Court Opinion

ID: 9490122
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:33:30.015756+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:54.517042
License: Public Domain

ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
This case is first and foremost about procedural fairness. The question before us is not whether Beltran was entitled to an offense level reduction for being a minimal or minor participant in the cocaine sale, or whether the district judge committed clear error in denying him that reduction.1 It is instead whether Beltran had the right to a reasonable opportunity to review and contest evidence that the district court found “highly relevant” to its decision to deny Beltran the reduction.
I agree wholeheartedly with my colleagues that the district court should have given Mr. Beltran the opportunity to contest the FBI 302, including, at the very least, the opportunity to review that report with his attorney. Ante at 369. That 302 suggested that Beltran’s participation in cocaine trafficking was not limited to the single occasion charged in the indictment. Indeed, one may reasonably infer from the witness statement summarized in the 302 that Beltran had frequent covert discussions with the seller of the cocaine, Marcelino Salgado, and repeatedly assisted him with sales of cocaine at the Beltran residence. Thus, the 302 indicated not only that Beltran participated in narcotics trafficking on a regular basis, but that he played a much more knowledgeable and responsible role in that trafficking than the facts underlying the offense of his conviction may have revealed. Not incidentally, the report also minimizes Mayra Beltran’s own involvement in this activity, making it appear that she was much more of an innocent bystander than her brother.2 Given the extent to which it undercut Beltran’s claim of having played only a transient and incidental role in the distribution of cocaine, the 302 not surprisingly was the centerpiece of the government’s opposition to granting Beltran a reduction for being a minimal or minor participant in the offense. Yet, having had *373virtually no opportunity to discuss the report with his ehent, let alone investigate the veracity of Mayra Beltran’s statement, Beltran’s counsel could do nothing to lift the damper that the report placed on the request for a section 3B1.2 reduction.
My colleagues appear to fault Beltran’s counsel for not seeking a continuance (ante at 368, 370), but the district court could not possibly have labored under any misimpression as to his need for additional time to respond to the 302. Indeed, the sentencing hearing opened with the government’s motion for a continuance in order to complete the record as to Beltran’s role in the offense, and Beltran’s attorney expressly joined in that request:
I have no objection to Mr. Stephens’[] motion on behalf of the prosecution to have an extension of time. I feel that the matter should — this is a fact-laden[ ] case. It should be fully developed.
Sentencing Tr. 4. When the district judge said that she was not convinced that there were any material factual disputes that would necessitate a continuance, Beltran’s counsel added:
Okay. And I did want to say, too, Judge, that I received at twenty minutes before 2:00 today a 7-page fax from Mr. Stephens relating to things he might want to develop at the hearing today. And I have not had a chance to explore them with my client or the witnesses. And perhaps that won’t be necessary, Judge. I just want to let you know about it.
Id. Later in the hearing, when the parties and the court turned their attention to the contents of the 302, Beltran’s counsel in unequivocal terms made clear that he could not respond to the report:
MR. LEFKOW: First of all, Judge, I would like to object to the use of it because it was not presented to me before today and I have not had a chance to consult my client about it or to get his interpretation.
THE COURT: Wasn’t it given to you with 2.04 materials?3
MR. LEFKOW: No, Judge. I have never seen this before. That’s why I think it is unfair to use it against my client today because I’m really not prepared, other than sort of off-the-cuff remarks and without even consulting my client to discuss this in an intelligent way with you that would be helpful to the Court.
Sentencing Tr. 20-21. Finally, after the court had ruled on the 3B1.2 question and sentenced Beltran, Mr. Lefkow again made clear that he had not had an adequate opportunity to investigate and respond to the 302.
MR. LEFKOW: One thing further for me, Judge. Much earlier in the sentencing hearing Mr. Stephens used a memorandum that I have not seen before I walked into the courtroom today. I objected to its use and I would like its use be stricken from the record.
THE COURT: Are you talking about the 302?
MR. LEFKOW: I think it was a 302.
THE COURT: Well, it has been read into the record.
MR. LEFKOW: I understand, I just want my objection to be noted.
He also—
THE COURT: That objection is overruled in terms of what was in the 302. I asked him to read it into the record. He was just going to hand it up to me but I thought it was important to make the basis for his position about the nature of the defendant’s participation of record. And I found that information was highly relevant. So the objection is overruled.
Sentencing Tr. 47. I do not see what more Beltran’s counsel possibly could have done under these circumstances. Invoking the magic word “continuance” was hardly necessary, for it could not have been more clear to the court that he needed more time to review and investigate the 302. Both the government and the defense had from the start urged the court to continue the hearing to a later date, and from virtually the first moment of the hearing until the last, Beltran’s *374counsel reminded the court that he was unprepared to address the belatedly produced 302.
