United States v. Luevano ( 1998 )

F I L E D
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
MAR 5 1998
FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT
PATRICK FISHER
Clerk
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v. No. 97-6121
(D.C. No. 96-CR-143-R)
JUAN MANUEL LUEVANO, (W.D. Okla.)
Defendant-Appellant.
ORDER AND JUDGMENT *
Before ANDERSON, McKAY, and LUCERO, Circuit Judges.
After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined
unanimously that oral argument would not materially assist the determination of
this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a); 10th Cir. R. 34.1.9. The case is therefore
ordered submitted without oral argument.
*
This order and judgment is not binding precedent, except under the
doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. The court
generally disfavors the citation of orders and judgments; nevertheless, an order
and judgment may be cited under the terms and conditions of 10th Cir. R. 36.3.
In September 1996, a two-count indictment was returned against defendant
charging him with possession of contraband in federal prison, in violation of 18
U.S.C. § 1791(a)(2) (Count I), and with assault with a dangerous weapon with
intent to do bodily harm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 113(a)(3) (Count II). These
counts arose out of an altercation at the federal facility in El Reno, Oklahoma,
involving approximately thirty inmates. During the altercation, an inmate named
Vega-Segura was stabbed. Defendant, who was involved in the altercation and
was found in possession of a homemade knife, or “shank,” was charged with
Vega-Segura’s stabbing. At prison disciplinary proceedings, defendant admitted
to possession of a knife, but denied stabbing Vega-Segura.
Defendant subsequently pled guilty to the first count of the criminal
indictment, in return for a dismissal of the second count. At the sentencing
hearing, the district court informed defendant that it intended to hear testimony
about the altercation and that, if it found defendant had stabbed Vega-Segura, it
would consider that fact as grounds for an upward departure. The hearing was
then continued so that defendant could be prepared to address the issue. After
listening to the government’s evidence at the subsequent hearing, the district
court found that defendant had stabbed Vega-Segura and, therefore, it departed
upward from the range provided by section 2P1.2 of the United States Sentencing
Guidelines (U.S.S.G.), which was thirty to thirty-seven months. The court
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imposed a sentence of sixty months, which represented the statutory maximum
sentence for possession of contraband in a federal prison.
On appeal, defendant argues that the district court erred in departing
upward from the Guideline range. He contends that the facts in the record do not
support the reason for the departure and that the degree of departure is
unreasonable. Defendant also challenges the district court’s failure to give him a
two-level reduction for acceptance of responsibility.
I.
We review the district court’s decision to depart from the Sentencing
Guidelines under a unitary abuse of discretion standard. See Koon v. United
States, 518 U.S. 81, 116 S. Ct. 2035, 2046-48 (1996).
A district court must impose a sentence within the Guideline range
unless it determines “that there exists an aggravating or mitigating
circumstance of a kind, or to a degree, not adequately taken into
consideration by the Sentencing Commission in formulating the
guidelines that should result in a sentence different from that
described.”
United States v. Rodriguez-Velarde, 127 F.3d 966, 968 (10th Cir. 1997) (quoting
18 U.S.C. § 3553(b)). When reviewing a district court’s decision to depart from
the Guidelines, we, in turn, should consider the following:
(1) whether the factual circumstances supporting a departure are
permissible departure factors; (2) whether the departure factors relied
upon by the district court remove the defendant from the applicable
Guideline heartland thus warranting a departure, (3) whether the
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record sufficiently supports the factual basis underlying the
departure, and (4) whether the degree of departure is reasonable.
United States v. Collins, 122 F.3d 1297, 1303 (10th Cir. 1997). Defendant
challenges only the third and fourth parts of the Collins analysis on appeal. We
will consider each in turn.
A.
Defendant contends that the record does not provide factual support for the
district court’s finding that defendant assaulted Vega-Segura with a weapon. We
will overturn the district court’s factual finding only if it is clearly erroneous.
See United States v. White, 893 F.2d 276, 278 (10th Cir. 1990); cf. Collins, 122
F.3d at 1303, 1305 (indicating that White’s discussion of appellate review is still
valid for the third and fourth parts of the post-Koon analysis).
At the final sentencing hearing, the government presented all of its
evidence concerning the altercation through Joel Tsiumis, the FBI agent who
investigated the incident. Mr. Tsiumis testified that Vega-Segura received a five
millimeter puncture wound in his right upper torso, which suggested that the
weapon used was shaped like an ice-pick. He also testified about the observations
of eight prison employees who witnessed the altercation. The witnesses’
descriptions of the events were not entirely uniform, and those who said they saw
defendant in possession of a shank did not agree on the shape of the shank. Two
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of the witnesses reported that they saw defendant with a long ice-pick-shaped
shank, while others saw him only with the shank he eventually surrendered to
prison guards, which was nine inches long and shaped like a knife. Nonetheless,
the witnesses’ observations reflect that seven of them saw defendant assault
Vega-Segura with some kind of weapon with a sharpened point. Mr. Tsiumis
testified that no ice-pick shank was recovered after the altercation, though he
explained that there were many inmates running around and that one could quite
easily have picked it up and spirited it away. Mr. Tsiumis said he believed that
defendant had two shanks in his possession, both the ice-pick shank with which
he stabbed Vega-Segura and the nine inch knife he surrendered to prison
authorities, and that he disposed of the former before he was apprehended by
prison guards.
The government also introduced a letter that defendant had written to a
former cellmate, in which he talked about the altercation as follows:
Well Cellie back in May the day of the Incident, all hell broke loose,
and the pigs were chasing me all over the yard. HA! Damn near
stuck a couple of them idiots, hell I had Scarface hollering like a
gutted pig. HA! HA! [A]t this present moment I don’t think I’m
to[o] well liked by those California dudes.
