Court Opinion

ID: 2964629
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2015-09-21 21:28:34.968884+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:01:56.105994
License: Public Domain

USCA1 Opinion

	

                              _________________________
          No. 95-1908
                              UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
                                      Appellee,
                                         v.
                                   CEFERINO CRUZ,
                                Defendant, Appellant.
                             __________________________
                    APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
                          FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS
                   [Hon. Richard G. Stearns, U.S. District Judge]
                             __________________________
                                       Before
                             Selya, Acting Chief Judge,*
                            Bownes, Senior Circuit Judge,
                              Boudin, Stahl and Lynch,
                                   Circuit Judges.
                             __________________________
               Diana 
                     L. 
                        Maldonado, Federal Defender Office, on brief for
          appellant.
               Donald 
                      K. 
                         Stern, United States Attorney, Carole 
                                                               S. 
                                                                   Schwartz
          and Kevin P. McGrath, Assistant United States Attorneys, on brief
          for appellee.
                             __________________________
                                    July 28, 1997
                             __________________________
                                   OPINION EN BANC
                             __________________________
          __________________________

          *Chief Judge Torruella did not participate in this proceeding. 

                    SELYA, Acting  
                                   Chief  
                                         Judge. This appeal involves a
          solitary issue: the propriety  vel non of the sentencing court's
          decision to enhance the defendant's offense level (and, therefore,
          increase the ensuing sentence) by reason of what the court deemed
          to be the defendant's aggravating role in the offense of
          conviction.  See USSG S3B1.1(c).
                    The appeal was originally argued to a panel of this
          court. On April 30, 1997, the panel, by a two-to-one vote,
          determined that the sentencing court had committed clear error in
          its application of the role-in-the-offense guideline. Because
          role-in-the-offense determinations are a frequent source of
          appellate litigation, and because the panel decision seemed out of
          line with our customary approach to such determinations (and,
          therefore, likely to create confusion in future cases), we elected
          to reconsider the matter en banc. To that end, we withdrew the
          panel opinion and solicited supplemental briefs from the parties.
          We now uphold the district court's application of the USSG
          S3B1.1(c).
                    We cull the facts from the plea colloquy, the presentence
          investigation report (PSI Report), and the transcript of the
          sentencing hearing.  See United States v. Tejada-Beltran, 50 F.3d
          105, 107 (1st Cir. 1995); United States v. Dietz, 950 F.2d 50, 51
          (1st Cir. 1991). In conducting this tamisage, we are mindful that
          a sentencing court may consider facts contained in the PSI Report
          as reliable evidence.  See United 
                                            States v. Morillo, 8 F.3d 864,
          872 (1st Cir. 1993). Moreover, for sentencing purposes the court
                                          3

          may rely upon evidence adduced at a coconspirator's trial as long
          as the defendant receives notice prior to its use and has the
          opportunity to challenge its reliability.   See United 
                                                                 States v.
          McCarthy, 961 F.2d 972, 979 (1st Cir. 1992);    United 
                                                                 States v.
          Berzon, 941 F.2d 8, 19 (1st Cir. 1991). Of course, this court may
          also consider facts which have been established by these methods.
                    On July 28, 1994, the defendant, Ceferino Cruz, greeted
          Pam Mersky, an undercover Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)
          agent, as she entered La Tambora, a restaurant in Lawrence,
          Massachusetts, which Cruz owned and operated. The defendant had
          met Mersky one week earlier when he sold her 30.7 grams of crack
          cocaine and a handgun.   Alejandro Vega, later indicted as a
          coconspirator, approached Mersky inside the restaurant. Mersky
          told him that she wanted to buy crack cocaine. Vega initially
          feigned ignorance, but Mersky persisted. When she stated that the
          defendant previously had supplied her with crack, Vega engaged the
          defendant in a private conversation and thereafter told Mersky to
          come back in 45 minutes.
                    Mersky returned to La Tambora to find Vega, but not the
          defendant, present. A few minutes later Jeanette Marquez joined
                              
