Opinion ID: 3051516
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: calculation of career offender status

Text: The final issue Crawford raises is whether the district court correctly found that he qualifies as a career offender based on his two prior drug offense convictions in California and Washington. With respect to the California conviction, Crawford challenges the sufficiency of the documentation. With respect to the Washington conviction, he challenges the categorization of the offense. We review de novo the district court’s interpretation of the Sentencing Guidelines and its determination that a defendant qualifies as a career offender. United States v. Shumate, 329 F.3d 1026, 1028 (9th Cir. 2003). The district court was correct in its determination that Crawford qualifies as a career offender under U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1.
[7] In 1990, Crawford pled guilty to violating California Health and Safety Code § 11352(a), which provides: “[E]very person who transports, imports into this state, sells, furnishes, administers, or give[s] away . . . any controlled substance 3210 UNITED STATES v. CRAWFORD specified in [the statute] . . . shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for three, four, or five years.” To document the conviction, the government provided the felony complaint charging the § 11352(a) violation, the information, the plea form, the abstract of judgment, and the state court’s minute orders entering a judgment of conviction. On the plea form, Crawford provided a hand-written factual basis for his plea, which stated: “On 6/21/90 in Orange County I sold a useable quantity of cocaine, knowing it was cocaine. On 7/ 13/90 in Orange County, I transported cocaine knowing it was cocaine. The quantity on 6/21/90 was 14.45 gms. The quantity on 7/13/90 was 180 grams.” He signed and dated the form. [8] In analyzing whether a prior conviction qualifies as a prior predicate controlled substance offense for purposes of U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1, the sentencing court must first use the categorical approach. United States v. Kovac, 367 F.3d 1116, 1119 (9th Cir. 2004) (citing Taylor v. United States, 495 U.S. 575 (1990)). Under this approach, the sentencing court must look only to the statute of conviction. Id. If the statute is facially over-inclusive, the court employs the modified categorical approach. Id. The government concedes that the California statute is too broad to qualify under the categorical approach because the Health and Safety Code covers such a wide range of possible behavior. See id. at 1119-20 (applying modified categorical approach to question of whether Cal. Health and Safety Code § 11352 violation qualifies as a career-offender predicate offense). Under the modified categorical approach, the prior offense may qualify as a career offender predicate offense if “ ‘documentation or judicially noticeable facts . . . clearly establish that the conviction is a predicate conviction for enhancement purposes.’ ” United States v. Corona-Sanchez, 291 F.3d 1201, 1211 (9th Cir. 2002) (en banc) (quoting United States v. Rivera-Sanchez, 247 F.3d 905, 908 (9th Cir. 2001) (en banc), superseded by statute on other grounds as noted in United States v. Vidal, 426 F.3d 1011, 1014-15 (9th Cir. 2005). “The UNITED STATES v. CRAWFORD 3211 government has the burden to establish clearly and unequivocally that the conviction was based on all of the elements of a qualifying predicate offense.” Kovac, 367 F.3d at 1119. Where the prior conviction was based on a guilty plea, the sentencing court’s review is limited “to those documents ‘made or used in adjudicating guilt’ such as ‘the terms of the charging document, the terms of a plea agreement or [the] transcript of [the] colloquy between judge and defendant in which the factual basis for the plea was confirmed by the defendant, or to some comparable judicial record of this information.’ ” United States v. Martinez-Martinez, 468 F.3d 604, 606-07 (9th Cir. 2006) (alterations in original) (quoting Shepard v. United States, 544 U.S. 13, 20, 26, (2005)); see also United States v. Narvaez-Gomez, 489 F.3d 970, 977 (9th Cir. 2007). The district court concluded that the 1990 California conviction meets the requirements for the career offender enhancement under the modified categorical approach. Crawford argues that the documentation was insufficient to establish the elements of the California offense because certain parts of the plea documents were illegible, because the government relied on the abstract of judgment, and because the plea agreement itself was not signed by a judge. The district court considered and rejected each of these arguments. None of the arguments is persuasive on appeal. [9] The 1990 California conviction meets the requirements for the modified categorical approach. In his plea, Crawford clearly admitted that he knowingly sold and transported cocaine. Selling cocaine falls within the definition of a controlled substance offense, even though the statutory definition of the California offense is broader. U.S.S.G. § 4B1.2(b). Crawford does not contest either the accuracy of the plea form or his statement contained on the form. The district court found that the plea form was signed by Crawford, his attorney, and the prosecuting attorney, and that nothing more was required. The district court therefore relied in part on the facts 3212 UNITED STATES v. CRAWFORD admitted to in the plea in finding that the underlying elements of the § 11352 offense were established. Although Crawford disputes whether the abstract of judgment and the minute order are acceptable documentation, we need not comment on that argument. The plea, in conjunction with the charging documents, is sufficient to show that the California conviction was for a qualifying predicate drug offense and that the elements of the offense were satisfied. Corona-Sanchez, 291 F.3d at 1211.
