Court Opinion

ID: 9945090
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-27 01:00:35.009611+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:25:21.939485
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-11007       Document: 109-1          Page: 1   Date Filed: 02/26/2024

              United States Court of Appeals
                for the Fifth Circuit
                              ____________
                                                                    United States Court of Appeals
                                                                             Fifth Circuit
                                No. 22-11007
                              ____________                                 FILED
                                                                    February 26, 2024
United States of America,                                             Lyle W. Cayce
                                                                           Clerk
                                                            Plaintiff—Appellee,

                                     versus

Andrew Ocanas Garza,

                                         Defendant—Appellant.
                ______________________________

                Appeal from the United States District Court
                    for the Northern District of Texas
                         USDC No. 5:21-CR-120-1
                ______________________________

Before Jolly, Engelhardt, and Oldham, Circuit Judges.
Per Curiam:
       Andrew Ocanas Garza’s latest brush with the law included an un-
Mirandized statement: he was asked and then told officers that he had a gun
in his bedroom as they were about to execute a search warrant based on
months of drug trafficking activities observed at his house. Garza attempted
but ultimately failed to suppress this “bedroom gun” statement (hereafter
referred to as the “Bedroom Gun” statement) pretrial after the District
Court found that Miranda’s public safety exemption applied. Garza
nevertheless affirmatively injected this statement into his trial in front of the
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                                  No. 22-11007

jury, even though the government never brought it up with the witness who
would have testified about it.
       After conviction on all but one count at trial, Garza received a 235-
month sentence. The District Court employed a felony drug offence
sentencing enhancement when it imposed its sentence based on two finalized
2016 federal convictions Garza had for trafficking over 50kg of marijuana.
Garza claims this is error because a 2018 amendment to the Agricultural
Improvement Act (“AIA”) removed “hemp” from marijuana’s definition,
his 2016 convictions could have been based on hemp, and so these
convictions should not be used as a foundation for the felony drug offense
sentencing enhancement. He also claims the District Court erred by not
suppressing the Bedroom Gun statement.
       Garza stands at the losing end of these arguments. Garza waived his
right to complain of the Bedroom Gun statement by affirmatively eliciting it
at trial in front of the jury, and regardless the public safety exemption applies
for the reasons noted in the District Court’s thorough opinion. As for the
felony drug offense sentencing enhancements, the weight of precedent
militates against Garza’s post-conviction definitional parsing. What matters
is that, at the time Garza was convicted in 2016, hemp was included in
marijuana’s definition and those convictions were final at the time the
District Court sentenced him here. Finalized felony drug convictions serve
as the prototypical basis for implementing a felony drug offense sentencing
enhancement. Even if the District Court erred by imposing this
enhancement, such error was harmless: it still would have imposed the same
sentence by stacking Garza’s counts, and the evidence demonstrates that the
District Court did not abuse its discretion in weighing out the relevant
sentencing factors. We therefore AFFIRM the District Court’s judgment
and sentence.

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                                  No. 22-11007

           I. Factual and Procedural Background
                       A. Relevant Factual Background
       Garza has a long history of drug and violent offences, including in-
volvement as a high-volume distributor of black-market marijuana. The DEA
obtained a warrant to search Garza’s home after several months of observing
behavior consistent with continued black-market participation during the
summer of 2021. They executed that warrant on September 16, 2021. Offic-
ers arrived, saw Garza backing his truck into his driveway, and immediately
ordered him to exit the vehicle and surrender peaceably, which he did. While
prone and handcuffed, Garza informed officers that his wife, Cassandra
Ortiz, was inside the house, in response to being asked if there was anyone
within. As some officers helped Garza off the ground, others surrounded the
house and trained their pistols and rifles on it.
       When asked to hand over his keys, Garza responded that the house
was unlocked, that his dogs were inside, and said “don’t kill my dogs this
time.” Officers moved Garza away from the house and called Ortiz several
times, but she never answered. Garza re-urged his concerns for his dogs, say-
ing that “last time” his dogs were killed and that he currently owned two pit
bulls and a shih tzu. Officers spotted movement in a window and confirmed
that the dogs, not Ortiz, were the movement’s source. When first asked
whether any guns were inside the house that Ortiz could access for the first
time, Garza said no.
       Officers then took Garza to the front door, flanked by the breach team
and other officers who had their weapons trained on the house’s doors and
windows. Officers then asked Garza whether Ortiz could secure the dogs, to
which he responded yes and warned that the dogs could become aggressive
upon seeing the officers. Officers then knocked on the door, Ortiz answered,
and both she and Garza were taken to the side of the house. Ortiz told the

