United States v. Martinez-Jiminez ( 2006 )

F IL E D
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
PU BL ISH
September 29, 2006
U N IT E D ST A T E S C O U R T O F A P PE A L S
Elisabeth A. Shumaker
Clerk of Court
T E N T H C IR C U IT
U N ITED STA TES O F A M ER ICA ,
Plaintiff - Appellee ,
v.
No. 04-2324
M ARLENE M ARTIN EZ-JIM ENEZ,
Defendant - Appellant .
A ppeal from the U nited States D istrict C ourt
for the D istrict of N ew M exico
(D .C . N o. C R -04-1115 )
Luis B. Juarez, Juarez Law Office, Las Vegas, NM , for A ppellant.
Norman Cairns, Assistant United States Attorney (David C. Iglesias, United
States Attorney, with him on the brief), A lbuquerque, NM , for A ppellee.
Before L U C E R O , E B E L , and M U R PH Y , Circuit Judges.
E B E L, Circuit Judge.
M arlene M artinez-Jimenez pleaded guilty to illegal reentry by a deported
alien previously convicted of an aggravated felony, in violation of 8 U.S.C.
§ 1326(a)(1), (a)(2), and (b)(2). She w as sentenced to fifty-seven months’
imprisonment based in part on the district court’s conclusion that she had a
criminal history category of V. On appeal, M s. M artinez-Jimenez argues that
there was insufficient evidence to prove one of the prior convictions used to
establish that criminal history category. W e conclude that the district court did
not clearly err in finding the evidence sufficient and therefore affirm the sentence.
I. B A C K G R O U N D
On M ay 13, 2004, M s. M artinez-Jimenez was arrested by U.S. Border
Patrol agents in New M exico. She admitted to the agents that she was a citizen
and national of Colombia and that she had entered the United States illegally. A
records check showed that M s. M artinez-Jimenez had previously been deported
from the U nited States to Colombia on three separate occasions. The records also
showed that prior to her first deportation, she had been convicted in New York of
felony narcotics possession. On June 15, 2004, M s. M artinez-Jimenez was
charged by information with illegal reentry by a deported alien previously
convicted of an aggravated felony.
M s. M artinez-Jimenez eventually entered into a plea agreement whereby
she agreed to plead guilty to the charged offense. Among other things, the plea
agreement stipulated that the appropriate offense level for purposes of sentencing
M s. M artinez-Jimenez was nineteen 1 and provided that her criminal history
1
This stipulation was pursuant to Rule 11(c)(1)(C) of the Federal Rules of
Criminal Procedure, which provides that “the plea agreement may specify . . . that
(continued...)
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category would “be determined by the United States Probation Office and
reflected in the presentence report prepared in this case.”
The presentence report (“PSR”) that was prepared listed multiple prior
convictions in M s. M artinez-Jimenez’s criminal history and assessed a total of
nine crim inal history points for five of the convictions. The PSR also added tw o
criminal history points to M s. M artinez-Jimenez’s criminal history score because
she committed the instant offense while under a criminal justice sentence, see
United States Sentencing Guidelines (“U.S.S.G.”) § 4A1.1(d), and one criminal
history point because she committed the instant offense less than two years after
release from imprisonment, see id. § 4A1.1(e). The resulting total of twelve
criminal history points put her in criminal history category V. See id. § 5A.
W hen combined with the stipulated offense level of nineteen, the corresponding
Guidelines sentencing range was fifty-seven to seventy-one months. Id.
M s. M artinez-Jimenez filed objections to the PSR’s calculation of her
criminal history score. Specifically, she objected to the six criminal history
1
(...continued)
a specific sentence or sentencing range is the appropriate disposition of the case,
or that a particular provision of the Sentencing Guidelines, or policy statement, or
sentencing factor does or does not apply” and that “such a recommendation or
request binds the court once the court accepts the plea agreement.” Fed. R. Crim.
P. 11(c)(1)(C). This Rule allows the parties to stipulate to an offense level. See
United States v. Veri, 108 F.3d 1311, 1313-14 (10th Cir. 1997) (construing Rule
11(e)(1)(C), the precursor of Rule 11(c)(1)(C)).
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points allocated for the four prior convictions listed in paragraphs 22, 23, 24, and
25 of the PSR . 2 M s. M artinez-Jimenez contended that the evidence that she had
been convicted in those instances was insufficient; she also argued that there was
insufficient proof that she had either been represented by counsel or waived her
right to counsel in those prior proceedings.
