United States v. Limon , 566 F. App'x 723 ( 2014 )

FILED
United States Court of Appeals
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS Tenth Circuit
TENTH CIRCUIT May 12, 2014
Elisabeth A. Shumaker
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Clerk of Court
Plaintiff – Appellee, No. 13–3324
(D.C. Nos. 2:13-CV-02441-JWL and
v. 2:09-CR-20119-JWL-JPO-11)
RICARDO LIMON, a/k/a Gordo, (D. Kan.)
Defendant – Appellant.
ORDER DENYING CERTIFICATE OF APPEALABILITY*
Before LUCERO, TYMKOVICH, and PHILLIPS, Circuit Judges.
After pleading guilty to conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute
more than 5 kilograms of a mixture or substance containing a detectable amount of
cocaine, more than 50 grams of methamphetamine, and detectable amounts of marijuana,
Ricardo Limon was sentenced to 235 months in federal prison. Limon appealed his
sentence and we affirmed. See United States v. Limon, 483 Fed. Appx. 522 (10th Cir.
2012) (unpublished). Limon then filed a motion under 18 U.S.C. § 2255 to set aside,
correct, or vacate his sentence, which the district court denied. Proceeding pro se, Limon
now attempts to appeal the district court’s order, but in order to do so a certificate of
appealability (COA) must issue. See 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1)(B); United States v.
*
This order and judgment is not binding precedent except under the doctrines of law
of the case, claim preclusion, and issue preclusion. It may be cited, however, for its
persuasive value consistent with Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 32.1 and Tenth
Circuit Court Rule 32.1.
Gonzales, 596 F.3d 1228, 1241 (10th Cir. 2010). Like the district court, we cannot grant
Limon’s request for a COA even though we review his filings liberally. See Lewis v.
C.I.R., 523 F.3d 1272, 1273 n.2 (10th Cir. 2008). We therefore dismiss this appeal.
We will only issue a COA where the movant makes “a substantial showing of the
denial of a constitutional right.” 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(2). This, in turn, requires a
demonstration that “reasonable jurists could debate whether . . . the petition should have
been resolved in a different manner or that the issues presented were adequate to deserve
encouragement to proceed further.” Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000)
(internal quotation marks omitted). Put another way, our relatively straightforward task is
to assess whether “reasonable jurists would find the district court’s assessment of the
constitutional claims debatable or wrong.” Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S. 322, 338
(2003). If for procedural reasons the district court never reaches the merits of the
constitutional claims, however, it must be “debatable whether the district court was
correct in its procedural ruling,” and also “debatable whether the petition states a valid
claim of the denial of a constitutional right.” Slack, 529 U.S. at 484.
In his § 2255 motion, Limon asserts violations of his constitutional rights under the
Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments. He also challenges the validity of his sentence on
non-constitutional grounds, claiming that the sentencing court unlawfully presumed his
Guidelines sentence to be reasonable, improperly calculated his base offense level,
wrongfully imposed two sentencing enhancements, and otherwise failed to adhere to 18
U.S.C. § 3553.
-2-
At the outset, we must deny a COA for all of Limon’s non-constitutional claims
because, while they assert violations of federal law, they do not assert the denial of a
constitutional right. See United States v. Gordon, 172 F.3d 753, 754 (10th Cir. 1999)
(“Petitions may be filed in district court alleging violations of the Constitution or federal
law. The claims may only be appealed, however, if they involve the denial of
constitutional rights.”) (third emphasis added). What’s more, we previously addressed the
propriety of the district court’s enhancement for obstruction of justice on direct appeal.
See Limon, 483 Fed. Appx. at 524–25. The district court was therefore correct in refusing
to consider this claim for procedural reasons. See United States v. Warner, 23 F.3d 287,
291 (10th Cir. 1994) (refusing to consider issues under § 2255 that we “previously
considered and disposed of . . . on direct appeal”).
As for the three constitutional claims, we first note that Limon failed to raise them
before commencing these § 2255 proceedings. Under procedural default principles,
§ 2255 motions “are not available to test the legality of matters which should have been
raised on direct appeal.” United States v. Cook, 997 F.2d 1312, 1320 (10th Cir. 1993)
(citing United States v. Frady, 456 U.S. 152 (1982)). But the government failed to raise
this procedural bar, and the district court chose not to enforce it sua sponte. We therefore
review the district court’s disposition on the merits.