R. Vol. I, Doc. 14, Gov’t. Ex. 1, at 4. Mr. Tsiumis testified that Vega-Segura,
who had a scar that ran from his chin to his left ear, was called “Scarface.” He
also explained that the “California dudes” mentioned in the letter was a reference
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to the fact that rival Mexican gangs from Texas and California were involved in
the altercation. Mr. Tsiumis testified that defendant is from Texas. Defendant
did not offer any evidence at the sentencing hearing, other than an offer of proof
by his counsel that defendant had the nine inch knife tied onto his right hand with
a t-shirt.
Based on the evidence presented to the district court, we cannot say that the
court erred in finding that defendant did, in fact, stab Vega-Segura. Therefore,
we conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion in deciding that an
upward departure was warranted in this case. The only question remaining is
whether the degree of departure was reasonable.
B.
In assessing the reasonableness of the degree of departure, we consider the
reasons the district court gave for imposing the particular sentence, as well as
other factors, such as “the seriousness of the offense, the need for just
punishment, deterrence, protection of the public, correctional treatment, the
sentencing pattern of the Guidelines, the policy statements contained in the
Guidelines, and the need to avoid unwarranted sentencing disparities.” Collins,
122 F.3d at 1308-09 (quotation omitted). “The [district] court is not required to
explain the degree of departure with mathematical exactitude but should justify
the departure by analogy to or extrapolation from the Guidelines.” United States
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v. Arutunoff, 1 F.3d 1112, 1120 (10th Cir. 1993); see also United States v.
O’Dell, 965 F.2d 937, 939 (10th Cir. 1992) (“Our opinions have required the
district court to explain the specific degree of departure by providing some
method of analogy, extrapolation or reference to the sentencing guidelines.”).
The aggravating circumstance that the district court thought justified a
departure here was defendant’s assault upon Vega-Segura with a weapon, i.e., the
conduct set forth in the dismissed count of the indictment. Therefore, to
determine the degree of departure, the court looked at U.S.S.G. § 2A2.2, covering
aggravated assault, and calculated what defendant’s sentence would have been
had he been convicted of the dismissed count. See, e.g., United States v. Jackson,
921 F.2d 985, 991 (10th Cir. 1990) (stating that one way a court may determine
the degree of departure is to “treat the aggravating factor as a separate crime and
ask how the defendant would be treated if convicted of it”) (quotation omitted).
The presentence report (PSR) recited that defendant’s offense level under § 2A2.2
would be twenty-three, which, coupled with a criminal history category of V,
would yield a sentence within the range of 84-105 months. Based on the much
more lengthy sentence that defendant would have received had he been convicted
of stabbing Vega-Segura, the district court increased his sentence for possession
of contraband to the statutory maximum of sixty months.
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Defendant challenges the degree of departure on the ground that it is based
on an incorrect calculation of the offense level under § 2A2.2. Defendant argues
that the PSR incorrectly calculated the offense level as twenty-three. He contends
that the offense level should be only seventeen, at the most, which would yield a
sentence range of forty-six to fifty-seven months. Although defendant objected to
a number of statements in the PSR, defendant did not object to the offense level
calculated for aggravated assault. A failure to challenge an alleged factual
inaccuracy in the PSR in the district court waives the right to challenge that fact
on appeal. See O’Dell, 965 F.2d at 938. Moreover, defendant’s calculation of the
offense level omits an additional four levels that should be added to the base
offense level for use of a dangerous weapon. Thus, at a minimum, the offense
level is properly calculated at twenty-one, which would yield a sentence range of
seventy to eighty-seven months.
The district court articulated its method of departure, and that method was
consistent with the analogous Guideline provisions. Therefore, we conclude that
the district court’s degree of departure from the Guidelines was reasonable.
II.
We turn, then, to defendant’s final challenge to his sentence: the district
court’s failure to reduce his offense level under U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1 for acceptance
of responsibility. “District courts have broad discretion to grant or deny the
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reduction for acceptance of responsibility, and thus, our review is under the
clearly erroneous standard.” United States v. Robertson, 45 F.3d 1423, 1449
(10th Cir. 1995) (citation omitted).
“The defendant bears the burden of establishing his entitlement to a
reduction under § 3E1.1.” United States v. Nelson, 54 F.3d 1540, 1544 (10th Cir.
1995). A defendant who pleads guilty is not automatically entitled to a reduction
in his sentence for acceptance of responsibility. See U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1,
application note 3. To receive a reduction of his sentence, the defendant must
show “recognition and affirmative acceptance of personal responsibility for his
criminal conduct.” United States v. McAlpine, 32 F.3d 484, 489 (10th Cir. 1994)
(quotation omitted). A defendant need not affirmatively admit relevant conduct
beyond the offense of conviction to obtain a reduction under § 3E1.1, but may
remain silent with respect to other relevant conduct. See U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1,
application note 1(a). Nonetheless, “a defendant who falsely denies, or
frivolously contests, relevant conduct that the court determines to be true has
acted in a manner inconsistent with acceptance of responsibility.” Id.
Here, the PSR considered the stabbing of Vega-Segura to be relevant
conduct. Defendant does not challenge the characterization of the stabbing as
relevant conduct, he simply insists that he did not do it. The district court,
however, found that defendant did stab Vega-Segura. Because the district court
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found defendant’s denial of relevant conduct to be false, the court did not abuse
its discretion in denying defendant the two-level reduction for acceptance of
responsibility.
The judgment of the United States District Court for the Western District
of Oklahoma is AFFIRMED.
Entered for the Court
Stephen H. Anderson
Circuit Judge
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