At M s. M artinez-Jimenez’s sentencing hearing, the district court evaluated
her objections to each of the four prior convictions. The court sustained her
objections to paragraphs 23 and 25 of the PSR, concluding that there was
insufficient evidence to prove those two convictions. 3 Through counsel, M s.
M artinez-Jimenez orally w ithdrew her objection to paragraph twenty-four. 4 As
for her objection to the conviction in paragraph twenty-two — for attempted
criminal possession of a controlled substance — the district court concluded both
that there was sufficient evidence of the conviction and that M s. M artinez-
2
These prior convictions, together with the criminal history points allocated
to each conviction, were as follow s:
Paragraph 22: attempted criminal possession of a controlled substance (3
points),
Paragraph 23: disorderly conduct (1 point),
Paragraph 24: theft by deception (1 point), and
Paragraph 25: petit larceny (1 point).
3
The government does not appeal the district court’s conclusion that the
convictions listed in paragraphs 23 and 25 were not sufficiently proven.
4
The conviction in paragraph twenty-four added one point to M s. M artinez-
Jimenez’s criminal history score.
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Jimenez had not met her burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence
that the conviction was constitutionally infirm.
The evidence that the district court found sufficient to prove the conviction
listed in paragraph twenty-two was of two kinds. First, the probation office had
procured a computer printout from the National Crime Information Center
(“NCIC”) that indicated that in 1989 “M arilina M artinez” 5 had pleaded guilty in
New York state court to “ATT CPCS-5” (attempted criminal possession of a
controlled substance, 5th degree), 6 a class E felony, and was sentenced on January
2, 1990 to between eighteen months’ and three years’ imprisonment. Second, the
probation office had contacted the New York courts for information about the
prior narcotics conviction and had received a letter from the Supreme Court of
New York, signed by the county clerk of New York County, in response. The
letter advised that “Susana Cabajar” had pleaded guilty on December 7, 1989 to
“Attempted Criminal Possession of a Controlled Substance 5th Degree” and had
been sentenced on January 2, 1990 to “O ne and half years [sic] to Three years as a
Second Felony Offender.” The district court concluded that these two pieces of
5
The printout stated that the following aliases were also used by the subject
of the report: M arlena M artinez, M arlina M artinez, Susana M artinez, Susana
Cabajar, Susana Carbajar, Susana Carbagal, Susana Casbojol, Susoho Rodriguez,
and Carmen Torres.
6
People v. M arine, 142 M isc. 2d 449 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 1989), makes clear that
CPCS stands for criminal possession of a controlled substance.
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evidence were sufficient to prove the conviction in paragraph twenty-two and that
the three criminal history points for the conviction were therefore properly added
to M s. M artinez-Jimenez’s criminal history score. 7
Despite the district court’s exclusion of the convictions listed in paragraphs
23 and 25, the final total of ten criminal history points still corresponded to
criminal history category V and a Guidelines sentencing range of fifty-seven to
seventy-one months. See U.S.S.G. § 5A. On November 16, 2004, the district
court sentenced M s. M artinez-Jimenez to fifty-seven months’ imprisonment, the
low end of that range. Because of the potential that mandatory application of the
Guidelines would be found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court — a potential
later realized in U nited States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005) — the district court
presciently proposed an identical alternative non-Guidelines sentence of
fifty-seven months. M s. M artinez-Jimenez timely filed a notice of appeal from
her sentence.
7
The district court memorialized its oral ruling in a written memorandum
opinion, stating that “[t]he letter from the Supreme Court of the State of New
York, which w as signed by the C ounty Clerk, coupled w ith the N CIC record
listing the conviction at issue, is sufficient to establish, by a preponderance of
evidence, the prior conviction [listed in paragraph twenty-two].” United States v.
M artinez-Jimenez, No. CR 04-1115, 2004 W L 3541202, at *4 (D.N.M . Nov. 18,
2004) (unpublished).
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II. D ISC USSIO N
A . Issue on app eal
On appeal, M s. M artinez-Jimenez objects only to the district court’s use of
the conviction in paragraph twenty-two to increase her criminal history score by
three points and thus to raise her criminal history category to V. She does not
challenge the other convictions used by the district court in calculating her
criminal history category, nor does she attack any other aspect of her conviction
or sentence. 8 Furthermore, her challenge to the conviction in paragraph
twenty-two is simply that the fact of conviction was insufficiently proven; she
does not claim on appeal that the conviction, if sufficiently proven, was
constitutionally infirm.