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                                 No. 22-11007

officers that the big dogs were in the backyard, the small dog was inside, and
no one else was in the home.
       As the breach team entered the house, Garza was again asked if there
was a firearm in the home by a DEA agent on scene. This time, Garza re-
sponded in the affirmative: there was a small firearm in the master bedroom.
The agent Garza informed relayed that information to the breach team, and
they spotted a pistol on a dresser in the master bedroom during the secondary
safety sweep. The house secured, the search team moved in and found ap-
proximately 1.75kg of marijuana in vacuum-sealed bags, a drug ledger resem-
bling one seized from Garza in a prior investigation, over $80,000 in cash,
and a .32 caliber pistol.
                    B. Relevant Procedural Background
       A grand jury charged Garza with four counts: (1) conspiracy to possess
with intent to distribute and to distribute marijuana, (2) possession with
intent to distribute marijuana, (3) possession of a firearm in furtherance of a
drug-trafficking crime, and (4) unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon.
Garza moved pretrial to suppress the Bedroom Gun statement, which the
government conceded was made un-Mirandized but asserted fell within the
public safety exemption. The District Court issued a thorough opinion where
it ultimately denied Garza’s motion, holding that the statement fell within
the public safety exemption.
       Garza went to trial on all four counts. During trial, the defense
affirmatively elicited the very statement it attempted to suppress when cross-
examining Sgt. Macias in front of the jury:
       Q: You’re aware, right as the entry team was coming in, they
       did get word that, oh, yeah, there was some firearm on a
       dresser. Right?
       A: I was made aware of that at the suppression hearing, yes, sir.

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                                  No. 22-11007

       Q: So at some point, you’re aware that Mr. Garza did tell
       officers, oh, yeah, there’s something in there. Right?
       A: I don’t have firsthand knowledge of that.
       Q: You don’t?
       A: No sir.
       Q: But you learned that at a previous hearing that was – that’s
       what some officer testified to?
       A: That’s correct.

Before this, the Bedroom Gun statement had not been brought into the trial;
it was Garza who opened the door to it by discussing it first. The jury
ultimately returned a split verdict: guilty on all counts save count 3.
       Onward to sentencing. Garza’s PSR noted two 2016 final federal
convictions from New Mexico for conspiracy to possess with intent to
distribute at least 50kg of marijuana. This led to an advisory guideline range
of 188–235 months after accounting for the consequent felony drug offence
enhancement. Garza objected, arguing that his 2016 federal convictions did
not qualify as felony drug offenses because the AIA included hemp in the
definition of marijuana at the time he was convicted, but was removed after
the AIA’s 2018 amendments were enacted. According to Garza, the AIA’s
2018 amendment excluding hemp meant that using the pre-amendment
definition of marijuana (which did not exclude hemp) couldn’t qualify as a
“felony drug offense” at the time of sentencing.
       The government responded that, while this circuit had yet to speak on
this specific issue, sister courts of appeal that had reviewed it rejected
Garza’s approach. Garza conceded that no courts of appeal accepted his
argument at this time but blamed it on failures to preserve the issue. The
District Court disagreed with Garza, noting that its reading of the law
revealed that other courts of appeal addressed the issue without relying on