Nor do I think we can say with any confidence that the district court placed no reliance on the 302; in several respects the record actually suggests the opposite. It is true enough, as my colleagues point out, that when the district court denied the mitigating role deduction to Beltran, it purported to rely solely on the facts and circumstances surrounding “the specific transaction that is involved in this case.” Sentencing Tr. 28-29. Standing alone, the court’s reference to the single transaction underlying the charges in the indictment tends to indicate that it placed no reliance on the contents of the 302, which went beyond that one transaction. Yet, when one looks at the whole of the court’s remarks, it is far from clear that the court disregarded the 302. The easiest thing for the court to have done, of course, was to have explicitly said that it placed no reliance on that evidence. In my experience, district judges often do just this in the face of last-minute disputes over evidence that they find is unnecessary to their sentencing determinations. The judge here did not do this, notwithstanding the parties’ joint belief that they would need more time to address the issues raised by the 302 and notwithstanding Beltran’s repeated objections to discussion of the 302. Indeed, even after the judge had delivered her decision, and Beltran’s counsel renewed his objection to the 302 and asked that “its use be stricken from the record” (Sentencing Tr. 47), the district judge overruled the objection, noting that she had “found that information [to be] highly relevant.” Id. That response quite clearly suggests that the court did consider the contents of the 302.4 And when defense counsel sought to clarify that point, he received only an ambiguous answer from the court. The court did, as my colleagues point out, admonish him not to mischaracterize its ruling, but yet again it did not disclaim reliance on the report — the court said that it “took into consideration all the facts and circumstances of the offense” (id. at 48 (emphasis supplied)), but it did not exclude the allegations in the 302 from the universe of facts and circumstances that it considered.5 At best, the court’s remarks are contradictory and ambiguous. But in my view, the judge’s unwillingness to say simply “I did not rely on it” precludes us from finding that she did not.6
Nor, finally, can I agree that the 302 was irrelevant as a matter of law, as my colleagues appear to suggest. See ante at 370-71, 372. The majority emphasizes that Beltran was charged solely with the one transaction in which he admittedly participated and reasons that “‘it makes no sense to claim that one is a minor participant in one’s own conduct.’” Ante at 370 (quoting United States v. Lampkins, 47 F.3d 175, 181 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 115 S.Ct. 1440, 131 L.Ed.2d 319, and cert. denied, - U.S. -, 115 S.Ct. 1810, 131 L.Ed.2d 734 (1995)). Yet, as my colleagues also recog*375nize, the propriety of a section 3B1.2 reduction is “heavily dependent on the facts of the ease____” Ante at 370; see United States Sentencing Commission, Guidelines Manual, § 3B1.2, comment, (backg’d) (Nov.1995). Simply because the defendant played some culpable role in the offense of conviction does not preclude a reduction under section 3B1.2; the pertinent question is his degree of culpability relative to the other individuals who participated. E.g., United States v. Soto, 48 F.3d 1415, 1423 (7th Cir.1995) (‘“A defendant’s relative degree of culpability ... is of primary consideration.’ ”) (quoting United States v. DePriest, 6 F.3d 1201, 1214 (7th Cir.1993)). One criminal transaction could have many participants — some essential to its success, others not; some fully aware of the scope of the criminal enterprise and responsible for managing its affairs, others not. In this case, at least two people other than Beltran were involved in the sale of the cocaine to the cooperating witness: Salgado and Beltran’s sister Mayra. Beltran’s claim of being the least culpable among these three is at least consistent with the facts that my brothers have recounted: although it was Beltran who reported the CW’s arrival at the Beltran home, described him to Salgado by telephone, and ultimately handed over the cocaine in exchange for the money, it was Salgado who negotiated the deal, and it was Mayra Beltran who told her brother to give the CW anything he wanted after her own telephonic conference with Salgado. See ante at 367. Make no mistake, I am not arguing that Beltran was necessarily entitled to a reduction under these circumstances, or that it would have been an abuse of discretion to deny him that reduction; I simply disagree that under no view of the facts could the district court reasonably have found him to be a minimal or a minor participant. In that regard, I view the 302 as pertinent, because if its contents are believed, then Beltran was a much more knowledgeable and intimate participant in Salgado’s drug trafficking than the facts underlying this one transaction might on their face have made him out to be. And because the record is undeniably ambiguous as to whether the district judge relied on the 302, I believe Beltran entitled to a new sentencing hearing, prior to which the district court could either deem the 302 irrelevant (as my colleagues do post hoc) or give the parties a full and fair opportunity to flesh out the record as to the assertions contained in that document.
“When a reasonable dispute exists about any factor important to the sentencing determination, the court must ensure that the parties have an adequate opportunity to present relevant information.” Guidelines Manual, § 6A1.3, comment. Necessary to such an opportunity is reasonable advancé notice of any evidence upon which the court might rely in resolving the dispute. Ante at 369; see United States v. Cantero, 995 F.2d 1407, 1413 (7th Cir.1993); United States v. Morales, 994 F.2d 386, 389 (7th Cir.1993). What is clear from the record before us is that neither party was prepared to go forward on the issue of Beltran’s role in the offense. What is also crystal clear is that the defense was entirely unprepared to address the 302, which the government had produced only moments earlier. Yet, in the face of repeated objections to the 302 on that basis, the district court not only invited the prosecutor to read the 302 into the record, but denied Beltran’s motion to strike it because the court viewed it as “highly relevant.” When the defense gave the court a final opportunity to clarify whether or not it had relied on the 302, the court, rather than disavowing consideration of the 302, merely said that it had considered “all” of the facts and circumstances surrounding the offense. If the court had either granted the motion to strike or clarified that it did not rely on the 302, this would be a different case. We cannot re-write the record before us, however. The district courts’s remarks suggest that it may well have relied on the 302 in denying Beltran a reduction under section 3B1.2 without first giving him the opportunity to review, investigate, and respond to the information therein. If so, Beltran was deprived of the rights to which the Guidelines and due process entitle him.
I therefore respectfully dissent.

