Court Opinion

ID: 9496046
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:16:50.062857+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:57:20.652671
License: Public Domain

B.D. PARKER, JR., Circuit Judge,
concurring in the judgment.
Because the Supreme Court’s decision in Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000), caused a substantive change in the law, I believe it must be applied retroactively on collateral review. Because I also believe that Coleman’s sentence did not violate Apprendi, I agree with the majority’s ultimate conclusion that the judgment below should be affirmed. I write separately to explain my views on the retroactivity of Apprendi.
At the outset I note that, regardless of whether Apprendi applies retroactively, Coleman cannot benefit. Based on the sentencing court’s finding, by a preponderance of the evidence, that his crime involved 52.9 grams of cocaine base, the court sentenced him principally to twenty years’ imprisonment, the mandatory minimum sentence under § 841(b)(1)(A) (in light of his prior felony drug convictions). In the absence of a finding on drug quantity, his statutory maximum sentence would have been thirty years’ imprisonment, under § 841(b)(1)(C). Because Coleman’s sentence does not exceed the otherwise applicable statutory maximum, the sentence does not violate Apprendi. See United States v. Luciano, 311 F.3d 146, 150 (2d Cir.2002) (“The touchstone of the constitutional inquiry under Apprendi is whether the sentence actually imposed, on the basis of drug quantity not found by the jury, exceeds the statutory maximum that would have applied in the absence of such a finding.”); see also Thomas II, 274 F.3d at 664 (“The constitutional rule of Apprendi does not apply where the sentence imposed is not greater than the prescribed statutory maximum for the offense of conviction.”). While the court’s finding on drug quantity subjected Coleman to the possibility of a sentence in excess of the otherwise applicable statutory maximum, and while Coleman’s sentence exceeds the Guidelines range that would have applied in the absence of a finding on drug quantity, these facts are irrelevant to an Apprendi analysis. See Luciano, 311 F.3d at 150-53.
*91Turning to retroactivity, we must first identify Apprendi’s new rule, and then determine if it is procedural or substantive. I agree with the majority’s conclusion that Apprendi announced a new rule. According to the majority, the “dramatic changes wrought by Apprendi ” resulted from its holding that:
Other than the fact of prior conviction, any fact that increases the penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory maximum must be submitted to the jury, and proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
(Majority Op., supra, at 84 (citing Apprendi 530 U.S. at 490, 120 S.Ct. 2348).) The procedural aspect of this rule — that every element of a crime must be submitted to the jury and proved beyond a reasonable doubt — obviously did not originate with Apprendi, as it has been imbedded in American constitutional law for more than two hundred years. See Apprendi, 530 U.S. at 477-78, 120 S.Ct. 2348. Apprendi ’s innovation was not in identifying the procedures that apply to an element of a crime but, rather, in redefining what constitutes an element of a crime. After Apprendi, an element is any fact (other than the fact of a prior conviction) that increases the penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory maximum. See United States v. Clark, 260 F.3d 382, 386 (5th Cir.2001) (Parker, J., dissenting).
Unlike the majority, I believe that Ap-prendi ’s new rule is substantive, not procedural, and therefore presumptively applicable retroactively on collateral review.1 For purposes of retroactivity analysis, a substantive change is one that alters the meaning of a criminal statute. Bousley v. United States, 523 U.S. 614, 620, 118 S.Ct. 1604, 140 L.Ed.2d 828 (1998). The addition of an element naturally alters the meaning of a criminal statute. Thus, in Santana-Madera v. United States, 260 F.3d 133 (2d Cir.2001), we held:
By deciding that the jury had to agree unanimously on each of the offenses comprising the ‘continuing series’ in a CCE count, Richardson interpreted a federal criminal statute and, in doing so, changed the elements of the CCE offense. In other words, it altered the meaning of the substantive criminal law.
Id. at 139 (emphasis added).