At bottom, then, this appeal will determine only whether M s. M artinez-
Jimenez should have been allocated seven criminal history points instead of
ten — and therefore whether she should have been sentenced using a criminal
history category of IV instead of V . See U .S.S.G. § 5A. W e note that M s.
M artinez-Jimenez’s sentence of fifty-seven months w ould be a permissible
Guidelines sentence regardless of which criminal history category is used: it
would be the high end of the range using category IV (46–57 months) and the low
8
She does not, for example, claim that her sentence is unconstitutional
under the Supreme Court decision in Booker, 543 U.S. 220.
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end using category V (57–71 months). N onetheless, that fact does not eliminate
the need to address M s. M artinez-Jimenez’s claim of error. See United States v.
Brown, 316 F.3d 1151, 1159 (10th Cir. 2003) (“W here the sentencing error
caused an increase in the applicable adjustment level, the fact that guideline
ranges overlap does not make a plain error harmless.”) (quotation omitted); see
also United States v. Knight, 266 F.3d 203, 207 (3d Cir. 2001) (holding that “the
application of an incorrect guideline range resulting in a sentence that is also
within the correct range [presumptively] affects substantial rights”). Although the
district court proposed an identical alternative sentence in case the Guidelines
were found unconstitutional, it did not indicate that it would have imposed an
identical sentence if M s. M artinez-Jimenez’s criminal history category was IV
instead of V. See United States v. Urbanek, 930 F.2d 1512, 1516 (10th Cir. 1991)
(“[W]e cannot agree . . . that no remand is required simply because the sentence
imposed w as within either of two arguably applicable Guideline ranges. Unless
the district court makes it clear during the sentencing proceeding that the sentence
would be the same under either of the applicable Guideline ranges, we are
compelled to remand for resentencing when . . . an improper [Guidelines
calculation] was applied.”) (citations omitted); Alaniz v. United States, 351 F.3d
365, 368 (8th Cir. 2003) (holding that a sentence falling within an area of overlap
between correct and incorrect Guidelines ranges is “unreviewable only if the
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district court, at the time of sentencing, states unequivocally that it would impose
the same sentence with or without the challenged calculation”); Knight, 266 F.3d
at 208. Therefore we must address M s. M artinez-Jimenez’s challenge to the
district court’s decision.
B . Standard of review
“The district court’s factual findings at sentencing are reviewed for clear
error, while its interpretation of the Sentencing Guidelines is a question of law
reviewed de novo.” United States v. Simpson, 94 F.3d 1373, 1380 (10th Cir.
1996). Because the only challenge here is to the district court’s factual finding
that M s. M artinez-Jimenez was convicted of attempted criminal possession of a
controlled substance, our review is for clear error. W e will reverse for clear error
“only if the district court’s finding was without factual support in the record or
we are left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been made.”
United States v. Cernobyl, 255 F.3d 1215, 1221 (10th Cir. 2001) (quotation
omitted).
C . A nalysis
“W henever a prior conviction is relevant to sentencing, the government
must establish the fact of that conviction by a preponderance of the evidence.”
United States v. Cooper, 375 F.3d 1041, 1052 (10th Cir. 2004). M s. M artinez-
Jimenez argues that the government failed to prove by a preponderance of the
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evidence that she w as convicted of the offense listed in paragraph twenty-two
because the NCIC report and the letter lack “sufficient indicia of reliability to
support [their] probable accuracy.” U.S.S.G. § 6A1.3(a); see also United States v.
Beaulieu, 893 F.2d 1177, 1180 (10th Cir. 1990) (“The Guidelines expressly allow
the use of any reliable information.”) (emphasis altered). W e disagree and
conclude that the district court did not clearly err in finding that the evidence
establishing her prior conviction was sufficiently reliable.
“[T]he National Crime Information Center computer system (‘N CIC’) . . . is
a national criminal records data system administered by the Federal Bureau of
Investigation. NCIC contains criminal history information, including outstanding
warrants, and is available to police departments nationwide.” Case v. Kitsap
C ounty Sheriff’s D ep’t, 249 F.3d 921, 923 (9th Cir. 2001) (citation omitted). As
testified to by the probation officer in this case, information is entered into the
NCIC based on a suspect’s fingerprints taken at the time of arrest.