Limon does not argue that the district court’s assessment of the merits of his
constitutional claims was debatable or wrong and we find nothing to justify the issuance
of a COA in undertaking our own review. First, reasonable jurists could not debate the
district court’s resolution of the Fifth-Amendment claim. Limon bases this claim on the
-3-
sentencing court’s denial of his request for a downward adjustment for acceptance of
responsibility. As far as we can tell, he argues that the sentencing court applied the
applicable Sentencing Guideline in a way that violated his right against self-
incrimination. The district court got it right, however, in ruling that the denial of this type
of downward adjustment is “not a penalty or enhancement of sentence implicating the
Fifth Amendment.” R. vol. 1, at 123; see United States v. Anderson, 15 F.3d 979, 981
(10th Cir. 1994) (“[D]enial of a U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1 downward adjustment is not a penalty
or an enhancement of sentence implicating the Fifth Amendment.”)
Second, reasonable jurists could not debate the district court’s resolution of Limon’s
Sixth Amendment claim under Alleyne v. United States, 133 S. Ct. 2151 (2013). As the
district court concluded, Alleyne does not apply retroactively to cases on collateral
review. In re Payne, 733 F.3d 1027, 1029 (10th Cir. 2013). And even if it did, the
sentencing court did not find facts that increased the statutory sentencing range so as to
violate Limon’s Sixth-Amendment rights. See Alleyne, 133 S. Ct. at 2160 (holding that
the Sixth Amendment provides defendants with the right to have a jury find those “facts
that increase the prescribed range of penalties to which a criminal defendant is
exposed.”). To the contrary, the sentencing court imposed a sentence within the
prescribed statutory range of ten years to life imprisonment, based on the quantity of
drugs charged under Count One of the superseding indictment—to which Limon pleaded
guilty. See 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(A)(ii)(II). “We have long recognized that broad
sentencing discretion [within established limits], informed by judicial factfinding, does
not violate the Sixth Amendment.” Alleyne, 133 S. Ct. at 2163.
-4-
Third, we do not doubt the district court’s resolution of Limon’s Eighth-Amendment
claim—nor do we think reasonable jurists could find it debatable. With this claim, Limon
asserts that his sentence is so grossly disproportionate to the offense committed that it
violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishments. The
district court rejected this claim because Limon’s 235-month sentence was well within
the statutory limits and because Limon had failed to show constitutional
disproportionality to the severity of the drug offense of which he had been convicted.
Again, Limon pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to
distribute more than 5 kilograms of a mixture or substance containing a detectable
amount of cocaine, more than 50 grams of methamphetamine, and detectable amounts of
marijuana. On the record before us, we think there is no room for debate; Limon’s case is
simply not of the “extraordinary” variety for which the gross disproportionality principle
is reserved. Lockyer v. Andrade, 538 U.S. 63, 77 (2003); see Ewing v. California, 538
U.S. 11, 21 (2003) (“[O]utside the context of capital punishment, successful challenges to
the proportionality of particular sentences have been exceedingly rare.”); see also
Harmelin v. Michigan, 501 U.S. 957, 959-60 (1991) (“Although a sentence of life
imprisonment without parole is the second most severe penalty permitted by law, it is not
grossly disproportionate to Harmelin’s crime of possessing more than 650 grams of
cocaine.”)
Finally, and for the first time, Limon raises claims for ineffective assistance of trial
and appellate counsel. He argues that his lawyers were ineffective in failing to
sufficiently challenge the obstruction-of-justice enhancement on various grounds.
-5-
Nothing in Limon’s § 2255 motion can be construed as raising such claims. Accordingly,
“we find no reason to deviate from the general rule that we do not address arguments
presented for the first time on appeal,” United States v. Mora, 293 F.3d 1213, 1216 (10th
Cir. 2002), and decline to issue a COA on these issues.
Based on the foregoing, we do not believe Limon has made a substantial showing of
the denial of a constitutional right. We therefore deny a certificate of appealability and
dismiss this appeal.
ENTERED FOR THE COURT
Gregory A. Phillips
Circuit Judge
-6-