Court Opinion

ID: 9392112
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-05-04 14:01:03.338968+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:18:44.403567
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 20-12147    Document: 98-1     Date Filed: 05/04/2023   Page: 1 of 9

                                                  [DO NOT PUBLISH]
                                   In the
                United States Court of Appeals
                        For the Eleventh Circuit

                          ____________________

                                No. 20-12147
                          Non-Argument Calendar
                          ____________________

       UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
                                                      Plaintiﬀ-Appellee,
       versus
       HARRINGTON CAMPBELL,

                                                  Defendant-Appellant.

                          ____________________

                 Appeal from the United States District Court
                     for the Southern District of Florida
                    D.C. Docket No. 1:19-cr-20399-UU-3
                          ____________________
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       2                      Opinion of the Court                  20-12147

       Before WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge, and WILSON and LUCK, Cir-
       cuit Judges.
       PER CURIAM:
              Harrington Campbell appeals his conviction and sentence
       for reentering the United States illegally, 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a), (b)(2).
       Campbell argues, for the first time, that his statute of conviction is
       unconstitutional. He also argues that the district court erred by
       denying his motion for a judgment of acquittal based on the lack of
       evidence of his intent to enter the United States and that the district
       court erred by imposing a written, but not orally pronounced, spe-
       cial condition of supervised release. We affirm.
              A grand jury indicted Campbell with illegal reentry of a re-
       moved alien, id., after he was found within the special maritime
       and territorial jurisdiction of the United States and having been re-
       moved or deported a year earlier.
              At trial, the parties stipulated that Campbell was deported
       or removed from the United States on June 28, 2018. The govern-
       ment presented testimony from Trey Zinke, a marine interdiction
       agent with Customs and Border Protection. Zinke testified that, on
       June 9, 2019, he was aboard the vessel that interdicted the boat on
       which Campbell was aboard 11.7 nautical miles from the United
       States and within its jurisdiction. The interdicted boat was “riding
       very heavy in the water” and “there was a lot of weight in the bow
       of the boat.” Several people were in the cabin of the boat, and they
       appeared to be deflated, scared, and upset based on their facial
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       20-12147               Opinion of the Court                         3

       expressions and body language. The interdicted boat had a func-
       tioning radio and compass.
               Special Agent Douglas Doherty with the Department of
       Homeland Security testified that he interviewed Campbell the next
       day. Campbell told him that “Marvin Johnson was responsible for
       smuggling [him] into the United States” and that he had infor-
       mation about another boat interdicted six weeks earlier. Campbell
       was arrogant and refused to answer any clarifying questions about
       Johnson unless he was provided with assistance for his “immigra-
       tion problems.” Campbell did not mention the boat taking on wa-
       ter or that he thought that he was going to Freeport, Bahamas, in-
       stead of the United States. A records and information specialist for
       the Department testified that, as of June 9, 2019, Campbell did not
       have permission to enter the United States.
               The government played a recorded deposition of Gloria Be-
       navides, one of Campbell’s codefendants who had since been re-
       moved. Benavides was a citizen of Colombia who had lived in the
       United States for about 12 years but had been unable to obtain law-
       ful status. In 2019, she traveled to the Bahamas after hearing that it
       was easier to get to the United States from there. Because she did
       not have permission to enter the United States, she paid a man
       $4,000 to smuggle her. After arriving in Bimini, she was brought to
       a house where she saw a group of people and a man later identified
       as codefendant Kenneth Rogers. She and the group boarded a small
       boat, and she recognized Campbell as being one of the passengers.
       After a short boat ride, the group from the small boat boarded a
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       4                     Opinion of the Court                20-12147