M s. M artinez-Jimenez has never argued that she is not the person referred
to in the NCIC report that lists her alleged prior narcotics conviction. Nor has
she put on any evidence tending to show that the alleged conviction never
occurred. Rather, she merely argues — without citing any case to have so held —
that the NCIC report is insufficiently reliable to be used to increase her criminal
history category.
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The Eighth Circuit has recently approved of using an NCIC report to
establish a prior conviction for sentencing purposes. In United States v. Urbina-
M ejia, 450 F.3d 838 (8th Cir. 2006), the sentencing court had applied a
sixteen-level enhancement because the defendant had previously been convicted
of a crime of violence. Id. at 839. The defendant challenged the enhancement on
appeal, claiming that the government had not proven that he was the same person
who was convicted of the earlier crime. Id. The Eighth Circuit explained that
Johnson, the PSR author, testified that the [earlier] convictions were
. . . in the NCIC database, which is based on fingerprint identification.
Johnson explained that during the five years in which he prepared over
200 PSR s, he knew of one instance where the NCIC report attributed a
conviction to the wrong person. He believed this was simply “input
error,” and after it was brought to the FBI’s attention, the fingerprint
analysis helped correct the mistake.
Id. The Eighth Circuit concluded that the sentencing court did not clearly err by
relying on the NCIC report to establish the prior conviction:
During the past five years, Johnson experienced one inaccurate NCIC
report of over 200, and that was due to input error, not a fingerprint
mistake. W hile U rbina-M ejia is entitled to put the government to its
burden, he provides no evidence that the NCIC report is unreliable.
Given the testimony and evidence, the district court found the
probability of a mistake was low, and that the NCIC report had
sufficient indicia of reliability to support its probable accuracy. . . .
[T]he district court did not clearly err in finding by a preponderance of
the evidence that Urbina-M ejia had [been convicted of the prior
offense.]
Id. at 840; cf. United States v. M cDonald, 606 F.2d 552, 553-54 (5th Cir. 1979)
(stating in the context of probable cause to arrest that “the cases uniformly
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recognize that NCIC printouts are reliable enough to form the basis for the
reasonable belief which is needed to establish probable cause”).
Persuasive unpublished opinions from this and other circuits have similarly
approved use of NCIC reports to establish past convictions, at least in the absence
of any evidence indicating that the reports are unreliable. For example, in United
States v. M adrid-Flores, 129 F. App’x 401 (10th Cir. 2005) (unpublished), the
defendant “argued through counsel at sentencing that he had not committed one of
the prior crimes enumerated in the PSR, for which he received one criminal
history point.” Id. at 402. W e noted, however, that “the probation officer
represented to the court that a records check was performed based on NCIC
fingerprint comparisons and the records indicated that [the defendant] did in fact
commit the prior crime at issue” and that the defendant “offered no evidence to
the contrary.” Id. W e therefore concluded that “[t]he district court thus did not
err in finding that [the defendant] committed the prior crime.” Id. Similarly, in
United States v. Dyer, No. 05-15322, 2006 W L 1735949 (11th Cir. June 23, 2006)
(unpublished), the defendant argued that the sentencing court erred by relying on
an NCIC report to include an earlier conviction in his criminal history. Id. at *1.
The Eleventh Circuit concluded that “[b]ecause Defendant offered no evidence
indicating that the NCIC report was unreliable . . . , it was not clearly erroneous
for the district court to rely on the N CIC report in determining Defendant’s
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criminal history category.” Id. Other circuits have come to similar conclusions.
See United States v. Bates, No. 99-11382, 2000 W L 1835092, at *4–*5 (5th Cir.
Nov. 21, 2000) (unpublished) (concluding, where the probation officer’s NCIC
search “linked Bates with each of the convictions listed in the PSR,” that “the
district judge could easily find that the information in the PSR was . . .
sufficiently reliable to link Bates to the other convictions”); United States v.
Smith, No. 91-10317, 1992 W L 132925, at *1–*2 (9th Cir. June 15, 1992)
(unpublished) (concluding, where the government used both the FBI number 9
corresponding to the defendant’s fingerprints and “the National Crime
Information Center computer system to identify [the defendant’s] prior arrests and
convictions,” that “the government dem onstrated the reliability of the N CIC
system when FBI numbers are used” and that “[t]he district judge did not clearly
err in relying on that information in upholding the use of the convictions”).