This conclusion is buttressed by our decision in United States v. Thomas, 274 F.3d 655 (2d Cir.2001) (en banc). Prior to Apprendi, we had held that drug quantity was not an element of a § 841 offense but was merely a sentencing factor that could be found by a judge by a preponderance of the evidence. See United States v. Monk, 15 F.3d 25, 27 (2d Cir.1994); United States v. Campuzano, 905 F.2d 677, 679 (2d Cir. 1990). Thomas, however, established that Apprendi made drug quantity “an element of the offense charged under 21 U.S.C. § 841.” Thomas II, 274 F.3d at 663. By adding an element to a § 841 offense, Apprendi effected a change in the criminal *92law that Santana-Madera compels us to denominate as substantive.
The majority nonetheless insists that Apprendi “does not determine which facts are ‘elements’ of a crime.” (Majority Op., supra, at 84-85.) Faced with our holding in Thomas that Apprendi effectively added an element — drug quantity — to § 841, the majority draws a distinction between the use of the term “element” in Apprendi and Thomas, on the one hand, and its use in retroactivity cases such as Santana-Ma-dera, on the other. (Majority Op., supra, at 86-87.) “Element,” the argument goes, means either a “substantive” change in the scope of a statute, and a consequent change in the relationship between the conduct prohibited and the punishment prescribed, or else it is merely a “shorthand” for a set of procedural requirements.
This distinction is, I respectfully suggest, a factitious one. The majority observes that Thomas held “only that [drug quantity] must be charged in the indictment, submitted to the jury, and proved beyond a reasonable doubt.” (Majority Op., supra, at 84-86.) That holding, I submit, is the very definition of what is required of every element of every criminal offense. An element of a criminal offense is no more and no less than a fact that must be charged in the indictment, submitted to the jury, and proved beyond a reasonable doubt. The Supreme Court acknowledged as much in Apprendi itself. See Apprendi 530 U.S. at 494 n. 19, 120 S.Ct. 2348 (stating that a fact that increases a sentence beyond the statutory maximum “fits squarely within the usual definition of an ‘element’ of the offense”); see also id. at 502, 120 S.Ct. 2348 (Thomas, J., concurring) (“[A] fact that is by law the basis for imposing or increasing punishment is an element.”). This constellation of precedent can not fairly be read to mean that drug weight is anything other than an element under § 841.
According to the majority, substantive rules apply retroactively because by changing the definition of what constitutes a crime, they necessarily carry a significant risk that a defendant stands convicted of an act that the law no longer makes criminal, while procedural rules, in contrast, rarely influence the accurate determination of innocence or guilt. (Majority Op., supra, at 87-88). While Apprendi obviously did not legalize the possession of an undetermined quantity of cocaine base (see Majority Op., supra, at 87-88), however, that fact hardly renders Apprendi’s holding procedural. The relevant question is whether Apprendi changed the elements of a § 841 offense, and there is no question that it did. While the possession of an undetermined quantity of cocaine base is still a crime, it is, after Apprendi, a different crime from the possession of a determined quantity — e.g., fifty grams — of cocaine base. That is a substantive change in § 841. Significantly, in discussing the difference between a “sentencing factor” and an “element” of an offense, the Supreme Court stated in Apprendi that “when the term ‘sentence enhancement’ is used to describe an increase beyond the maximum authorized statutory sentence, it is the functional equivalent of an element of a greater offense than the one covered by the jury’s guilty verdict.” Apprendi, 530 U.S. at 494 n. 19, 120 S.Ct. 2348 (emphasis added). See also id. at 501, 120 S.Ct. 2348 (Thomas, J., concurring) (“[I]f the legislature defines some core crime and then provides for increasing the punishment of that crime upon a finding of some aggravating fact — of whatever sort, including the fact of a prior conviction— the core crime and the aggravating fact together constitute an aggravated crime .... ”); United States v. Strayhom, 250 F.3d 462, 468 (6th Cir.2001) (stating that *93“each penalty provision of § 841(b) constitutes a different crime with different elements, including drug weight”). The Apprendi Court clearly understood that its new rule “changed the elements” of criminal offenses, thereby effecting a substantive change in the law. See Santana-Madera, 260 F.3d at 139; see also Apprendi 530 U.S. at 494, 120 S.Ct. 2348 (noting that “the effect of New Jersey’s sentencing ‘enhancement’ here is unquestionably to turn a second-degree offense into a first degree offense”).2
While it is undoubtedly true, as the majority points out, that failing to apply Ap-prendi retroactively does not create the possibility that a person might have been convicted on the basis of conduct that is not illegal, it does create the similarly troubling possibility that a defendant has been convicted of conduct that constitutes a less serious offense than the one for which he is sentenced. For example, a defendant may be guilty of possessing an unspecified amount of a substance containing cocaine base (under § 841(b)(1)(C)), yet innocent of possessing fifty grams or more of a substance containing cocaine base (under § 841(b)(1)(A)). That was precisely the controversy that was played out here: Coleman admitted to the possession of cocaine base, but hotly contested whether the amount was more or less than fifty grams. The court’s finding (by a mere preponderance) that he possessed 52.9 grams made the question, to say the least, a close one. The 2.9 grams in controversy meant all the difference in the world to Coleman because ten additional years of incarceration turned on that finding.
