sentencing court to apply any adjustments... for any intended offense conduct that can be established with reasonable certainty because [u]nless otherwise specified, the Sentencing Guidelines' definition of the relevant conduct that may be considered in determining whether a given adjustment applies is limited to conduct that has occurred. Id. § 1B1.3(a)(1). As the government points out, the district court based the six-level increase on its finding that the conspiracy offense involved the actual smuggling — not the intended smuggling — of twenty-five or more immigrants. 7 15 We note that our conclusion that the reasonable-certainty standard governs findings of intended conduct only does not mean that we are not guided in our review by the admonition in section 2X1.1's commentary emphasized by Nobelda and Leda — i.e., that [s]peculative specific offense characteristics will not be applied. That admonition is just as pertinent where the basis for a specific offense characteristic is actual offense conduct as where that basis is intended offense conduct. Although preserving the sentencing court's traditional authority to consider any relevant information without regard to its admissibility under the rules of evidence at trial, the Sentencing Guidelines require that any information used by the court in sentencing a defendant have sufficient indicia of reliability to support its probable accuracy. Id. § 6A1.3(a), § 6A1.3 cmt. This court has interpreted subsection 6A1.3(a)'s sufficient indicia of reliability language to require that the facts used by the district court for sentencing purposes be reasonably reliable. United States v. Rogers, 1 F.3d 341, 343-44 (5th Cir.1993). 16 According to the PSRs, INS agents were aware of the number of immigrants smuggled on three of the fifteen trips in question. On two of the trips, U.S. Border Patrol officers apprehended two immigrants posing as the mother and father of a young child, and on the other trip, officers apprehended one immigrant posing as a child's father. Although the PSRs' account of the INS investigation noted that only one illegal immigrant entered the United States on one of the trips, the PSRs assumed that two immigrants were smuggled on each occasion in determining that Nobelda and Leda's offense involved the smuggling of thirty immigrants. Paredes testified that notwithstanding the undisputed fact that only one immigrant was smuggled on at least one occasion, he believed that the multiplier estimate should be two immigrants (rather than one) per trip because (1) the whole purpose was to have the smuggled aliens pose as a family unit, so ... [t]hey would need a father and mother, and (2) the parents were told that immigrants would pose as the children's parents, not parent. 17 The district court agreed with the government that it had established by a preponderance of the evidence that twenty-nine immigrants were smuggled, reasoning that it would seem to me to be counter-intuitive that every single one of these [trips] would [involve] one person, since the whole point was to have a family. While Nobelda and Leda acknowledge that the information in their PSRs supports a finding that their offense involved the smuggling of between six and twenty-four immigrants (which would subject them to an offense-level increase of three, rather than six), they argue that Paredes's testimony and the PSRs do not provide an adequate evidentiary basis for the inference that two immigrants were smuggled on each of the other twelve trips for which the number of immigrants was not known. Nobelda and Leda further contend that the two-per-trip inference is also rendered unreliable by the undisputed fact that only one immigrant posed as a child's parent on one of the fifteen trips. 18 We are unable to find any published decisions, either from this court or our sister circuits, reviewing a number-of-immigrants finding based on an estimate such as that at issue in the instant case. However, there are a number of cases reviewing a district court's use of estimates of drug quantity or financial loss for sentencing purposes. 8 Although this court has recognized that a district court's estimates of drug quantity and financial loss must be supported by reasonably reliable information, United States v. Robichaux, 995 F.2d 565, 571 (5th Cir.1993) (loss); United States v. Sherrod, 964 F.2d 1501, 1508 (5th Cir.1992) (drug quantity), we have not specifically addressed, as a number of other circuits have, the particular nature of multiplier estimates of the type at issue in the instant case, where a known quantity involved in a particular occurrence (such as the amount of drugs sold in a transaction) is extrapolated to other such occurrences. In United States v. Rivera-Maldonado, 194 F.3d 224 (1st Cir.1999), for example, the First Circuit held that the district court clearly erred in using a drug-quantity estimate per sale [that] was based on eleven controlled buys throughout the entire six-month investigation. Id. at 233. The First Circuit reasoned that the record did not contain sufficient indicia of reliability to justify the sentencing court's use of the drug-quantity estimate per sale (i.e., the multiplier). Id. at 232-33. Specifically, the Rivera-Maldonado court determined that there was a lack of sufficient indicia that the multiplier estimate was reasonably representative of the drug quantity involved in other transactions. Id. at 232. Based on similar reasoning, the Second Circuit concluded in United States v. Shonubi, 998 F.2d 84 (2d Cir.1993), that the district court improperly inferred from the fact that the defendant was found to be smuggling 427.4 grams of heroin to the United States from Nigeria on one occasion that he must have smuggled equivalent amounts during seven other trips to and from Nigeria. Id. at 89-90. The Shonubi court explained that although the record supported the determination that the defendant had smuggled heroin on these other trips, there is simply no proof he imported 427.4 grams of heroin on each of his seven other trips. Id. at 89. Consequently, the Second Circuit concluded that [t]he government failed to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that Shonubi imported more than 427.4 grams of heroin. Id. at 90. 19 We conclude that, unlike the drug quantity multipliers denounced by the courts in Rivera-Maldonado and Shonubi, there is sufficient reliable evidence that the multiplier used by the district court in the instant case is reasonably representative of the number of immigrants smuggled on each trip. The district court's findings that immigrants were smuggled on fifteen trips and that two immigrants were smuggled on the twelve trips on which immigrants were not apprehended are adequately supported by a preponderance of the evidence in the record. 9 Further, the record contains sufficient indicia of reliability demonstrating the probable accuracy of the multiplier estimate of two immigrants per trip. The PSRs' findings are based on the information gathered by the INS during its investigation of the conspiracy, and this information was confirmed by Paredes in his testimony at the sentencing hearing. See Cooper, 274 F.3d at 239-40 (finding the district court's adoption of the PSR's drug quantity finding was not clearly erroneous where [i]n addition to the PSR, ... the district court had the benefit of an affidavit and live testimony from [an agent of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms] concerning the investigation into the [drug distribution] organization); United States v. Gracia, 983 F.2d 625, 629-30 (5th Cir.1993) (Presentence reports generally bear indicia of reliability sufficient to permit reliance thereon at sentencing; this case, involving a report based on the results of the DEA investigation, is no exception.). Based on their investigation, INS agents concluded that the conspirators used children to secure the benefit of the Border Patrol's policy of leniency toward families with young children by paying parents for the use of their children in the smuggling operation. 10 Where, as here, the defendants have not presented evidence rebutting a finding in their PSRs and the PSRs contain (1) information that provides an adequate evidentiary basis for that finding and (2) sufficient indicia that this information is reliable, the district court may adopt the finding without further inquiry. See Rome, 207 F.3d at 254. Accordingly, the district court did not clearly err in attributing the smuggling of twenty-nine immigrants to Nobelda and Leda for sentencing purposes. 20