Although not specifically mentioning NCIC reports, other cases have also
concluded that computer reports and printouts may be sufficiently reliable for a
sentencing court to use them to establish prior convictions. See, e.g., United
States v. M arin-Cuevas, 147 F.3d 889, 895 (9th Cir. 1998) (“[T]he probation
officer w ho prepared M arin-Cuevas’s Presentence Report obtained his
9
Each set of fingerprints is assigned a unique FBI number that can be used
to connect a suspect with other criminal activity.
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information from a reliable source[— ]the computerized criminal history— and had
no reason to prevaricate. Therefore, the probation officer’s attestation . . . bore
sufficient indicia of reliability, and the district court did not err in considering it
at sentencing.”) (quotation omitted); United States v. Chacon-Sanchez, 16 F.
App’x 749, 750 (9th Cir. 2001) (unpublished) (same); United States v.
Esparza-Varela, 106 F. App’x 1, 4 (10th Cir. 2004) (unpublished) (finding
computer printouts “sufficiently reliable” to establish prior convictions when the
printouts “contain similar information to that found on a docket sheet”); United
States v. M cGee, No. 99-2054, 1999 W L 704288, at *1 (10th Cir. Sept. 10, 1999)
(unpublished) (concluding that “computer printouts of court docket entries” w ere
sufficiently reliable to establish the prior convictions).
The district court’s finding in this case was even more conservative than
those held in the above-cited cases not to be clearly erroneous. The court
concluded that the NCIC report, in combination with the letter from the Supreme
Court of New York confirming M s. M artinez-Jimenez’s conviction, was
sufficiently reliable evidence to establish the prior conviction. At least one case
has allowed reliance on a letter from a state court, by itself, to establish a prior
conviction in that court for sentencing purposes. See United States v. Colletti,
984 F.2d 1339, 1345 (3d Cir. 1992) (“[I]t was permissible to rely upon a letter
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from a M unicipal Court clerk as proof of one of the prior convictions relied upon
. . . .”).
W e conclude that the district court’s conclusion that the letter and the
NCIC report together sufficiently established M s. M artinez-Jimenez’s prior
narcotics conviction was not clearly erroneous. W e and other courts have
previously allowed the use of these types of evidence to establish prior
convictions, and the N CIC report and letter are consistent with each other. M s.
M artinez-Jimenez does not argue that she is not the person that is the subject of
the NCIC report and the letter in this case; 1 0 nor has she introduced any evidence
that she was not convicted of the crime listed in the report and letter or any
evidence as to the unreliability of NCIC reports or the letter confirming her
conviction. Under these circumstances, the district court did not clearly err in
finding that the conviction listed in paragraph twenty-two had been sufficiently
established. See United States v. Zuniga-Chavez, No. 04-2293, slip op. at 13,
2006 W L 2753852, — F.3d — (10th Cir. Sept. 27, 2006) (“Because Defendant did
not argue that any persuasive contradictory evidence tended to show that he was
not convicted of the crimes used to enhance his sentence, we conclude that the
10
Although the letter gave the name of the person convicted as “Susana
Cabajar,” not M arlene M artinez-Jimenez, Susana Cabajar is listed in the NCIC
report as one of M s. M artinez-Jimenez’s aliases, and she has never argued that it
is not actually a name she has used.
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government has met its burden of showing the prior convictions by a
preponderance of the evidence.”); Simpson, 94 F.3d at 1381 (“W e believe that a
certified docket sheet is adequate, absent some contradictory evidence by the
defendant, to establish the existence of a prior conviction for [purposes of
enhancing a sentence under the Guidelines.]” (emphasis added); United States v.
Johnson, 973 F.2d 857, 861 (10th Cir. 1992) (allowing use of “certified copies of
journal entries indicating . . . revocation of probation based on [the challenged
prior conviction]” to establish a prior conviction where the defendant “offered no
proof that contradicted the government’s evidence”). The district court thus
properly allocated ten criminal history points and properly sentenced M s.
M artinez-Jimenez using a criminal history category of V.
III. C O N C L U SIO N
Because M s. M artinez-Jimenez’s only challenge was to the reliability of the
evidence used to establish her prior convictions, and because the district court did
not err in finding that evidence sufficiently reliable, we AFFIRM M s. M artinez-
Jimenez’s sentence.
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