               Here, as the panel acknowledged, the PSI Report furnished the
          defendant the advance notice that our case law requires. At any
          rate, the facts which are critical to a proper resolution of this
          appeal derive directly from the PSI Report and the proceedings in
          which this defendant was personally involved.
               This purchase took place at La Tambora, as did several earlier
          purchases of drugs, firearms, and ammunition effectuated by a
          confidential DEA informant.
                                          4

          them. Vega introduced Marquez as the defendant's girlfriend.
          Marquez (who was 14 years old and pregnant) wore a necklace
          showcasing the defendant's first name. Marquez delivered the crack
          cocaine to Mersky, and Mersky paid Vega for it. She then told Vega
          that she wanted to purchase a gun. Vega replied that "he" didn't
          realize that Mersky wanted a gun, too. In context, a factfinder
          reasonably could believe that the pronoun "he" referred to Cruz.
          In any event, Vega promised to contact Mersky after making further
          inquiries.
                    Later that afternoon Vega told Mersky that he would sell
          her a gun. Mersky met Vega a few blocks away from the restaurant
          and they walked to La Tambora together. Once inside, Vega
          conversed privately with the defendant and thereafter handed Mersky
          a bag containing a gun. The gun was frigid, suggesting that it had
          just been removed from a freezer or other cold storage.
                    Two subsequent events complete the picture. On August 3,
          Vega consulted the defendant before providing Mersky with bullets.
          On August 16, after Mersky expressed an interest in acquiring more
          crack and more firepower, Vega stated that guns were available
          immediately but that the crack had to be delivered. The pair
          strolled to La Tambora. Vega told Mersky to go behind the food
          counter. Marquez hailed the defendant. He appeared, saw Vega and
          Mersky, together, walked away without engaging in any conversation,
          and returned moments later with a bag containing two guns. The
          defendant handed the bag to Vega who, in turn, handed it to Mersky.
          She then inspected both weapons and purchased one of them.
                                          5

                    Mersky and Vega then waited for the crack. When the
          courier (Sixto Garcia) arrived, he nodded to them, but met
          privately with Cruz. Mersky and Vega walked behind the food
          counter; Garcia handed Cruz a plastic bag containing the crack
          cocaine; Cruz gave the bag to Mersky; and Mersky, in turn, paid
          Vega for it.
                    Cruz was indicted and convicted on charges of conspiracy
          to possess cocaine base (i.e., crack cocaine) with intent to
          distribute, see 21 U.S.C. S 846, and conspiracy to sell firearms
          illegally, see 18 U.S.C. S 922(a)(1)(A). The drug offense drove
          the sentencing calculus. The PSI Report urged, inter alia, a two-
          level upward adjustment for the defendant's leadership role.  See
          USSG S3B1.1(c). In calculating the guideline sentencing range
          (GSR), the district court accepted this suggestion (overriding the
          prosecutor's contrary recommendation) and increased the defendant's
          offense level accordingly. This adjustment, together with other
          computations (none of which is challenged here), yielded a GSR of
          135 to 168 months. The lower court then imposed an incarcerative
          sentence of 165 months. It is undisputed that, absent the role-in-
          the-offense adjustment, the GSR (and presumably the sentence) would
          have been less onerous.
                    The determination of an individual's role in committing
          an offense is necessarily fact-specific.    See United 
                                                                 States v.
          Graciani, 61 F.3d 70, 75 (1st Cir. 1995). Accordingly, appellate
                              
               Under the applicable grouping rules, the counts of conviction
          are treated as separate units.  See USSG S3D1.2.
                                          6

          review must be conducted with considerable deference. Absent an
          error of law 
                        and it is not seriously suggested that such an error
          infected the sentencing process in this case      the sentencing
          court's determinations are to be set aside only for clear error.
          See id.
                    Role-in-the-offense adjustments address concerns of
          relative responsibility.  See USSG S3B1.1(c), comment. (backg'd).
          In this vein, the guideline provides, among other things, that "if
          the defendant was an organizer, leader, manager, or supervisor in
          any criminal activity" involving one to three other participants,
          the offense level should be increased by two levels. USSG
          S3B1.1(c). Such an increase is justified if the sentencing court
          supportably finds that (1) the criminal enterprise involved at
          least two complicit participants (of whom the defendant may be
          counted as one), and (2) the defendant, in committing the offense,
          exercised control over, organized, or was otherwise responsible for
          superintending the activities of, at least one of those other
          persons. See 
                       Morillo, 8 F.3d at 872; 
                                               United States
                                                             v. 
                                                                Savoie, 985
          F.2d 612, 616 (1st Cir. 1993); United States v. Akitoye, 923 F.2d
          221, 227 (1st Cir. 1991). The government bears the burden of
          proving that a defendant qualifies for an upward role-in-the-
                              
