Court Opinion

ID: 9393459
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-05-10 15:00:29.959303+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:18:53.588131
License: Public Domain

20-446
     United States v. Rendon-Reyes

                             UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                                 FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

                                         SUMMARY ORDER
RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A SUMMARY
ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF
APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT’S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER
IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN
ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION “SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY CITING A SUMMARY
ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL.

 1                 At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit,
 2   held at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the City of
 3   New York, on the 10th day of May, two thousand twenty-three.
 4
 5   PRESENT:
 6               GUIDO CALABRESI,
 7               MICHAEL H. PARK,
 8               STEVEN J. MENASHI,
 9                     Circuit Judges.
10   _____________________________________
11
12   United States of America,
13
14                              Appellee,
15
16                      v.                                                       20-446
17
18   Francisco Rendon-Reyes,
19
20                     Defendant-Appellant. *
21   _____________________________________
22
23

              *
                  The Clerk of Court is respectfully directed to amend the caption accordingly.
 1   FOR APPELLEE:                                                            Kevin Trowel, Gabriel K.
 2                                                                            Park, Assistant United States
 3                                                                            Attorneys, for Breon Peace,
 4                                                                            United States Attorney for
 5                                                                            the Eastern District of New
 6                                                                            York, Brooklyn, NY.
 7
 8   FOR DEFENDANT-APPELLANT:                                                 Yuanchung Lee, Federal
 9                                                                            Defenders of New York, Inc.,
10                                                                            New York, NY.
11

12          Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New

13   York (Korman, J.).

14          UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND

15   DECREED that the restitution judgment of the district court is VACATED and REMANDED.

16          Francisco Rendon-Reyes operated an international sex-trafficking ring with his family.

17   He pleaded guilty to racketeering in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1962(c) and to interstate prostitution

18   of Jane Doe #10 in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2422(a).             At his plea hearing, Rendon-Reyes

19   allocuted to two predicate racketeering acts: participation in the sex trafficking of Jane Doe #2 in

20   violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1591(a)(1), (a)(2), and the interstate prostitution of Jane Doe #10 in

21   violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2422(a).    The district court (Korman, J.) proceeded to sentence Rendon-

22   Reyes to 108 months’ imprisonment.        The district court and both parties believed that restitution

23   was mandatory under either 18 U.S.C. § 3663A or 18 U.S.C. § 1593. 1             The district court thus

24   imposed restitution in the amount of $157,500.         On appeal, the parties agree that restitution was

25   not mandatory, and that the district court plainly erred in failing to recognize its discretion.    We

            1
               Rendon-Reyes’s plea agreement cited 18 U.S.C. §§ 3663A, 3664, while the government’s
     sentencing and restitution submissions cited 18 U.S.C. § 1593. The district court’s proposed restitution
     order, which it later adopted without objection, did not cite either statute.
                                                        2
1    thus vacate the district court’s restitution order and remand for further proceedings. 2

2            First, the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act, 18 U.S.C. § 3663A, does not mandate

3    restitution in this case. As relevant here, the statute applies “in all sentencing proceedings for

4    convictions . . . relating to charges for[] any offense that is . . . a crime of violence,” as defined in

5    18 U.S.C. § 16.       18 U.S.C. § 3663A(c)(1).        18 U.S.C. § 16(a), in turn, defines “crime of

6    violence” to include “an offense that has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use

 7   of physical force against the person or property of another.” 3      In determining whether an offense

 8   of conviction falls within that definition, “we consider the offense generically, that is to say . . . in

 9   terms of how the law defines the offense and not in terms of how an individual offender might

10   have committed it on a particular occasion.”       Kondjoua v. Barr, 961 F.3d 83, 87 (2d Cir. 2020)

11   (per curiam).

12           The government concedes that neither of Rendon-Reyes’s offenses of conviction are

13   crimes of violence.    “RICO offenses are to be judged violent or not depending on the underlying

14   pattern of racketeering alleged in the particular case.”      United States v. Martinez, 991 F.3d 347,

15   358 (2d Cir. 2021) (citing United States v. Ivezaj, 568 F.3d 88, 96 (2d Cir. 2009)); accord United

16   States v. Laurent, 33 F.4th 63, 87-88 (2d Cir. 2022) (affirming that this approach remains “good

             2
               The Court previously summarily affirmed all other aspects of Rendon-Reyes’s conviction and
     sentence following his counsel’s filing of a brief under Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738 (1967), and the
     government’s motion for summary affirmance.
             3
                18 U.S.C. § 16(b) adds “any other offense that is a felony and that, by its nature, involves a
     substantial risk that physical force against the person or property of another may be used in the course of
     committing the offense,” but the government affirmatively waived any argument predicated on that
     subsection. See Appellee’s Br. at 15 (noting that “consistent with Department of Justice policy, the
     government” does not rely on section 16(b)); cf. Sessions v. Dimaya, 138 S. Ct. 1204, 1210 (2018) (holding
     that section 16(b) as incorporated into the Immigration and Nationality Act is unconstitutionally vague).

                                                         3
 1   law”).       Here, neither of Rendon-Reyes’s two racketeering predicates was itself a crime of

 2   violence. A defendant can violate both 18 U.S.C. § 1591(a) and 18 U.S.C. § 2422(a) without

 3   “the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force.” 4            18 U.S.C. § 16(a).      For that

4    reason, Rendon-Reyes’s conviction under section 2422(a) was also not a crime of violence.

5    Indeed, Rendon-Reyes allocuted to no use or threatened use of force at his plea hearing.

6             The Mandatory Victims Restitution Act also allows parties to stipulate to mandatory

7    restitution in a plea agreement.      See 18 U.S.C. § 3663A(a)(3), (c)(2). But it is undisputed that

8    Rendon-Reyes’s plea agreement included no such provision.

9             Second, 18 U.S.C. § 1593 does not mandate restitution in this case.          Under this provision,

10   “the [sentencing] court shall order restitution for any offense under this chapter”—i.e., Title 18,

11   Part I, Chapter 77 of the United States Code.             18 U.S.C. § 1593(a).      The parties agree that

12   Rendon-Reyes was convicted of no such offense; rather, his offenses of conviction are located

13   within Chapters 96 and 117.

14            We thus vacate the district court’s restitution order due to its assumption that restitution

15   was mandatory.       On remand, the district court may consider whether restitution is nevertheless

16   warranted under 18 U.S.C. § 3663, which provides for discretionary restitution. 5

17
              4
                Section 1591 applies to whoever (1) “recruits, entices, harbors, transports, provides, obtains,
     advertises, maintains, patronizes, or solicits by any means a person . . . knowing, . . . that means of force,
     threats of force, fraud, [or] coercion . . . will be used to cause the person to engage in a commercial sex
     act,” or (2) “benefits, financially or by receiving anything of value, from participation in a venture which
     has engaged” in the former. 18 U.S.C. § 1591(a). Section 2422(a) applies, inter alia, to “[w]hoever
     knowingly persuades, induces, entices, or coerces any individual to travel in interstate or foreign
     commerce . . . to engage in prostitution.” 18 U.S.C. § 2422(a).
              5
              Rendon-Reyes argues that we should simply strike the restitution order, rather than remand,
     because the district court indicated reluctance to order restitution absent a mandatory requirement. We
     see no reason to so constrain the district court’s discretion. The parties also raise the propriety of a

                                                           4
1           For the foregoing reasons, the restitution judgment of the district court is VACATED and

2   REMANDED.

3                                                    FOR THE COURT:
4                                                    Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, Clerk of Court
5

    restitution award to Jane Doe #6, but the district court may address that issue on remand.

                                                         5