       larger boat “quickly.” She did not notice any mechanical issues on
       the small boat, nor was it taking on water, sinking, or running out
       of fuel. Benavides recognized the captain of the larger boat as the
       same man, Rogers, whom she had seen at the house in Bimini.
             Campbell moved for a judgment of acquittal and argued that
       the government failed to prove that he intended to reenter the
       United States. The district court denied the motion.
              Campbell testified in his own defense. He was born in Ja-
       maica and entered the United States in 1982 but was removed in
       June 2018. Six months later, he traveled from Jamaica to the Baha-
       mas where he worked for another six months. In June 2019, he in-
       tended to travel by boat from Ocean Key, Bahamas, to Freeport,
       Bahamas, as arranged by Johnson. After he boarded the small boat
       with other passengers, the boat left the dock, and they rode for
       about one hour until “something started going on.” The boat
       started idling, and the water became choppy and started entering
       the boat. Water came into the boat for over an hour. He saw a
       larger boat traveling toward them, which the group then boarded.
       Donald Pinnock, another passenger and one of Campbell’s code-
       fendants, tried to stop him from boarding the larger boat. But Pin-
       nock spoke with the captain, Rogers, and obtained a handgun,
       which he used to hold Campbell at gunpoint “for the Bahamian
       police.” Pinnock held him at gunpoint for the entire trip until the
       Coast Guard approached.
            On cross-examination, Campbell stated that he never paid
       any money because it was his “friend” Johnson who arranged the
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       20-12147               Opinion of the Court                         5

       trip to Freeport for him as a favor. After Campbell and the other
       passengers boarded the larger boat, the driver of the small boat
       stayed and tried to repair the small boat with tools that Rogers had
       supplied him. Campbell did not report to the Coast Guard that Pin-
       nock had been holding a gun to his head for the entire trip because
       he “never had an interaction with the officers” and “there was a lot
       of tension.” After he was taken to land, he waived his rights in writ-
       ing and spoke to the agents, but he did not tell them about Pinnock
       holding a gun to his head or about the small boat taking on water.
       Campbell denied telling agents that Johnson was responsible for
       smuggling him into the United States.
            The district court denied Campbell’s renewed motion for a
       judgment of acquittal. The jury returned a verdict of guilty.
               Campbell’s presentence investigation report provided that,
       with a total offense level of 18 and a criminal history category of
       III, his advisory guideline range was 33 to 41 months of imprison-
       ment. In “Part F,” the report recommended two special conditions
       of supervised release titled, “Surrendering to Immigration for Re-
       moval After Imprisonment” and “Unpaid Restitution, Fines, or
       Special Assessments.” The “Surrendering to Immigration” provi-
       sion stated that Campbell must surrender to immigration officials
       after completing his term of imprisonment and that, if he is re-
       moved and “reenters the United States within the term of super-
       vised release, [he] is to report to the nearest U.S. Probation Office
       within 72 hours of [his] arrival.”
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       6                      Opinion of the Court                 20-12147

               The district court sentenced Campbell to 41 months of im-
       prisonment followed by three years of supervised release. The dis-
       trict court stated that Campbell must comply with the mandatory
       and standard conditions of supervised release and with the special
       conditions of “[s]urrendering to Immigration for removal after im-
       prisonment . . . as noted in Part F of the presentence investigation
       report.” Campbell did not object.
              In the written judgment of the district court, the “Special
       Conditions of Supervision” section copied verbatim the “Surren-
       dering to Immigration for Removal After Imprisonment” section
       of Part F of the report, except that the written judgment required
       him to receive the prior written permission of the Undersecretary
       for Border and Transportation Security instead of the Secretary of
       Homeland Security.
              Campbell argues that section 1326 violates the Equal Protec-
       tion Clause of the Fifth Amendment. But as he concedes, he failed
       to raise that argument in the district court, so we review the issue
       for plain error only. United States v. Wright, 607 F.3d 708, 715 (11th
       Cir. 2010).
              The district court did not plainly err. We have held that
       “[t]he absence of a decision by either [the Supreme Court or this]
       Court rules out a holding that the asserted error was ‘plain’ because
       there can be no plain error where there is no precedent from the
       Supreme Court or this Court directly resolving it.” United States v.
       Bolatete, 977 F.3d 1022, 1036 (11th Cir. 2020) (quotation marks
       omitted). Neither the Supreme Court nor this Circuit has ruled that
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       20-12147                Opinion of the Court                          7