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                                  No. 22-11007

plain error analyses. Overruling Garza’s objection, the District Court agreed
with the PSR’s recommended range of 188–235 months.
       The District Court then moved on to Garza’s sentencing factors. It
began with his repeated drug-dealing activity concerning tens of kilograms of
black-market marijuana, refusal to accept responsibility, and a pretrial finding
that Garza directed a relative to confront a cooperating witness (which
he/she did) then post a picture of the witness on Facebook to identify
him/her as a “snitch.” This conduct was, to the District Court, “completely
inexcusable [and] an affront to the dignity of this Court and to the rule of
law.” It then considered Garza’s (very extensive) criminal history, including
the above-mentioned felony drug convictions, evading arrest, assault,
possession of between two to four hundred pounds of cocaine, possession of
between two to four hundred pounds of meth, associated criminal conspiracy
charges, and revocation of supervised release. The District Court concluded
that it was clear that Garza was “going to do what [he] want[ed] to do
regardless of what the law says.”
       The District Court then sentenced Garza to 235 months, applying the
felony drug offense enhancement while doing so. It then explained that, even
if the felony drug offense enhancement did not apply, it would have exercised
its discretion to impose the same sentence by fully stacking the first two guilty
counts (both of which possess a 60–month statutory max if the felony drug
enhancement does not apply) and partially stacking the third (which
possesses a 120–month statutory max) to reach the same 235–month
sentence imposed. Garza timely appealed.

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                                   No. 22-11007

                              II. Discussion
  A. Garza Invited Error by Affirmatively Injecting the Bedroom Gun
               Statement into Trial in Front of the Jury.
      Normally, pretrial motions to suppress preserve a defendant’s
exclusion arguments, so that the defendant need not reassert those
arguments at trial. See, e.g., United States v. Cruz, 581 F.2d 535, 542 (5th Cir.
1978) (en banc), overruled on other grounds by United States v. Causey, 834 F.2d
1179, 1184 (5th Cir. 1987) (en banc); see also United States v. Ahedo, 453 F.
App’x 544, 547 (5th Cir. 2011). Indeed, a defendant who moves for pretrial
suppression can engage that evidence at trial when it is admitted and do “his
best to turn that evidence to his favor” without risking waiver. Cruz, 581 F.2d
at 542 (5th Cir. 1978). But an exception exists.
       The Supreme Court notes that “th[is] rule is one of practice and is not
without exceptions, nor is it to be applied as a hard-and-fast formula to every
case regardless of its special circumstances.” Lawn v. United States, 355 U.S.
339, 353 (1958). In Lawn, the Supreme Court held that the defendant waived
the issues he raised in a denied pretrial motion to suppress by making use of
the arguably objectionable evidence at trial. Id. at 353–55. See also, e.g., United
States v. Davis, 487 F.2d 112, 121 (5th Cir. 1973) (“Reference to or use by a
defendant of an erroneously admitted line of evidence ordinarily cures or
waives error.”).
       This is not a case where the government introduced Garza’s
complained-of statement and he did his “best to turn that evidence to his
favor.” Cruz, 581 F.2d at 542. Indeed, the government did not discuss the
Bedroom Gun statement with the agent to whom Garza uttered it when he
was tendered as a witness. Instead, the jury heard nothing about the Bedroom
Gun statement before Garza’s counsel brought it up during Sgt. Macias’s
cross examination, even doing so over Sgt. Macias’s warning that he lacked
firsthand knowledge.

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                                      No. 22-11007

        Garza’s affirmative, unprompted injection of the Bedroom Gun
statement by drawing it out of Sgt. Macias in the jury’s presence opened the
door to its use at trial; Garza cannot complain of this “invited error.” See
United States v. Green, 272 F.3d 748, 754 & n.19 (5th Cir. 2001) (observing
that “[t]he doctrine of invited error provides that ‘when injection of
inadmissible evidence is attributable to the actions of the defense, the defense
cannot later object to such “invited error.”’” (quoting United States v.
Raymer, 876 F.2d 383, 388 (5th Cir. 1989))). Put more broadly, Garza’s
unprompted, affirmative introduction of the Bedroom Gun statement into a
trial where it had not appeared is inconsistent with a belief that it should not
have been before the jury. See Berghuis v. Thompkins, 560 U.S. 370, 385 (2010)
(“As a general proposition, the law can presume that an individual who, with
a full understanding of his or her rights, acts in a manner inconsistent with
their exercise has made a deliberate choice to relinquish the protection those
rights afford.”); see also Hemphill v. New York, 595 U.S. 140, 157 (2022)
(Alito, J., concurring) (observing defendants can waive a right when they
“engage[] in a course of conduct that is incompatible with a demand” to
enforce that right). Garza thus waived this issue through invited error. 1

        _____________________
        1
         Even if Garza did not waive this issue through invited error, the District Court’s
comprehensive opinion denying Garza’s motion to suppress the Bedroom Gun statement
under the public safety exception was correct.