I readily concede that a failure to apply Apprendi retroactively does not create the possibility that Coleman was convicted for conduct that is not illegal. But that cannot be the dispositive test unless Bousley, Thomas, and Santana-Madera were all wrongly decided. The failure to apply Ap-prendi retroactively does create the possibility that Coleman was convicted by a judge for a different, and more serious, crime than he committed and that he will spend an additional ten years incarcerated as the result of a critical fact not charged in an indictment, found by a jury, or established beyond a reasonable doubt. I see no tenable distinction between these two types of errors.
Consequently, I would hold that Ap-prendi announced a new substantive rule that applies retroactively on collateral review, and I would affirm the District Court’s denial of Coleman’s habeas petition because Coleman cannot show that his sentence violated Apprendi.

. While the majority cites a “chorus'' of other circuits that have held Apprendi not to apply retroactively on collateral review, most of the cited cases simply assumed that the new rule announced in Apprendi was procedural, and proceeded to analyze the retroactivity question under Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 109 S.Ct. 1060, 103 L.Ed.2d 334 (1989). See Goode v. United States, 305 F.3d 378 (6th Cir.2002); United States v. Mora, 293 F.3d 1213 (10th Cir.2002); United States v. Sanchez-Cervantes, 282 F.3d 664 (9th Cir.2002); McCoy v. United States, 266 F.3d 1245 (11th Cir.2001); United States v. Moss, 252 F.3d 993 (8th Cir.2001); but see Curtis v. United States, 294 F.3d 841, 843 (7th Cir.2002) (concluding that rule established in Apprendi is procedural); United States v. Sanders, 247 F.3d 139, 147 (4th Cir.2001) (same). (Majority Of., supra, at 81-82.) Thus, these opinions are of little help in our determination of whether the new rule announced in Apprendi is substantive or procedural.

. In concluding that "the [Apprendi ] Court clearly indicated that it was announcing a procedural rule,” the majority misinterprets the Court's comment that "[t]he substantive basis for New Jersey's enhancement is ... not at issue; the adequacy of New Jersey’s procedure is.” (Majority Op., supra, at 84 (citing Apprendi, 530 U.S. at 475, 120 S.Ct. 2348).) It is clear from the context of the Apprendi opinion that the Supreme Court was saying only that, while the petitioner had challenged "the constitutionality of basing an enhanced sentence on racial bias ... in the New Jersey courts," he did not raise that issue in the Supreme Court. Apprendi, 530 U.S. at 475, 120 S.Ct. 2348. While it is undisputed that Apprendi involved a challenge to the constitutionality of New Jersey's procedure, Coleman argues, and I agree, that the Supreme Court's ruling nonetheless had a substantive effect on § 841. See McCoy v. United States, 266 F.3d 1245, 1272 & n. 21 (11th Cir.2001) (Barkett, J., concurring in result) ("The fact that the Court rejected New Jersey's procedure does not mean that Apprendi does not have a substantive effect on § 841 cases.”).