       section 1326 violates the Equal Protection Clause, so Campbell
       cannot establish any plain error. See id.; Wright, 607 F.3d at 715.
              Campbell argues that the district court erred by denying his
       motion for a judgment of acquittal because the government failed
       to present sufficient evidence of his knowledge or intent to enter
       the United States. We review the denial of a motion for judgment
       of acquittal de novo. United States v. Maurya, 25 F.4th 829, 841 (11th
       Cir. 2022). We review the sufficiency of the evidence de novo, view-
       ing the evidence in the light most favorable to the government and
       drawing all reasonable inferences and credibility choices in favor of
       the jury’s verdict. United States v. Ignasiak, 667 F.3d 1217, 1227 (11th
       Cir. 2012). Under section 1326(a), the government must prove that
       the defendant “(1) was an alien at the time of the offense; (2) who
       had previously been removed or deported; (3) and had reentered
       the United States after removal; (4) without having received the ex-
       press consent of the Attorney General.” United States v. Val-
       diviez-Garza, 669 F.3d 1199, 1201 (11th Cir. 2012). Because specific
       intent is not an element of the offense, the government may prove
       the defendant’s general intent by showing that he took a voluntary
       act by reentering the United States. See United States v. Henry, 111
       F.3d 111, 113–14 (11th Cir. 1997).
              The district court did not err by denying Campbell’s motion
       for a judgment of acquittal because there was sufficient evidence
       that he intended to reenter the United States. Agent Doherty testi-
       fied that Campbell told him that Johnson was responsible for smug-
       gling him into the United States and referenced wanting help with
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       8                      Opinion of the Court                20-12147

       his “immigration problems.” Although Campbell denied making
       the statement, the jury was entitled to believe Agent Doherty’s tes-
       timony. See Ignasiak, 667 F.3d at 1227. Benavides stated in her dep-
       osition that she boarded the same small boat with Campbell and
       was transferred to the larger boat with him and a group of passen-
       gers after paying $4,000 to be smuggled into the United States. Be-
       navides’s testimony that she noticed no mechanical issues and that
       the small boat was not taking on water, sinking, or running out of
       fuel contradicted Campbell’s testimony that the small boat was
       idling in choppy water and taking on water for over an hour. See
       id. Campbell testified that he was held at gunpoint on the larger
       boat for several hours but acknowledged that he did not mention
       this duress until his trial. By testifying in his defense that he was
       effectively kidnapped by Pinnock and Rogers after being rescued
       from a boat that another passenger testified was never in trouble,
       Campbell ran the risk that the jury would disbelieve him and infer
       that the opposite of his testimony was true. See United States v.
       Brown, 53 F.3d 312, 314 (11th Cir. 1995) (“[A] statement by a de-
       fendant, if disbelieved by the jury, may be considered as substantive
       evidence of the defendant’s guilt.”).
              Campbell contends that the district court erred by imposing,
       without orally pronouncing, a special condition of supervised re-
       lease that requires him to report to probation within 72 hours of
       any post-removal reentry to the United States within his term of
       supervised release. But the oral pronouncement tracked the two
       headings in Part F of the presentence investigation report. The re-
       quirement that Campbell report to probation upon reentering the
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       20-12147               Opinion of the Court                        9

       United States was part of the “Surrendering to Immigration” con-
       dition, with which the district court stated he must comply “as
       noted in Part F of the presentence investigation report.”
              Insofar as Campbell challenges the special condition itself,
       we disagree that the condition is “more burdensome than neces-
       sary.” The condition reasonably relates to the statutory sentencing
       factors, 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), of deterring future criminal conduct
       and protecting the public, following Campbell’s prior conviction of
       a serious narcotics offense. See United States v. Carpenter, 803 F.3d
       1224, 1237–38 (11th Cir. 2015). And he fails to develop his argument
       that the condition deprives him of more liberty than is necessary
       and does not argue that the condition is inconsistent with relevant
       policy statements issued by the Sentencing Commission. See id. at
       1238; United States v. Campbell, 26 F.4th 860, 873 (11th Cir. 2022).
             We AFFIRM Campbell’s conviction and sentence.