[10] In 2001, Crawford pled guilty to conspiracy to deliver a controlled substance (crack cocaine) in violation of the Washington Revised Code § 69.50.407, which provides: “Any person who attempts or conspires to commit any offense defined in this chapter is punishable by imprisonment or fine or both which may not exceed the maximum punishment prescribed for the offense, the commission of which was the object of the attempt or conspiracy.” The government provided the district court with the amended information, Crawford’s plea agreement, several law enforcement affidavits supporting the plea agreement, and the state court’s judgment of conviction and sentence. The amended information charged Crawford with: Conspiracy to deliver a controlled substance, committed as follows, that the defendant, Antonio Feliciano Crawford, in the State of Washington, on or about May 27, 1997, did knowingly and unlawfully conspire with at least one person other than the intended recipient to deliver a controlled substance, to-wit: crack cocaine, proscribed by RCW 69.50.407 [conspiracy] and 69.50.401(a) [controlled substance statute]. Crawford’s plea agreement, in a hand-written note, reflects that the elements of the crime are adopted “as in amended UNITED STATES v. CRAWFORD 3213 info.” The plea agreement was signed by Crawford, defense counsel, the prosecuting attorney, and the state court judge. The state court entered a judgment of conviction and sentenced Crawford to 26 days’ imprisonment. [11] Under the Sentencing Guidelines, a predicate offense can qualify a defendant for career offender status if it is a “felony conviction[ ]” of “either a crime of violence or a controlled substance offense,” U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1(a), where a “controlled substance offense” is “an offense under federal or state law, punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year, that prohibits the manufacture, import, export, distribution, or dispensing of a controlled substance . . . or the possession of a controlled substance . . . with intent to manufacture, import, export, distribute, or dispense,” id. § 4B1.2(b). The underlying controlled substance statute provides that “it is unlawful for any person to manufacture, deliver, or possess with intent to manufacture or deliver a controlled substance.” Wash. Rev. Code § 69.50.401(1) (2005). The statute also provides that “[a]ny person who violates this section with respect to (a) A controlled substance classified in Schedule I or II which is a narcotic drug . . . is guilty of a class B felony and upon conviction may be imprisoned for not more than ten years . . .” Id. § 69.50.401(2)(a) (2005). [12] The district court concluded that the 2001 Washington conviction qualifies as a predicate offense because the maximum term for the crime was imprisonment for ten years based on the controlled substances statute. Crawford concedes that “[t]he conspiracy statute states that the maximum punishment may not exceed the maximum for the object of the conspiracy, in this case a Class B felony with a 10 year maximum.” To avoid the application of that ten-year maximum, Crawford cites Wash. Rev. Code § 9.94A.120(6) (re-codified in 2001 as Wash. Rev. Code § 9.94A.505(2)(b)), and argues that under Washington’s Sentencing Reform Act, conspiracy is an “un3214 UNITED STATES v. CRAWFORD ranked” offense and, thus, the maximum sentence available is twelve months. [13] We rejected an almost identical argument in United States v. Murillo, 422 F.3d 1152 (9th Cir. 2005). In Murillo, we considered whether, for purposes of determining “whether a Washington state criminal conviction is of a crime punishable by a term exceeding one year for purposes of prosecution under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) (felon in possession of a firearm),” the “maximum sentence for [a] prior conviction is defined by the state criminal statute, [or] the maximum sentence in the particular case set by Washington’s sentencing guidelines.” Id. at 1153. We held that the maximum sentence that makes a prior conviction under state law a predicate offense under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) remains, after Blakely, the potential maximum sentence defined by the applicable state criminal statute, not the maximum sentence which could have been imposed against the particular defendant for his commission of that crime according to the state’s sentencing guidelines. Id. at 1155 (emphases added). We explicitly rejected the idea that Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 471 (2000), or Blakely affected this definition of a predicate conviction: Blakely did not change the definition of what constitutes a maximum sentence under state law for pur- poses of prosecution under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). ... .... . . . Murillo’s argument has nothing to do with Apprendi or Blakely. While Apprendi, and corre- spondingly Blakely, involved the “maximum sen- tence” a judge may impose based on the jury’s UNITED STATES v. CRAWFORD 3215 verdict or the defendant’s admissions, Murillo attempts to extend Apprendi and Blakely to modify a crime’s potential punishment . . . . Murillo, 422 F.3d at 1154-55. Thus, Crawford’s argument is foreclosed by Murillo. The 2001 Washington conviction qualifies as a predicate drug offense, and the district court did not err in relying on that offense in determining that Crawford was a career criminal. AFFIRMED.