               The fact that the government had agreed not to request the
          enhancement, and did not do so, does not compress the district
          court's discretion. The sentencing judge has the ultimate
          responsibility for the sentence and may decide to pursue matters in
          the teeth of an agreement by both sides to go in a different
          direction.  See United 
                                 States v.  Vaknin, 112 F.3d 579, 585 (1st
          Cir. 1997).
                                          7

          offense adjustment, and must carry that burden by a preponderance
          of the evidence.  See  United 
                                         States v. Voccola, 99 F.3d 37, 44
          (1st Cir. 1996); United 
                                  States v.  Ortiz, 966 F.2d 707, 717 (1st
          Cir. 1992).
                    In this instance, we think that the evidence, viewed as
          a whole, supports the district court's finding. The record
          suggests that Cruz was at the center of a well-organized series of
          drug and weapon sales, conducted at or through the restaurant that
          he owned and operated. The evidence also suggests that Cruz
          involved various individuals not only as facilitators but also as
          go-betweens in an effort to limit his own apparent involvement.
          This pattern is familiar in many sophisticated but illegal
          transactions.  See, e.g., United 
                                           States v. Catlett, 97 F.3d 565,
          569-70 (D.C. Cir. 1996); 
                                  United States
                                                v. 
                                                   Evans, 92 F.3d 540, 541-
          42 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 117 S. Ct. 537 (1996).
                    The district judge made a specific finding that Cruz was
          "the motivating principal in this drug distribution scheme" and
          that he was a manager vis-a-vis both Vega and Marquez. Leaving
          Vega aside, if Cruz supervised Marquez in connection with the July
          28 transaction, that incident alone would provide an adequate basis
          for the enhancement.  See  Voccola, 99 F.3d at 43-44 (explaining
          that a single directed transaction is enough to confer organizer or
          manager status); see also USSG S3B1.1, comment. (n.2). And the
          district court's finding is sustainable in that regard. After all,
          a defendant's role in the offense can be proved wholly by
          circumstantial evidence and the circumstances here adequately
                                          8

          support the inferences that the district court drew from them.
                    In particular, the court's specific determinations that
          Cruz, age 44, "provided the impetus for the crime," "supplied the
          product," and, in the bargain, exercised dominance over his 14-
          year-old paramour in regard to the July 28 transaction, while not
          unarguable, pass muster under the clearly erroneous standard. Cruz
          had been enmeshed in trafficking with Mersky earlier. He owned La
          Tambora, the locus around which the illicit activity pirouetted.
          Moreover, Cruz was probably the "he" referred to by Vega as not
          knowing that Mersky wanted a gun "too." The preponderance standard
          obtains during the sentencing phase of a criminal case and the odds
          are certainly better than even that Marquez, 14 years old and
          pregnant, was acting at someone else's direction in serving as the
          transporter in a multi-party drug transaction. We think that most
          people would say that, as between Cruz and Vega, the strong
          likelihood is that Marquez acted at the direction of her much older
          boyfriend. Surely, a reasonable trier could conclude that this
          deduction is more likely true than not. Thus, the district court's
          appraisal that Cruz oversaw Marquez meets the preponderance test
          because of its logical force and inherent probability. 
                    Despite the lessened burden of proof            "fair
          preponderance" rather than "beyond reasonable doubt"     and the
          deferential standard of review which pertain here, we recognize
                              
               Even if Vega and Cruz jointly controlled Marquez, Cruz would
          still be a manager under the guidelines. 
                                                  See USSG S3B1.1, comment.
          (n.4).
                                          9

          that whether Cruz might be deemed an organizer or manager is a
          close question. Yet it would not profit us to dwell on the
          inferences that the defendant would have us draw from the predicate
          facts. While those inferences are rational and the scenario to
          which they lead is possible, the trial judge eschewed them in favor
          of different, equally permissible inferences, leading to a
          different scenario   a scenario that depicts the defendant as a
          manager. In sentencing, as elsewhere in the law, when competing
          inferences plausibly can be drawn from a set of facts, the
          factfinder's choice between them cannot be clearly erroneous. See
          United States v. Ruiz, 905 F.2d 499, 508 (1st Cir. 1990).
                    We need go no further. In the circumstances at bar, the
          determination of the defendant's role in the offense is fact-
          specific, and the facts of record reasonably can be interpreted to
          attribute managerial status, more likely than not, to him. That
          ends the matter: close, factbound questions are grist for the
          district court's mill, not for second-guessing by appellate judges
          perusing a cold record.
                    Affirmed.
                    Bownes, Senior 
                                   Circuit 
                                           Judge. (dissenting). I dissent
          from the en banc opinion because I continue to think that the
          original panel opinion was correct.
                                         10