. I do not address the district court's decision to deny Beltran a downward departure because Beltran is not appealing that aspect of the sentencing. See Beltran Br. 10.

. Mayra Beltran was arrested along with her brother, but on the government's motion, the complaint was dismissed as against her only. Given the favorable treatment she received, there are grounds to question Mayra Beltran's credibility in implicating her brother.

. Local Criminal Rule 2.04 directs the parties to a criminal case to meet within five days after the arraignment and, among other things, compels the government to grant the defendant’s attorney access to certain materials.

. The court's observation as to the relevance of the 302 can hardly be described as "offhand” (see ante at 370) given that it came on the heels of the court’s ruling and in response to the defendant's request that the 302 and any use of it be stricken from the record.

. The majority states that "the court noted that it had based the sentence not on the 302 but on all the facts and circumstances of the offense in the record.” Ante at 369 (emphasis supplied). I see nothing whatsoever in the district court's remarks disclaiming reliance on the 302, however. The relevant dialogue went as follows:
MR. LEFKOW: I am just trying to clarify the record, Judge, in case my client should wish to appeal, as to whether or not [the information in the 302] formed a part of the basis of your decision. I think you just told me that it was highly relevant, so apparently it did.
THE COURT: Do not mischaracterize my ruling, Mr. Lefkow. I took into consideration all the facts and circumstances of the offense. I explained in some detail what they were, including the fact that Mr. Beltran’s residence was used as a drug house for the distribution of drugs, and all the other reasons I stated.
Sentencing Tr. 47-48.

. The court's findings as to Beltran's role in the offense also suggest that the court took into account the 302. In articulating the reasons for denying Beltran a reduction, the court twice mentioned that Beltran's home had been used as a "drug house.” Sentencing Tr. 28, 48. Perhaps one could call a home that was used once as the location for a drug sale a "drug house,” but to my mind that term naturally suggests a finding that the house was used repeatedly for that purpose, and that in turn suggests that the court relied on the 302.