Opinion ID: 784866
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Failure to Charge Three Predicate CCE Acts

Text: 63 Soto-Beníquez and Soto-Ramírez argue that their CCE convictions should be reversed because the indictment did not set forth as elements of the offense the three predicate offenses required for the crime of CCE, 21 U.S.C. § 848. As described in our case law, the elements of a CCE crime are (1) the defendant committed a felony violation of the federal narcotics laws, (2) the violation was part of a continuing series of violations, (3) the series of offenses occurred in concert with five or more persons, (4) the defendant was an organizer, supervisor, or manager, and (5) the defendant obtained substantial income or resources from the series of violations. United States v. Rouleau, 894 F.2d 13, 14 (1st Cir.1990). To show a continuing series of violations, three or more predicate drug offenses must be demonstrated. Id. Defendants argue that their due process rights were violated because they were deprived of adequate notice of the predicate offenses underlying the CCE charge. Where the CCE count of an indictment does not list the specific predicate offenses but those offenses are alleged in other counts of the indictment, courts have generally held that defendants have received actual notice of the charges and no reversible error has occurred. United States v. Staggs, 881 F.2d 1527, 1530-31 (10th Cir.1989) (finding indictment adequate where no underlying violations were specified in the CCE count but at least three underlying violations were listed elsewhere in the indictment); United States v. Moya-Gomez, 860 F.2d 706, 752 (7th Cir.1988); United States v. Becton, 751 F.2d 250, 256-57 (8th Cir.1984). We think it preferable for predicate offenses to be alleged in the CCE count. But, at least where the CCE count incorporates by reference predicate offenses charged elsewhere in the indictment, failure to list predicate offenses in the CCE count itself is not reversible error because the defendant has been provided fair notice. Moya-Gomez, 860 F.2d at 752; Becton, 751 F.2d at 256-57. 64 Here, while the CCE count did not explicitly set forth three CCE predicate offenses, it incorporated Count Two, the conspiracy count. Count Two did provide such notice. Count Two states that at divers times between January 1, 1990 and March 7, 1994, the defendants distributed and possessed with intent to distribute heroin, cocaine, crack cocaine, and marijuana. It further states that the defendants would purchase multi-kilogram quantities of heroin, cocaine and marijuana at wholesale prices, ... would cut, divide, and package [the drugs] in small packages for subsequent sale at drug points, [and]... would sell packaged [drugs] in small quantities to customers at drug points. That count also alleges specifically that Soto-Ramírez and Soto-Beníquez supervised the supply [of] sellers with the drugs to be sold ... and [the sale of] narcotics at drug point, and that they would personally deliver packaged narcotics to [their] runners and sellers. 65 Defendants argue (1) that the acts described in Count Two are insufficient to provide notice because they establish only one predicate offense, namely, the conspiracy to distribute narcotics, 5 and (2) that the acts are insufficiently described. Both assertions are incorrect. As to the defendants' first contention, each act of distribution described in the indictment constitutes a separate predicate offense. See, e.g., United States v. Escobar-de Jesus, 187 F.3d 148, 160 n. 6 (1st Cir.1999) (treating two different incidents of possession with the intent to distribute as two separate predicate offenses). Multiple acts of distribution, certainly three or more, are alleged. As to their second contention, the time period and acts are alleged in sufficient detail to provide adequate notice. 66 Defendants then argue that the indictment failed to specify either the amount of drugs distributed or the amount of substantial income received by the defendants, thus depriving them of notice as to whether they were charged under 21 U.S.C. § 848(a) or (b). Section 848(a) carries a sentence of thirty years to life, whereas § 848(b) carries a mandatory life sentence. We reject defendants' argument. Defendants, merely by reading the indictment, were on notice of the possibility of a life sentence. Section 848(b) requires life imprisonment for the principal... leaders of the continuing criminal enterprise if their violation of the drug laws involved more than 300 times the quantity described in 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(B). The indictment identified Soto-Ramírez and Soto-Beníquez as the two leader[s]... of the drug-trafficking organization described in Counts One and Two. It also identified them as conspiring to distribute, inter alia, more than five kilograms of cocaine base, which is more than 300 times the five grams of cocaine base described in § 841(b)(1)(B). 67 Defendants also argue that in the indictment the predicate offenses for the CCE charge were based on the conspiracy count, but at trial, the government used evidence of uncharged narcotics offenses to establish the predicate offenses. Thus, defendants argue, although the CCE charge remained the same, the facts used to prove the series element of the charge were different from those set forth in the indictment. 68 Defendants frame this argument as a claim of constructive amendment, but it is actually a claim of variance. A constructive amendment occurs when the charging terms of the indictment are altered, either literally or in effect, by prosecution or court after the grand jury has last passed upon them. A variance occurs when the charging terms remain unchanged but when the facts proved at trial are different from those alleged in the indictment. United States v. Fisher, 3 F.3d 456, 462 (1st Cir.1993) (citations and quotation marks omitted). Convictions may be reversed based on variance only upon a showing of prejudice to the defendant's substantial rights — that is, when lack of notice regarding the charges deprives the defendant of his ability to prepare an effective defense and to avoid surprise at trial. Id. Here, defendants were not prejudiced. The indictment charged them with violations of narcotics laws from January 1990 to March 1994; the use of narcotics offenses in that time period should have been no surprise to them. 69