Opinion ID: 743614
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 10

Heading: Whether the mandatory minimum sentence Rabon received is unconstitutional

Text: 287 At Rabon's sentencing, the district court found that, under the guidelines, Rabon would be facing a range of 188 to 235 months incarceration. However, because Rabon had a prior felony narcotics conviction, the terms of 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(A) dictated a mandatory minimum of 240 months imprisonment, and the district court judge sentenced Rabon to that period of confinement. On appeal, Rabon argues that the mandatory 240 month sentence provided in § 841(b)(1)(A) constitutes cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment and violates the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment, since it does not permit the district judge to evaluat[e] matters traditionally and constitutionally geared to decrease terms of imprisonment. 288 Rabon's first contention is that the mandatory minimum sentence he received is unconstitutional because it prevents the sentencing judge from taking into account mitigating factors. The argument that a mandatory minimum sentence which prevents the sentencing judge from taking into account mitigating factors has been thoroughly considered by many appellate courts and was rejected by the Supreme Court in Harmelin v. Michigan, 501 U.S. 957, 994-95, 111 S.Ct. 2680, 2701-02, 115 L.Ed.2d 836 (1991), and we will not dwell further on it here. 289 Rabon's second argument, that a mandatory minimum sentence serves no rational deterrent purpose, and therefore violates due process, has likewise been rejected by the Supreme Court. See Chapman v. United States, 500 U.S. 453, 464-68, 111 S.Ct. 1919, 1927-29, 114 L.Ed.2d 524 (1991); United States v. Velasco, 953 F.2d 1467, 1476 (7th Cir.1992). Thus, Rabon's arguments are without merit. 290 XI. Whether the district court's refusal to permit Rosa to collaterally challenge a prior conviction used to enhance his sentence was proper 291 Rosa was convicted of possession with intent to distribute cocaine, attempted possession with intent to distribute cocaine, and conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine. Based on the fact that Rosa had two prior state felony drug offense convictions, his sentence was enhanced from the roughly fourteen-year sentence he would have received, to a term of mandatory life imprisonment pursuant to 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(A). 21 Rosa sought to collaterally attack one of those state court convictions, specifically a guilty plea entered in 1985 to a state charge relating to cocaine possession, on the ground that he had received inadequate representation of counsel when entering his guilty plea. The government argued in response that, since the conviction Rosa sought to challenge dated from 1985, and was therefore more than five years old, he was precluded from challenging the validity of the prior conviction under the terms of 21 U.S.C. § 851(e), which provides a five-year statute of limitations for collateral attacks of prior convictions. 22 The trial court agreed with the government's reasoning and argument, and also rejected Rosa's claim that the five-year statute of limitations was unconstitutional. On appeal, Rosa reiterates his argument that the five-year statute of limitations is unconstitutional. He argues that the application of a five-year statute of limitations prevents him from collaterally challenging the validity of his prior state court conviction and therefore violates his right to due process. 292 Rosa is faced, however, with the task of distinguishing the Supreme Court's decision in Custis v. United States, 511 U.S. 485, 114 S.Ct. 1732, 128 L.Ed.2d 517 (1994), which holds (admittedly with respect to a different statute) that there is no due process right to challenge the validity of a conviction used to support sentencing enhancements based on an allegation that the defendant received ineffective assistance of counsel when previously convicted, though such a right does exist in those circumstances where the defendant did not receive any counsel whatsoever. 511 U.S. at 496, 114 S.Ct. at 1738. 23 Further, in United States v. Arango-Montoya, 61 F.3d 1331 (7th Cir.1995), we recently applied Custis and held (in addressing the same argument presented by Rosa) that the statute of limitations in § 851(e) is not constitutionally infirm in precluding collateral challenges to convictions used for sentence enhancement purposes. In Arango-Montoya, we stated that notwithstanding any right to a collateral attack of a prior sentence guaranteed by Federal statute or the United States Sentencing Guidelines, a prior conviction may be collaterally attacked at sentencing only where the defendant claims that he was [wholly] deprived of counsel.... 61 F.3d at 1336. 293 Rosa has attempted to distinguish Arango-Montoya on the basis that the degree of enhancement in his case (14 years to life) is greater than the enhancement in that case (from 63-78 months to 120 months), but he has not persuaded us that the degree of enhancement makes a difference. Rosa bases his argument seeking to distinguish Arango-Montoya principally on United States v. Trujillo, 959 F.2d 1377 (7th Cir.1992). He argues that Trujillo recognized the possibility that, where the quantity of drugs attributed to the defendant at sentencing causes such an increase in the defendant's sentence that the quantity becomes the tail which wags the dog of the substantive offense, 959 F.2d at 1381 (quoting McMillan v. Pennsylvania, 477 U.S. 79, 85, 106 S.Ct. 2411, 2416, 91 L.Ed.2d 67 (1986)), a higher standard of proof could be required to attribute those drugs to the defendant for sentencing purposes. Trujillo, however, was a pre-Custis case, which dealt with quantities of narcotics attributed for sentencing purposes, not collateral challenges to prior convictions. Rosa points to nothing in Custis which suggests an exception to its bar on collateral challenges of prior convictions where the prior conviction leads to a significant increase, and we decline to read an exception in where the Supreme Court did not provide for such exception. Thus, as we have already rejected in Arango-Montoya the argument made by Rosa that the statute of limitations in § 851(e) is unconstitutional, and because Rosa has failed to offer a persuasive reason why we should treat the question differently simply on account of the degree of enhancement he received in this case, we reject his attempt to distinguish the Custis and Arango-Montoya cases. Therefore, we conclude that his due process rights were not violated by the imposition of the five-year statute of limitations in § 851(e).