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                                 No. 22-11007

   B. The District Court Correctly Applied the Felony Drug Offense
                  Enhancement to Garza’s Sentence.
       The District Court, lacking binding guidance, implemented the
“backward-looking” test that three of our sister circuits employ when
evaluating whether a prior drug offense qualifies for the felony drug offense
sentencing enhancement. See United States v. Diaz, 838 F.3d 968 (9th Cir.
2016); United States v. Santillan, 944 F.3d 731 (8th Cir. 2019); and United
States v. Brown, 47 F.4th 147 (3d Cir. 2022). The key inquires for that test as
applied here are whether Garza’s 2016 drug offenses were (1) felonious at the
time Garza was convicted for them and (2) final at the time he was being
sentenced for the crimes at issue. See id. They undisputedly were, so the
District Court applied the enhancement. It did so correctly.
       21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(D) (the statute Garza was convicted under)
provides that, if a person commits an offense involving less than 50kg of
marijuana “after a prior conviction for a felony drug offense has become
final,” the maximum punishment doubles to ten years. 21 U.S.C. 802(44)
defines “felony drug offense” as “an offense that is punishable by
imprisonment for more than one year under any law of the United States or
of a State or foreign country that prohibits or restricts conduct relating to
narcotic drugs, marihuana, anabolic steroids, or depressant or stimulant
substances.” Garza received his 21 U.S.C. § 851 notice that his prior felony
convictions qualified him for this enhancement.
       Garza argues that, because his 2016 convictions could have laid on a
conspiracy involving hemp (which then fell within the AIA’s definition of
marijuana but was removed after the AIA’s 2018 amendment), he is not
eligible for the “felony drug offence” enhancement predicated on those
offenses. Garza offers no on-point precedent in support of this position.

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                                       No. 22-11007

        In contrast, the government offers, the District Court considered, and
we find persuasive three cases from sister courts of appeal which militate
against Garza’s position, particularly in this context: Diaz, 838 F.3d 968;
Santillan, 944 F.3d 731; and Brown, 47 F.4th 147. The Ninth, Eighth, and
Third Circuits employed the same inquiry as the District Court: whether the
prior drug offense was (1) a felony at the time of the defendant’s prior
conviction and (2) final at the time of sentencing the defendant for the
crime(s) currently in question. See Diaz, 838 F.3d at 971–74; Santillan, 944
F.3d at 733; see also Brown, 47 F.4th at 150–51. For these circuits employing
this “backward-looking inquiry,” “a prior conviction qualifies as a ‘felony
drug offense’ if it was punishable as a felony at the time of conviction.”
Santillan, 944 F.3d at 733 (emphasis added).
        Applying the “backward-looking” test here, Garza cannot (and does
not) dispute (1) that his prior drug convictions qualified as felony drug
offenses at the time he was convicted of them in 2016 and (2) that those
convictions were final at the time the District Court sentenced him in this
case. The 2016 felony drug offenses thus served as sufficient foundation
Garza’s felony drug offense sentencing enhancement. 2
                                 III. Conclusion
        We AFFIRM the District Court’s judgment and sentence for the
reasons discussed above.

        _____________________
        2
           Even if the District Court had erred, such error was harmless. There is ample
“evidence in the record . . . that the district court had a particular sentence in mind and
would have imposed it, notwithstanding [an] error made in arriving at [Garza]’s guideline
range,” United States v. Delgado-Martinez, 564 F.3d 750, 753 (5th Cir. 2009), and it did not
abuse its discretion in sentencing Garza as it did. United States v. Smith, 440 F.3d 704, 708
(5th Cir. 2006).

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